Perceived conflict of interest in health science partnerships
Open accessAbstract
University scientists conducting research on topics of potential health concern often want to partner with a range of actors, including government entities, non-governmental organizations, and private enterprises. Such partnerships can provide access to needed resources, including funding. However, those who observe the results of such partnerships may judge those results based on who is involved. This set of studies seeks to assess how people perceive two hypothetical health science research collaborations. In doing so, it also tests the utility of using procedural justice concepts to assess perceptions of research legitimacy as a theoretical way to investigate conflict of interest perceptions. Findings show that including an industry collaborator has clear negative repercussions for how people see a research partnership and that these perceptions shape people's willingness to see the research as a legitimate source of knowledge. Additional research aimed at further communicating procedures that might mitigate the impact of industry collaboration is suggested.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Perceived trustworthiness decreases when scientists receive funding from industry collaborators.
“Furthermore, Besley et al. (2017) illustrated that perceived trustworthiness also decreases when scientists receive funding from industry collaborators.”
From A Randomized Controlled Study on the Effectiveness of Plain Language Summaries of Psychological Meta-Analyses (2025) · cites this paper as Besley et al., 2017
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
Justice at the millennium: A meta-analytic review of 25 years of organizational justice research.
Colquitt, J. A., Conlon, D. E., Wesson, M. J., Porter, C. O. L. H., & Ng, K. Y. (2001) · Journal of Applied Psychology · doi:10.1037/0021-9010.86.3.425 · Cited by 5,942 · see citing works
Evaluating Online Labor Markets for Experimental Research: Amazon.com's Mechanical Turk
Berinsky, A. J., Huber, G. A., & Lenz, G. S. (2012) · Political Analysis · doi:10.1093/pan/mpr057 · Cited by 4,008 · see citing works
The Group Engagement Model: Procedural Justice, Social Identity, and Cooperative Behavior
Tyler, T. R., & Blader, S. L. (2003) · Personality and Social Psychology Review · doi:10.1207/s15327957pspr0704_07 · Cited by 2,118 · see citing works
A Randomized Study of How Physicians Interpret Research Funding Disclosures
Kesselheim, A. S., Robertson, C. T., Myers, J. A., Rose, S. L., Gillet, V., Ross, K. M., Glynn, R. J., Joffe, S., & Avorn, J. (2012) · New England Journal of Medicine · doi:10.1056/nejmsa1202397 · Cited by 183 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 71
- [1]National Science Board. Research and development: National trends and international comparisons (Chapter 4). Washington, DC: National Science Foundation, 2014 10 22, 2014. Report No.
- [2]Gulbrandsen M, Mowery D, Feldman M. Introduction to the special section: Heterogeneity and university—industry relations. Research Policy. 2011; 40(1): 1– 5.
- [3]Nestle M. Corporate funding of food and nutrition research: Science or marketing? JAMA Internal Medicine. 2016; 176(1): 13– 4. 10.1001/jamainternmed.2015.6667 26595855 · DOI
- [4]Perkmann M, Tartari V, McKelvey M, Autio E, Broström A, D’Este P, et al Academic engagement and commercialisation: A review of the literature on university—industry relations. Research Policy. 2013; 42(2): 423– 42.
- [6]Kloor K. GM-crop opponents expand probe into ties between scientists and industry. Nature. 2015; 524(7564): 145 10.1038/nature.2015.18146 26268173 · DOI
- [7]Proctor RN. The history of the discovery of the cigarette—lung cancer link: evidentiary traditions, corporate denial, global toll. Tobacco Control. 2012; 21(2): 87– 91. 10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2011-050338 22345227 · DOI
- [8]Rosner D, Markowitz G. Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press; 2002.
- [9]Michaels D. Doubt is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health. New York, NY: Oxford University Press,; 2008.
- [10]Elliott KC. Is a Little Pollution Good for You?: Incorporating Societal Values in Environmental Research. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 2011 x, 246 p. p.
- [11]McGarity TO, Wagner W. Bending Science: How Special Interests Corrupt Public Health Research. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; 2008 viii, 384 p. p.
- [12]Michaels D, Monforton C. Manufacturing uncertainty: Contested science and the protection of the public’s health and environment. American Journal of Public Health. 2005; 95(S1): S39– S48. 16030337
- [13]Dunlap RE, McCright AM. Challenging climate change: The denial countermovement In: Dunlap RE, Brulle RJ, editors. Climate Change and Society: Sociological Perspectives. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 2015 p. 300– 32.
