Conformity, obedience, and the Better than Average Effect in health professional students

Background: Compliance, through conformity and obedience to authority, can produce negative outcomes for patient safety, as well as education. To date, educational interventions for dealing with situations of compliance or positive deviance have shown variable results. Part of the challenge for edu...

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Autores principales:	Efrem Violato, Sharla King, Okan Bulut
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Canadian Medical Education Journal 2021
Materias:	Education (General) L7-991 Medicine (General) R5-920
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/12506c65c1c54a36a743ed0008c756c6
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:12506c65c1c54a36a743ed0008c756c62021-12-01T22:35:16ZConformity, obedience, and the Better than Average Effect in health professional students10.36834/cmej.719701923-1202https://doaj.org/article/12506c65c1c54a36a743ed0008c756c62021-11-01T00:00:00Zhttps://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/cmej/article/view/71970https://doaj.org/toc/1923-1202 Background: Compliance, through conformity and obedience to authority, can produce negative outcomes for patient safety, as well as education. To date, educational interventions for dealing with situations of compliance or positive deviance have shown variable results. Part of the challenge for education on compliance may result from disparities between learners' expectations about their potential for engaging in positive deviance and the actual likelihood of engaging in positive deviance. More specifically, students may demonstrate a Better Than Average Effect (BTAE), the tendency for people to believe they are comparatively better than the average across a wide range of behaviours and skills. Methods: Four vignettes were designed and piloted using cognitive interviews, to investigate the BTAE. Conformity and obedience to authority were each addressed with two vignettes. The vignettes were included in a survey distributed to Canadian health professional students across multiple programs at several different institutions during the Winter 2019 semester. Self-evaluation of behaviour was investigated using a one-sample proportion test. Demographic data were investigated using logistic regression to identify predictors of the BTAE. Results: Participants demonstrated the BTAE for expected behaviour compared to peers for situations of conformity and obedience to authority. Age, sex, and program year were identified as potential predictors for exhibiting the BTAE. Conclusions: This study demonstrated that health professional students expect that they will behave better than average in compliance scenarios. Health professional students are not exempt from this cognitive bias in self-assessment. The results have implications for education on compliance, positive deviance, and patient safety. Efrem ViolatoSharla KingOkan BulutCanadian Medical Education JournalarticleEducation (General)L7-991Medicine (General)R5-920ENCanadian Medical Education Journal (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Education (General) L7-991 Medicine (General) R5-920
spellingShingle	Education (General) L7-991 Medicine (General) R5-920 Efrem Violato Sharla King Okan Bulut Conformity, obedience, and the Better than Average Effect in health professional students
description	Background: Compliance, through conformity and obedience to authority, can produce negative outcomes for patient safety, as well as education. To date, educational interventions for dealing with situations of compliance or positive deviance have shown variable results. Part of the challenge for education on compliance may result from disparities between learners' expectations about their potential for engaging in positive deviance and the actual likelihood of engaging in positive deviance. More specifically, students may demonstrate a Better Than Average Effect (BTAE), the tendency for people to believe they are comparatively better than the average across a wide range of behaviours and skills. Methods: Four vignettes were designed and piloted using cognitive interviews, to investigate the BTAE. Conformity and obedience to authority were each addressed with two vignettes. The vignettes were included in a survey distributed to Canadian health professional students across multiple programs at several different institutions during the Winter 2019 semester. Self-evaluation of behaviour was investigated using a one-sample proportion test. Demographic data were investigated using logistic regression to identify predictors of the BTAE. Results: Participants demonstrated the BTAE for expected behaviour compared to peers for situations of conformity and obedience to authority. Age, sex, and program year were identified as potential predictors for exhibiting the BTAE. Conclusions: This study demonstrated that health professional students expect that they will behave better than average in compliance scenarios. Health professional students are not exempt from this cognitive bias in self-assessment. The results have implications for education on compliance, positive deviance, and patient safety.
format	article
author	Efrem Violato Sharla King Okan Bulut
author_facet	Efrem Violato Sharla King Okan Bulut
author_sort	Efrem Violato
title	Conformity, obedience, and the Better than Average Effect in health professional students
title_short	Conformity, obedience, and the Better than Average Effect in health professional students
title_full	Conformity, obedience, and the Better than Average Effect in health professional students
title_fullStr	Conformity, obedience, and the Better than Average Effect in health professional students
title_full_unstemmed	Conformity, obedience, and the Better than Average Effect in health professional students
title_sort	conformity, obedience, and the better than average effect in health professional students
publisher	Canadian Medical Education Journal
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/12506c65c1c54a36a743ed0008c756c6
work_keys_str_mv	AT efremviolato conformityobedienceandthebetterthanaverageeffectinhealthprofessionalstudents AT sharlaking conformityobedienceandthebetterthanaverageeffectinhealthprofessionalstudents AT okanbulut conformityobedienceandthebetterthanaverageeffectinhealthprofessionalstudents
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Conformity, obedience, and the Better than Average Effect in health professional students

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