The Effect of Expertise and Gender on Medical Advice Acceptance

Guided by the various research on advice taking, present study aimed to understand which characteristics of the advisor (expertise, gender, gender similarity) influence the advice acceptance. A total of 30 participants completed an online experiment, where they gained recommendations from different advisors. They were provided with positive and negative reviews on fictional brands of medical products provided by experts (doctors) and non-experts (users) of different genders. The task of the respondents was to memorize the content and the author of the advice given. The preference and effect of advice acceptance were encoded in ranks which participants assigned to different medical products and the difference between the original rating of the medicine and the rank that was assigned to the medical product by the respondent. Results show that the valence of the medical product review influences the preference of the respondent. At the same time, absence of connection between characteristics of advisor and acceptance of the advice was found.