One example I find particularly interesting is whiplash from car accidents. The prevalence of this injury seems directly proportional to the amount of money you can sue for having it.
The problem with whiplash is that it often cannot be detected by MRI etc, and relies entirely on the patient's description of the pain. it seems that even if the patient is not deliberately malingering, there's a tendency to imagine symptoms if there's a potential big payoff for having them.
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/07/s...nsated-and-unknown.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
Mind over matter. The body tells the brain that it's okay, but the brain ignores it.External Quote:IN Lithuania, rear-end collisions happen much as they do in the rest of the world. Cars crash, bumpers crumple and tempers flare. But drivers in cars that have been hit there do not seem to suffer the long-term complaints so common in other countries: the headaches or lingering neck pains that have come to be known as chronic whiplash, or whiplash syndrome.
Cars are no safer in Lithuania, and the average neck is not any stronger. The difference, a new study says, might be described as a matter of indemnity.
Yes. It's an interesting way of looking at it. I think the bottom line of that story is that people have been brought up to 'expect' or be 'entitled' somehow. And that they're greedy mf's because of the environment we've created. Everyone's chiselling off everyone else. (If you haven't read Raymond Chandler's Marlowe books..have a try, I think you'll enjoy them)