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Credit: Rhoda Baer
Previous research has indicated that requiring conflict of interest (COI) disclosures may lead advisers to give more biased advice.
However, virtually all of the prior studies questioned the effectiveness of COI disclosures that advisers were unable to avoid.
With a new study, researchers examined situations in which advisers have the ability to avoid COIs—such as doctors who can decide whether to accept gifts or payments from pharmaceutical companies.
And the results showed that when COIs can be avoided, disclosure successfully deters advisers from accepting COIs, so they have nothing to disclose except the absence of conflicts.
The research was published in Psychological Science.
“Prior research has cast doubt as to the effectiveness of disclosure for managing conflicts of interest, particularly when consumers have the burden of interpreting and reacting to the information,” said study author Sunita Sah, PhD, MB ChB, of Georgetown University in Washington, DC.
“Our findings suggest that disclosure can become a successful intervention to managing some conflicts of interest if it motivates professionals or providers to avoid such conflicts.”
For this study, the researchers conducted 3 experiments to determine how COIs influence advisers. In the first experiment, 97 adviser–advisee pairs participated in an online game with Amazon.com gift cards at stake.
Advisers informed the advisees regarding the number of filled dots on a grid. The estimators were paid based on their accuracy, but advisers had a conflict. They were paid more if advisees gave an estimate that was higher than the true value.
The set up—with advisees only seeing a small subset of the complete grid—was designed to simulate a situation in which a consumer receives advice from a better-informed but conflicted professional. The results replicated previous research and showed that disclosure led advisers to give higher (and more biased) recommendations than nondisclosure.
In the second experiment, the researchers again randomly assigned pairs of advisees and advisers to conditions in which the conflict was either disclosed or not disclosed.
There was, however, an important change from the first study. Advisers were given a choice of whether to accept or reject the COI.
Without disclosure, a majority of advisers (63%) chose the incentives that created a COI. But with disclosure, a minority (33%) accepted the conflict.
Advice was higher (and more biased) for those who chose incentives with conflicts than for those who did not, and advisers in the disclosure condition gave significantly less biased advice than those in the nondisclosure condition.
Finally, in a study with 248 participants, the researchers added a third condition to the second experiment: voluntary disclosure. In this third condition, advisers decided both whether to choose incentives that entailed a conflict and whether to disclose if they had a conflict.
Similar to mandatory disclosure, voluntary disclosure led advisers to avoid COIs and then disclose their freedom from conflicts to advisees.
“Disclosure doesn’t seem to be much good when conflicts are unavoidable, but it does seem to help when advisers have a choice about whether to subject themselves to conflicts,” said study author George Loewenstein, PhD, of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
“A nice feature of disclosure is that it is, in effect, ‘self-calibrating.’ Doctors, for example, are unlikely to find it worth it to accept small gifts such as pens or calendars if the gifts are going to be disclosed. Although larger gifts would be more tempting, doctors are likely to be deterred from accepting them because disclosure of large gifts would be more damaging to their reputations.” 
Credit: Rhoda Baer
Previous research has indicated that requiring conflict of interest (COI) disclosures may lead advisers to give more biased advice.
However, virtually all of the prior studies questioned the effectiveness of COI disclosures that advisers were unable to avoid.
With a new study, researchers examined situations in which advisers have the ability to avoid COIs—such as doctors who can decide whether to accept gifts or payments from pharmaceutical companies.
And the results showed that when COIs can be avoided, disclosure successfully deters advisers from accepting COIs, so they have nothing to disclose except the absence of conflicts.
The research was published in Psychological Science.
“Prior research has cast doubt as to the effectiveness of disclosure for managing conflicts of interest, particularly when consumers have the burden of interpreting and reacting to the information,” said study author Sunita Sah, PhD, MB ChB, of Georgetown University in Washington, DC.
“Our findings suggest that disclosure can become a successful intervention to managing some conflicts of interest if it motivates professionals or providers to avoid such conflicts.”
For this study, the researchers conducted 3 experiments to determine how COIs influence advisers. In the first experiment, 97 adviser–advisee pairs participated in an online game with Amazon.com gift cards at stake.
Advisers informed the advisees regarding the number of filled dots on a grid. The estimators were paid based on their accuracy, but advisers had a conflict. They were paid more if advisees gave an estimate that was higher than the true value.
The set up—with advisees only seeing a small subset of the complete grid—was designed to simulate a situation in which a consumer receives advice from a better-informed but conflicted professional. The results replicated previous research and showed that disclosure led advisers to give higher (and more biased) recommendations than nondisclosure.
