Final answer:
People may fake illnesses due to psychological conditions, for personal gain, or due to stigmatization. The medical community's reliance on common symptoms for diagnosis can complicate matters. Social constructions of illness also play a role, and can be influenced by profit motives of pharmaceutical companies.
Step-by-step explanation:
Persons may fake an illness, disorder, or symptoms in another person for various reasons, including social stigmatization, to gain attention, access to medications, financial gain, or because of a psychological condition like Munchausen syndrome or Munchausen by proxy. The sickness role as explained by Parsons includes the expectation to seek help and to want to get better; faking an illness breaches this expectation and can result in stigmatization. In terms of contested illnesses, patients may feel invalidated by the medical community which can affect their treatment seeking behaviour, and social construction plays a significant role in perceiving and treating illnesses, often influenced by pharmaceutical companies.
Medical professionals rely on signs and symptoms for diagnosis which can be problematic because many symptoms are not unique to specific illnesses. This necessitates direct and indirect diagnostic methods to confirm diseases. Stigma around certain illnesses may deter people from seeking treatment, leading to a worsening of their condition. Interactionism suggests that corporations benefit monetarily when behaviors are deemed illnesses, which could also influence an individual to fake an illness.
Learn more about Faking Illness