Pharmacy Administration, Policy and Regulation Commons^™

Finding Solutions To Institutional Corruption: Lessons From Cognitive Dissonance Theory, Lisa Cosgrove, Robert Whitaker

Counseling and School Psychology Faculty Publication Series

The American Psychiatric Association and academic psychiatry in the United States have two conflicts of interest that may affect their assessment of psychiatric drugs and their development of diagnostic and clinical care guidelines: payments from pharmaceutical companies and guild interests. Until recently, the proposed solution to industry-academic relationships has been transparency. However, cognitive dissonance research reveals that disclosure is not a solution because cognitive biases are commonplace and difficult to eradicate. Indeed, bias is most often manifest in subtle ways unbeknownst to the researcher or clinician, and thus is usually implicit and unintentional. Also, recent studies suggest that disclosure of …