- [14]Brulle RJ. Institutionalizing delay: foundation Funding and the creation of U.S. climate change counter-movement organizations. Climatic Change. 2014; 122(4): 681– 94.
- [15]Oreskes N, Conway EM. Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. 1st U.S ed. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Press; 2010 355 p. p.
- [16]Malina D, Rosenbaum L. Conflicts of interest: Understanding bias, The case for careful study. The New England Journal of Medicine. 2015; 372(20): 1959– 63. 25970055
- [18]McComas KA, Tuite LS, Waks L, Sherman LA. Predicting satisfaction and outcome acceptance with advisory committee Meetings: The role of procedural justice. Journal of Applied Social Psychology. 2007; 37(5): 905– 27.
- [19]McComas KA, Simone LM. Media coverage of conflicts of interest in science. Sci Commun. 2003; 24(4): 395– 419.
- [20]McComas KA, Tuite LS, Sherman LA. Conflicted scientists: the “shared pool” dilemma of scientific advisory committees. Public Underst Sci. 2005; 14(3): 285– 303.
- [21]Davis M. Introduction In: Davis M, Stark A, editors. Conflict of Interest in the Professions. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 2001 p. 3– 19.
- [22]Field MJ, Lo B, editors. Conflict of Interest in Medical Research, Education, and Practice. Washington, DC: National Academies Press; 2009. 20662118
- [23]Cho MK, Shohara R, Schissel A, Rennie D. POlicies on faculty conflicts of interest at us universities. JAMA. 2000; 284(17): 2203– 8. 11056591
- [24]Bekelman JE, Li Y, Gross CP. Scope and impact of financial conflicts of interest in biomedical research: A systematic review. JAMA. 2003; 289(4): 454– 65. 12533125
- [25]Lurie P, Almeida CM, Stine N, Stine AR, Wolfe SM. FInancial conflict of interest disclosure and voting patterns at food and drug administration drug advisory committee meetings. JAMA. 2006; 295(16): 1921– 8. 10.1001/jama.295.16.1921 16639051 · DOI
- [26]Anderson TS, Dave S, Good CB, Gellad WF. Academic medical center leadership on pharmaceutical company boards of directors. JAMA. 2014; 311(13): 1353– 5. 10.1001/jama.2013.284925 24691612 · DOI
- [27]McCrary SV, Anderson CB, Jakovljevic J, Khan T, McCullough LB, Wray NP, et al A national survey of policies on disclosure of conflicts of interest in biomedical research. The New England Journal of Medicine. 2000; 343(22): 1621– 6. 10.1056/NEJM200011303432207 11096171 · DOI
- [28]Hampson L, Agrawal M, Joffe S, Gross CP, Verter J, Emanuel EJ. Patients' Views on Financial Conflicts of Interest in Cancer Research Trials. The New England Journal of Medicine. 2006; 355(22): 2330– 7. 10.1056/NEJMsa064160 17135586 · DOI
- [29]Korn D, Carlat D. Conflicts of interest in medical education: Recommendations from the pew task force on medical conflicts of interest. JAMA. 2013; 310(22): 2397– 8. 10.1001/jama.2013.280889 24327035 · DOI
- [30]Brennan TA, Rothman DJ, Blank L, Blumenthal D, Chimonas SC, Cohen JJ, et al Health industry practices that create conflicts of interest: A policy proposal for academic medical centers. JAMA. 2006; 295(4): 429– 33. 10.1001/jama.295.4.429 16434633 · DOI
- [31]Levinsky NG. Nonfinancial conflicts of interest in research. The New England Journal of Medicine. 2002; 347(10): 759– 61. 10.1056/NEJMsb020853 12213950 · DOI
- [32]Studdert DM, Mello MM, Brennan TA. Financial Conflicts of Interest in Physicians' Relationships with the Pharmaceutical Industry—Self-Regulation in the Shadow of Federal Prosecution. The New England Journal of Medicine. 2004; 351(18): 1891– 900. 10.1056/NEJMlim042229 15509824 · DOI
- [33]Elliott KC. Scientific judgment and the limits of conflict-of-interest policies. Accountability in Research. 2008; 15(1): 1– 29. 10.1080/08989620701783725 18298027 · DOI
- [34]Cain Daylian M, Loewenstein G, Moore Don A. The Dirt on Coming Clean: Perverse Effects of Disclosing Conflicts of Interest. The Journal of Legal Studies. 2005; 34(1): 1– 25.
