The Relationships Among Perceived Physician Accommodation, Perceived Outgroup Typicality, and Patient Inclinations Toward Compliance

Abstract

Research in the sphere of patient-physician communication has identified numerous behaviors and message strategies that physicians may employ to foster patient compliance. Given intriguing empirical findings in an intergroup context similarly concerned with compliance and recommendations of authority (i.e., the police–civilian realm), the present study explores the relationships between perceived physician accommodation, patient perceptions of their doctor's outgroup typicality (patient vs. physician), and inclinations to comply with physician recommendations. A new model that comprised these relationships was hypothesized and tested in light of communication accommodation theory. Structural equation modeling supported the hypothesized model and revealed that perceived outgroup typicality and perceptions of physician accommodation were mutually influential, and that the latter directly predicted patients' inclinations to comply with physician recommendations.