The researchers are indignant at the idea that the consulting fees may have influenced their research. And indeed, no one has yet re-reviewed the research.

But hey! These are friggin’ psychiatrists. Social psychologists have known for decades that when you accept money from someone, you become biased in their favor. The bias happens even if you consciously try to keep it from happening. The bias happens even if you know about the bias effect. It’s part of the “commitment and consistency” principle of social psychology.

I’m in the middle of reading a book on the topic by two of the most prominent, well-respected social psychologists in the world, Mistakes Were Made. I’m only partway through, but I just read pages 43-55, which lay out specifically the studies that have shown than (a) scientists paid by industry tend to be influenced in favor of the ones making payments, and (b) doctors given gifts by pharmaceuticals (oddly, small gifts actually show a greater effect than large gifts) tend to overprescribe the company’s products. Exactly the issues highlighted in this article!

What I’ve read so far convinces me that any research conducted by a researcher who has received fees from a vested party should be considered suspect. Furthermore, any drugs prescribed by a doctor who has received fees or promotional gifts from a pharmaceutical should be considered suspect.

We’re trusting our minds, bodies, and children to prescriptions and research done by people who have powerful unconscious reasons to find problems and prescribe drugs. That doesn’t mean the research is bad, nor does it mean there was any conscious wrong-doing. But the very fields of psychology and psychiatry have known for decades that the more powerful motivations are those below consciousness, and those are the very ones motivations triggered by the gifts, consulting fees, and promotions.

Click here to read the entire Happy or Successful podcast as an article.

I’m starting to think so. They’re pretty cool. They let you share yourself and your life with your friends. You find out more about them, they find out more about you, you swap cool stuff. Life is good.

And therein lies the problem. Life is so good that everyone is saying, “Gee, let’s start a social networking sites.” So more start. Then the originals come up with cool ideas, plug-ins, upload-your-address-books, etc. so everyone will stay on those original sites. They make it really easy for all their members to invite still more members.

The Commons here is any given member’s free time to spend doing social networking. At this point, I’m on Friendster, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and some “friends” have uploaded my name to Plaxo and Cardscan, who are now clamoring for attention.

The problem is that I enjoy social networking, but six sites? Give me a break. I’m lucky to have 10 minutes a day for these sites. Unlike many of my 21st century counterparts, I like doing things in the real world(*), which limits my online time.

Sadly, I’m now at the point where I ignore many new friend requests. I ignore it when my friends send me a “vampire bite” or electronically “chest thump” me. It would be fun to play, but there’s just too much coming at once. Picking and choosing is a necessity.

As more and more players decide that building community is the way to go, people will either ignore new communities or will have to devote less and less time to more and more communities … thus making those communities more shallow and less satisfying.

Where will it end? I’m curious to find out. My guess is that over time, we’ll have a couple of major social networking sites. The smaller sites will die off, and a few specialized communities will stick around. But which will vanish and which will survive? If you’re smart enough to figure that one out, give me a clue so I can buy stock today.

(*) How ironic is this for a kid whose social life was exclusively online until age 16, in an era when no one was online, so I was endlessly teased about it.