- [35]Cain Daylian M, Loewenstein G, Moore Don A. When sunlight fails to disinfect: Understanding the perverse effects of disclosing conflicts of interest. Journal of Consumer Research. 2011; 37(5): 836– 57.
- [36]Licurse A, Barber E, Joffe S, Gross Ca. The impact of disclosing financial ties in research and clinical care: A systematic review. Archives of Internal Medicine. 2010; 170(8): 675– 82. 10.1001/archinternmed.2010.39 20421551 · DOI
- [37]Chaudhry S, Schroter S, Smith R, Morris J. Does declaration of competing interests affect readers' perceptions? A randomised trial. BMJ. 2002; 325(7377): 1391– 2. 12480854 PMC138516
- [38]Schroter S, Morris J, Chaudhry S, Smith R, Barratt H. Does the type of competing interest statement affect readers' perceptions of the credibility of research? Randomised trial. BMJ: British Medical Journal. 2004; 328(7442): 742– 3. 10.1136/bmj.38035.705185.F6 14980983 PMC381324 · DOI
- [39]Goodwin RE, Mullan BA. Trust not in money: The effect of financial conflict of interest disclosure on dietary behavioural intention. British Food Journal. 2009; 111(5): 408– 20.
- [41]Weinfurt K, Hall M, Dinan M, DePuy V, Friedman J, Allsbrook J, et al Effects of disclosing financial interests on attitudes toward clinical research. J GEN INTERN MED. 2008; 23(6): 860– 6. 10.1007/s11606-008-0590-4 18386101 PMC2517900 · DOI
- [42]Agoritsas T, Deom M, Perneger TV. Study design attributes influenced patients' willingness to participate in clinical research: a randomized vignette-based study. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. 2011; 64(1): 107– 15. 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2010.02.007 20558036 · DOI
- [44]Tyler TR. Social Justice: Outcome and Procedure. International Journal of Psychology. 2000; 35(2): 117– 25.
- [47]van den Bos K, Vermunt R, Wilke HAM. Procedural and distributive justice: What is fair depends more on what comes first than on what comes next. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1997; 72(1): 95– 104.
- [48]van den Bos K, Miedema J. Toward understanding why fairness matters: The influence of mortality salience on reactions to procedural fairness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 2000; 79(3): 355– 66. 10981839
- [49]Skitka LJ, Houston DA. When due process is of no consequence: Moral mandates and presumed guilt or innocence. Social Justice Research. 2001; 14(3): 305– 26.
- [51]Blader SL, Tyler TR. Testing and extending the group engagement model: Linkages between social identity, procedural justice, economic outcomes, and extrarole behavior. J Appl Psychol. 2009; 94(2): 445– 64. 10.1037/a0013935 19271800 · DOI
- [52]Tyler TR. Trust and legitimacy: Policing in the USA and Europe. European Journal of Criminology. 2011; 8(4): 254– 66.
- [53]Lind EA, Walker L, Kurtz S, Musante L, Thibaut JW. Procedure and outcome effects on reactions to adjudicated resolution of conflicts of interest. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1980; 39(4): 643.
- [54]Rasinski KA, Tyler TR, Fridkin K. Exploring the function of legitimacy: Mediating effects of personal and institutional legitimacy on leadership endorsement and system support. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1985; 49(2): 386– 94.
- [55]Gangl A. Procedural justice theory and evaluations of the lawmaking process. Political Behavior. 2003; 25(2): 119– 49.
- [56]Hibbing JR, Theiss-Morse E. Stealth Democracy: Americans' Beliefs about how Government Should Work. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press; 2002 xiv, 284 p. p.
- [57]McComas KA, Besley JC, Steinhardt J. Factors influencing U.S. consumer support for genetic modification to prevent crop disease. Appetite. 2014; 78(1). 24630937
- [58]Besley JC, Oh S-H. The Impact of Accident Attention, Ideology, and Environmentalism on American Attitudes Toward Nuclear Energy. Risk Anal. 2014; 35(5): 949– 64. 24329941
- [59]Besley JC, McComas KA. Fairness, public engagement and risk communication In: Arvai JL, Rivers L, editors. Effective Risk Communication. New York, NY: Routledge/Earthscan; 2014 p. 108– 23.
- [60]Joss S, Brownlea A. Considering the concept of procedural justice for public policy-and decision-making in science and technology. Science and Public Policy. 1999; 26(5): 321– 30.
