Conflicts of interest: physicians and financiers example
An interesting paragraph in The Wall Street Journal about perceptions of conflicts of interest:
“In a recently published study, researchers led by behavioral economist George Loewenstein of Carnegie Mellon University asked hundreds of physicians and financial planners to evaluate conflict-of-interest policies. 
Half of each group read a set of proposed rules to minimize conflicts for doctors; the other half saw almost-identically worded rules to reduce conflicts for financial planners. The doctors were outraged that financial advisers might accept pens, coffee mugs, free meals or educational junkets from investment companies. Yet the physicians rejected the idea that accepting pens, coffee mugs, free meals or educational junkets from drug companies could ever compromise the integrity of doctors.”
Setting aside the question of whether such gifts are problematic, I wonder what went on in the minds of the physicians who made this sort of judgment. Was it:
1. General bias against financiers? I think doctors in general have integrity but financiers don’t.
2. Healthy self as test case? I am a physician and I have integrity so the gifts don’t affect my judgment, but I’m not as confident of others’ integrity.
3. Particularized and/or concrete-bound judgment only? I see how the gifts could be problematic for financiers, but I don’t abstract to the general principle of gifts being problematic for any professional.
Other possibilities?
Source:
Jason Zweig, “Conflict of Interest? Moi?” The Wall Street Journal, October 5, 2012.
Tags: conflicts of interest, George Loewenstein, Jason Zweig
Your three peg it pretty well. Particularly perhaps the first: the lingering Christian-socialist bias against money, subjectively reading for the doctors: Midas Moneybags versus (halos and soft chorale music) healers.
Somehow the following story seems relevant though haven’t really sat down and thought about why: Read a story, invented I’m sure, about two people who wrote the Pope. One asked if was okay to smoke while praying. The Pope wrote back saying, no: when communicating with God one should avoid distractions. Another asked if it was okay to pray while smoking. The Pope wrote back and said: of course, there’s no wrong time to communicate with God.
Perhaps it’s that in the first the prayer was going to happen anyway whereas in the second it was conditional hence the Pope wanted to be sure it got in.
It may all illustrate that most people haven’t been trained to think well, hence are susceptible to influence by subtle differences in framing of questions.
Similar phenomenon is seen in justifying mandatory education, the war on drugs, etc. A common argument from people who want a good education for their children is that many others are indifferent or would prefer to put their children to work. Laws to manage other people’s lives are necessary. Their opinions of others override the rights of others.
Many who think that they can make responsible choices for themselves regarding drinking, drugs, gambling, graft, etc., still believe that only laws can control the impulses or weaknesses of others. (I suspect a general failing to think in principles?)
Additionally, in spite of being confronted with evidence, such people seem incapable of grasping that personal behavior laws do not effectively control behavior, but rather promote a criminal class and corrupt authorities.
The state of today’s education system is a good illustration of the consequences.
Jack your third point in particular is dynamite. Of course interventionism and the welfare state are predicated on that great principle: ‘freedom has failed.’ Humans are unfit for it, therefore, as Mises and others have noted a few of them must be given dominion over the rest.