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- Title
Decisions Concerning the Allocation of Scarce Medical Resources.
- Authors
Furnham, Adrian; Simmons, Katherine; McClelland, Alastair
- Abstract
This paper aimed to determine the criteria participants use tomake decisions about scarce medical resources (allocation to use akidney machine). It varied information about patients on 4 factors (sex,smoking, employment status, community service). It also set out to seeif decisions made in groups differ from aggregated decisions of thosemade alone. In the first study, participants completed a simplequestionnaire requiring them to rank-order sixteen hypotheticalpatients. In the second study, a group discussion (in groups of threeparticipants) preceded the group putting an agreed rating on theidentical questionnaire. Participants favoured patients who wereemployed, non-smokers and participated in community service. Thissuggests that participants adopted a utilitarian moral ideology.Participants' smoking habits interacted with the hypothetical patients'smoking habits, indicating in-group favouritism. In the second study itwas found that when the decision was made in a group of three itamplifies the decision made by an individual. In this sense there wasclear evidence of group polarization.
- Subjects
DECISION making; PARTICIPATION; COMMUNITY service (Punishment); RESOURCE allocation; QUESTIONNAIRES; SOCIAL groups
- Publication
Journal of Social Behavior & Personality, 2000, Vol 15, Issue 2, p185
- ISSN
0886-1641
- Publication type
Article