Medico e mass-media: a chi credere?

People are plunged in an enormous message traffic caused by a continuous development of mass-media. So, while in the past the relationship with the expert was the fundamental and unique source of information, in the contemporary society people have the opportunity to look for pieces of information through mass-media. The present study aims to analyze if, in a medical context, people rely on the interpersonal source (physician) rather than on media, particularly when the two sources are not consistent. This goal has been reached through an experiment in which 402 students were asked to make a self-diagnosis on the basis of conflicting pieces of information provided by an article and by a physician. The concordance between the article and the physician's diagnosis (agreement vs. disagreement) and the order's presentation (article-physician vs. physician-article) have been manipulated. The results reveal that, even if in a disagreement condition participants still trust more the physician than the article, information provided from media interacts with the interpersonal source. Specifically, the mass-media have effects on decision's outcome, confidence and trust in physicians. The present study could have a considerable applied relevance: in the modern society, in front of new-media spread, the physician-patient relationship is likely to be affected by external and not ever reliable information.