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Disclosures About Disclosures: Can Conflict of Interest Warnings be Made More Effective?
Author(s) -
Taha Ahmed E.,
Petrocelli John V.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of empirical legal studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.529
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 1740-1461
pISSN - 1740-1453
DOI - 10.1111/jels.12071
Subject(s) - conflict of interest , trustworthiness , advice (programming) , public relations , business , sign (mathematics) , full disclosure , accounting , psychology , political science , social psychology , finance , computer security , mathematical analysis , mathematics , computer science , programming language
People regularly rely on advisors who have conflicts of interest. The law often requires advisors to disclose these conflicts. Despite these disclosures, people generally insufficiently discount conflicted advice. This might be partly due to people interpreting the very fact that the advisor is disclosing a conflict of interest as a sign that the advisor is trustworthy, undermining the purpose and effectiveness of the disclosure. This article presents the results of an experiment indicating that requiring advisors to also disclose that they are legally required to disclose their conflict of interest makes people discount their advice more. This occurs, at least in part, because such advisors are viewed as less trustworthy than advisors who merely disclose their conflict of interest without also stating that the disclosure is legally required.