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Physician decisions concerning allocation of health care resources to patients are highly variable and poorly understood. Psychological androgyny theory (PAT) has been employed as a model of the interpersonal and task activities required of physicians for care of their patients. Several studies have successfully predicted physician resource utilization using measures derived from PAT. Using a sample of 97 first-year medical students, the authors explored the relationship between PAT and risk preference in loss-framed gambles in order to elucidate the process whereby variables derived from PAT predict resource utilization. As hypothesized, students selecting the certain loss had significantly higher mean androgyny scores than did students selecting uncertainty. Research involving these constructs is integrated in the context of a theoretical "causal model," which highlights issues deserving of future research.

Physician attitudes towards risk may influence their behavior in critical care situations. To explore this hypothesis, physicians' responses to a questionnaire about risk were compared to their preferences towards "intubation" or "current therapy without intubation" for a hypothetical patient with end-stage lung disease, and to the length of time they performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation before they declared their efforts unsuccessful. When the choices on the questionnaire were framed in terms of loss, choice of the risky alternative was associated with greater preference for "intubation," and with longer duration of resuscitation efforts (both p less than .005). At least part of the variation in physician attitudes and practices towards the care of the critically or terminally ill is associated with measurable psychologic differences among individual physicians.