Disclosure

Deep Professionalism: Charting a Path for Effective Conflict-of-Interest Management in Medicine

Conflicts of interest (COIs) threaten the integrity of the medical field due to their capacity to compromise patient trust and healthcare quality. They deserve continued scrutiny but proposed policies to address COIs—ranging from penalties to mandated disclosures—often rest on misguided intuitions about the underlying psychological processes, leading to ineffective or even counterproductive outcomes.  The shortcomings […]

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The paradox of disclosure: shifting policies from revealing to resolving conflicts of interest

This paper explores the complexities and unintended consequences of conflict of interest (COI) disclosures in various professional settings. It highlights key psychological processes encountered by recipients of such disclosures. Notably, it describes the burden of disclosure effect, which paradoxically reduces trust while increasing compliance due to social pressures, and disclosure’s expertise cue, where disclosures inadvertently increase trust and

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Patient responses to physician disclosures of industry conflicts of interest: A randomized field experiment.

Abstract Most patients in the United States depend on physicians who have financial relationships with the healthcare industry. These physician-industry relationships represent a conflict of interest: a potential clash between the physicians’ professional responsibilities and their self-interest. We conducted a randomized field experiment to assess the impact of written disclosures of physicians’ conflict of interest

Patient responses to physician disclosures of industry conflicts of interest: A randomized field experiment. Read More »

Conflict of interest disclosure with high quality advice: The disclosure penalty and the altruistic signal.

Abstract Advisors often have conflicts of interest: a potential clash between professional responsibilities and self-interests. Disclosure—informing advisees of the conflict—is a common policy response to manage such conflicts. However, extant research on disclosure has often confounded disclosure with poor-quality advice. In this article, we explore whether laws requiring conflict of interest disclosure damage the advisor–advisee

Conflict of interest disclosure with high quality advice: The disclosure penalty and the altruistic signal. Read More »

Mind the (information) gap: Strategic non-disclosure by marketers and interventions to increase consumer deliberation.

Marketers have a choice of what to tell consumers and consumers must consider what they are told or not told. Across 6 experiments, we show that consumers fail to differentiate between deliberate and nondeliberate missing information (strategic naiveté) and make generous inferences when they do notice missing information is deliberately withheld (charitability). We also show

Mind the (information) gap: Strategic non-disclosure by marketers and interventions to increase consumer deliberation. Read More »

Understanding the (Perverse) Effects of Disclosing Conflicts of Interest: A Direct Replication Study.

Abstract Advisors are often subject to conflicts of interest—a potential clash between their professional responsibilities and personal interests. Such conflicts can increase bias in advice. Although disclosure is frequently proposed to manage conflicts of interest, it can have unintended consequences on both advisees and advisors. In seminal work, Cain et al., 2005, Cain et al.,

Understanding the (Perverse) Effects of Disclosing Conflicts of Interest: A Direct Replication Study. Read More »

Conflict of interest disclosure as a reminder of professional norms. Clients First!

Abstract Conflicts of interest create an incentive for advisors to give biased advice, and disclosure is a popular remedy. Across a series of studies, with monetary stakes creating conflicts of interest, I show that disclosure of the conflict of interest can increase as well as decrease bias in advice. The effect of disclosure depends on

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Insinuation Anxiety: Concern That Advice Rejection Will Signal Distrust After Conflict of Interest Disclosures

Abstract When expert advisors have conflicts of interest, disclosure is a common regulatory response. In four experiments (three scenario experiments involving medical contexts, and one field experiment involving financial consequences for both parties), we show that disclosure of a financial or nonfinancial conflict of interest can have a perverse effect on the advisor–advisee relationship. Disclosure,

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Conflicts of interest and disclosure

The Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry was established on 14 December 2017 by the former Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia, His Excellency General the Honourable Sir Peter Cosgrove AK MC (Retd) to enquire into misconduct in the banking, superannuation and financial services industry. I was asked by the Royal Commission to respond to the following questions: How

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Conflict of interest disclosure as an expertise cue: Differential effects of automatic and deliberative processing.

Abstract Disclosure—informing advice recipients of the potential bias of an advisor—is a popular tool to manage conflicts of interest. However, conflict of interest disclosures usually compete with a host of other information that is important, relevant or interesting to the advisee. Across one field study and five experiments, we examine the effect of conflict of

Conflict of interest disclosure as an expertise cue: Differential effects of automatic and deliberative processing. Read More »