- [61]McComas KA, Trumbo CW, Besley JC. Public meetings about suspected cancer clusters: The impact of voice, interactional justice, and risk perception on attendees’ attitudes in six communities. J Health Commun. 2007; 12(6): 527– 49. 10.1080/10810730701508245 17763051 · DOI
- [62]Thrasher JF, Besley JC, Gonzalez W. Perceived justice and popular support for public health laws: A case study around comprehensive smoke-free legislation in Mexico City. Soc Sci Med. 2010; 70(5): 787– 93. 10.1016/j.socscimed.2009.10.064 20022682 · DOI
- [63]Fiske ST, Dupree C. Gaining trust as well as respect in communicating to motivated audiences about science topics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2014; 111(Supplement 4): 13593– 7. PMC4183178 25225372
- [64]McComas KA, Besley JC, Yang Z. Risky business: The perceived justice of local scientists and community support for their research. Risk Anal. 2008; 28(6): 1539– 52. 10.1111/j.1539-6924.2008.01129.x 18808391 · DOI
- [65]Huffman WE, Rousu M, Shogren JF, Tegene A. Who do consumers trust for information: The case of genetically modified foods? American Journal of Agricultural Economics. 2004; 86(5): 1222– 9.
- [66]Frewer LJ, Howard C, Hedderley D, Shepherd R. What determines trust in information about food-related risks? Underlying psychological constructs. Risk Anal. 1996; 16(4): 473– 86. 8819340
- [67]Clements JM, McCright AM, Dietz T, Marquart-Pyatt ST. A behavioural measure of environmental decision-making for social surveys. Environmental Sociology. 2015; 1(1): 27– 37.
- [68]McCright AM, Dentzman K, Charters M, Dietz T. The influence of political ideology on trust in science. Environmental Research Letters. 2013; 8(4): 044029.
- [69]Paolacci G, Chandler J. Inside the turk: Understanding Mechanical Turk as a participant pool. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 2014; 23(3): 184– 8.
- [70]Weinberg JD, Freese J, McElhattan D. Comparing data characteristics and results of an online factorial survey between a population-based and a crowdsource-recruited sample. Sociological Science. 2014; 1: 292– 310.
- [72]Paolacci G, Chandler J, Ipeirotis PG. Running experiments on Amazon Mechanical Turk. Judgement and Decision Making. 2010; 5(5): 411– 9.
- [74]Leventhal GS. What should be done with equity theory? New approaches to the study of fairness in social relationships In: Gergen K, Greenberg M, Wilis R, editors. Social Exchange: Advances in Theory and Research. New York, NY: Plenum Press; 1980.
- [75]Hayes AF. Introduction to Mediation, Moderation, and Conditional Process Analysis: A Regression-based Approach. New York, NY: The Guilford Press; 2013 xvii, 507 pages p.
- [76]Baron RM, Kenny DA. The moderator—mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of personality and social psychology. 1986; 51(6): 1173 3806354
- [77]Brossard D, Shanahan J, Nesbitt TC. The Media, the Public and Agricultural Biotechnology Cambridge, MA: CABI; 2007 xxiv, 405 p. p.
- [78]Guest G, MacQueen KM, Namey EE. Applied Thematic Analysis. Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications; 2012 xx, 295 p. p.
- [79]Lundh A, Sismondo S, Lexchin J, Busuioc O, Bero L. Industry sponsorship and research outcome. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2012(12). 23235689
- [81]van den Bos K. Uncertainty management: The influence of uncertainty salience on reactions to perceived procedural fairness. 2001; 80(6): 931– 41. 11414375
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Kerwer, M., Jonas, M., Stoll, M., Benz, G., & Chasiotis, A. (2025) · Zeitschrift für Psychologie · doi:10.1027/2151-2604/a000570 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
- Authors
- Besley, J. C., McCright, A. M., Zahry, N. R., Elliott, K. C., Kaminski, N. E., & Martin, J. D.
- Affiliations
- Michigan State University (US)
- University of Leeds (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Besley, John C.
- ORCID
- Venue
- PLOS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2017-04-20
- Volume
- 12
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- e0175643
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC5398532
- OpenAlex
- W2606941214
- Cited by
- 84
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 18 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 5
- FWCI
- 11.64
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- correction (2018-08-10)
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Durham Research Online (Durham University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Michigan State University
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics › Pharmacology › Pharmaceutical industry and healthcare
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Academic integrity and plagiarism
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Interdisciplinary Research and Collaboration
- Keywords
- conflicts of interest, industry partnerships, procedural justice, research funding, university-industry collaboration
- MeSH terms
- Cooperative Behavior, Universities, Conflict of Interest
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review