Research on the evolution of morality as a communication tool in the doctor-patient relationship

Abstract

In the biosocial paradigm of human nature, we can consider not only the concept of health, as it is derived from the definition of the World health organization, but also the socio-cultural aspects of life. Ethics is an integral part of society, and it is all the more critical for medicine. Studies of the evolution of morality contain not only and not so much information about the behavior of our ancestors, but also about the nature of our behavior, and the mechanisms of choice regarding the phenomena of cooperation, trust, mutual assistance, justice, and others. Some of them are directly related to the doctor-patient relationship. The nature of these phenomena is described from the perspective of different disciplines: ethology, neurophysiology, evolutionary psychology, and game theory. All these disciplines in total can indeed form recommendations for interaction with patients and can be useful to a doctor, especially those who need to maximize the effectiveness of their communication while saving resources. A patient is also interested in the treatment and saving of his emotional resource, which defines the doctor-patient relationship as an interaction with a common interest or a non-zero-sum game. Behavioral economics is also included in this interaction, considered in the context of strategy choice by agents (in this case, doctor and patient), but not in the context of resource allocation. This is of practical significance in the context of working with psychosocial risk factors.