In the second experiment, the researchers again randomly assigned pairs of advisees and advisers to conditions in which the conflict was either disclosed or not disclosed.
There was, however, an important change from the first study. Advisers were given a choice of whether to accept or reject the COI.
Without disclosure, a majority of advisers (63%) chose the incentives that created a COI. But with disclosure, a minority (33%) accepted the conflict.
Advice was higher (and more biased) for those who chose incentives with conflicts than for those who did not, and advisers in the disclosure condition gave significantly less biased advice than those in the nondisclosure condition.
Finally, in a study with 248 participants, the researchers added a third condition to the second experiment: voluntary disclosure. In this third condition, advisers decided both whether to choose incentives that entailed a conflict and whether to disclose if they had a conflict.
Similar to mandatory disclosure, voluntary disclosure led advisers to avoid COIs and then disclose their freedom from conflicts to advisees.
“Disclosure doesn’t seem to be much good when conflicts are unavoidable, but it does seem to help when advisers have a choice about whether to subject themselves to conflicts,” said study author George Loewenstein, PhD, of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
“A nice feature of disclosure is that it is, in effect, ‘self-calibrating.’ Doctors, for example, are unlikely to find it worth it to accept small gifts such as pens or calendars if the gifts are going to be disclosed. Although larger gifts would be more tempting, doctors are likely to be deterred from accepting them because disclosure of large gifts would be more damaging to their reputations.”
Credit: Rhoda Baer
Previous research has indicated that requiring conflict of interest (COI) disclosures may lead advisers to give more biased advice.
However, virtually all of the prior studies questioned the effectiveness of COI disclosures that advisers were unable to avoid.
With a new study, researchers examined situations in which advisers have the ability to avoid COIs—such as doctors who can decide whether to accept gifts or payments from pharmaceutical companies.
And the results showed that when COIs can be avoided, disclosure successfully deters advisers from accepting COIs, so they have nothing to disclose except the absence of conflicts.
The research was published in Psychological Science.
“Prior research has cast doubt as to the effectiveness of disclosure for managing conflicts of interest, particularly when consumers have the burden of interpreting and reacting to the information,” said study author Sunita Sah, PhD, MB ChB, of Georgetown University in Washington, DC.
“Our findings suggest that disclosure can become a successful intervention to managing some conflicts of interest if it motivates professionals or providers to avoid such conflicts.”
For this study, the researchers conducted 3 experiments to determine how COIs influence advisers. In the first experiment, 97 adviser–advisee pairs participated in an online game with Amazon.com gift cards at stake.
Advisers informed the advisees regarding the number of filled dots on a grid. The estimators were paid based on their accuracy, but advisers had a conflict. They were paid more if advisees gave an estimate that was higher than the true value.
The set up—with advisees only seeing a small subset of the complete grid—was designed to simulate a situation in which a consumer receives advice from a better-informed but conflicted professional. The results replicated previous research and showed that disclosure led advisers to give higher (and more biased) recommendations than nondisclosure.
In the second experiment, the researchers again randomly assigned pairs of advisees and advisers to conditions in which the conflict was either disclosed or not disclosed.
There was, however, an important change from the first study. Advisers were given a choice of whether to accept or reject the COI.
Without disclosure, a majority of advisers (63%) chose the incentives that created a COI. But with disclosure, a minority (33%) accepted the conflict.
Advice was higher (and more biased) for those who chose incentives with conflicts than for those who did not, and advisers in the disclosure condition gave significantly less biased advice than those in the nondisclosure condition.
Finally, in a study with 248 participants, the researchers added a third condition to the second experiment: voluntary disclosure. In this third condition, advisers decided both whether to choose incentives that entailed a conflict and whether to disclose if they had a conflict.
Similar to mandatory disclosure, voluntary disclosure led advisers to avoid COIs and then disclose their freedom from conflicts to advisees.
“Disclosure doesn’t seem to be much good when conflicts are unavoidable, but it does seem to help when advisers have a choice about whether to subject themselves to conflicts,” said study author George Loewenstein, PhD, of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
“A nice feature of disclosure is that it is, in effect, ‘self-calibrating.’ Doctors, for example, are unlikely to find it worth it to accept small gifts such as pens or calendars if the gifts are going to be disclosed. Although larger gifts would be more tempting, doctors are likely to be deterred from accepting them because disclosure of large gifts would be more damaging to their reputations.”