BACKGROUND: It has been claimed that the involvement of commercial companies in medical and health research poses risks relating to potential conflicts of interest. In response, many journals have developed conflict of interest policies, and there has been a proliferation of related guidance from publishers, professional associations and commercial companies, mostly centred on processes of voluntary disclosure. Studies and commentaries on these have raised concerns regarding the adequacy of such practices, but there has been limited analysis of the underlying context – how and why policies have been constructed in this way – or exploration of alternative approaches. AIM: This thesis examines how actors within medical journal publishing conceptualise conflicts of interest. It analyses their understandings of conflicts of interest: which types of interest are deemed most significant; which actor groups are seen as conflicted; and how conflicts are managed. Through doing so, it explores the barriers to, and possibilities of, change. METHODS: The study draws on two distinct sets of data. The first is a sample of conflict of interest policies and guidance. The second is 48 semi-structured interviews with actors working in a range of roles related to medical journal publishing. These data were thematically analysed to illustrate how medical journal publishing conceptualises and manages conflicts of interest, to identify perceived strengths and weaknesses of current approaches, and to identify potential opportunities for improvement. RESULTS: There appears to be an established discourse around conflicts of interest, which emphasises particular stakeholders, while others, who also have opportunities to influence journal content, are frequently absent from the debate. Financial interests are readily highlighted, while non-financial ones receive less attention and are thus often unregulated (Chapter 5). High levels of consistency characterise the ways in which actors discussed the management of conflicts of interest: for example, self-disclosure was regularly highlighted, despite the acknowledged weaknesses of this approach (Chapter 6). The existence of further mechanisms that offer the potential to assist in managing conflicts of interest were identified, though findings suggest that, in practice, these currently have limited uptake (Chapter 7). Interviewees’ suggestions of how conflicts of interest might be better managed (e.g. through greater data transparency) are also analysed. Overall, narrow interpretations of conflicts of interest and their management appear to have become institutionalised in ways that serve to limit the uptake of alternative approaches. DISCUSSION: Given the substantive importance that medical research can have on health policies and treatments, robust processes are required to protect the integrity and legitimacy of journals. This research shows that existing, institutionalised understandings of conflicts of interest have critical limitations, which leaves medical publishing open to potentially unethical practices that may be a source of bias in published evidence. This poses a significant threat to the desire to attain ethically robust, peer-reviewed medical/health research that can be used to inform policy and practice. Drawing on the interview data, the thesis explores some possible alternatives that may warrant further consideration.

Paper 1 provides a systematic review on the association between children over-rating their competence, termed Positive Illusory Bias (PIB), and Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The evidence towards this construct was examined, in addition to its environmental specificity and modifiability. Findings confirmed an association between PIB and ADHD, with most studies evidencing higher discrepancies between self and adult ratings of competence in children with ADHD compared to controls. The nature and magnitude of this association was less clear however, with some of these studies showing absolute ratings of children to be similar to controls, and a PIB only evidenced when adults were used as objective evaluators, not actual performance. Thus the review was unable to discount the idea that the PIB may, in part, be a function of the system around children with ADHD under-estimating their abilities. Clinical implications are discussed. Paper 2 presents an investigation into the efficacy and feasibility of a metacognitive therapy technique, Attention Training (ATT) in children with ADHD. A novel intervention in this population, the study employed a single case series design, followed by an uncontrolled trial, both with a 6-week follow up. A total of 16 children aged 7-11 under the care of a children and adolescent mental health service received 5 sessions of the ATT. Findings revealed that children rated their attention as significantly improved, despite no statistical improvement found on parent ratings. Significant improvements were also shown in working memory and other aspects of executive functioning. Adherence to home practice of the ATT was generally poor, but session attendance was good and the treatment was well-liked by parents. Clinical implications and directions for future research are indicated. Paper 3 is a critical reflection of the research process. Reflections on paper 1 and 2 are given, including limitations and clinical implications. The impact of the research process on my personal development and learning is also discussed.

This paper empirically assesses determinants of countries' fiscal rules suggested by the political science, sociology, and economics literature. We find several of these variables to be related to the stringency of fiscal rules, providing indirect evidence for the relevance of governments' deficit bias. These determinants may also serve as instruments in models with (endogenous) fiscal rules as explanatory variable.

O projeto descrito neste documento propõe um modelo para análise de viés em notícias, procurando identificar o viés dos meios de comunicação em relação a entidades políticas. Foram analisados três tipos de viés: o viés de seleção, que avalia o quanto uma entidade é referenciada pelo meio de comunicação; o viés de cobertura, que avalia quanto destaque é destinado a entidade e, por fim, o viés de afirmação, que avalia se estão falando mal ou bem da entidade. Para tal, foi construído um corpus de notícias sistematicamente extraídas de 5 produtores de notícias e classificadas manualmente em relação à polaridade e entidade alvo. Técnicas de análise de sentimentos baseadas em aprendizado de máquina foram validadas utilizando o corpus criado. Criou-se uma metodologia para identificação de viés, utilizando o conceito de outliers, a partir de métricas indicadoras. A partir da metodologia proposta, foi analisado o viés em relação aos candidatos ao governo de São Paulo e à presidência a partir do corpus criado, em que se identificou os três tipos de viés em dois produtores de notícias / The project described here proposes a model to study bias on newswire texts, related to political entities. Three types of bias are analysed: selection bias, which refers to the amount of times an entity is referenced by the media outlet; coverage bias, which assesses the amount of coverage given to an entity and, finally, the assertion bias, which analyses whether the news is a positive or negative report of an entity. To accomplish this, a corpus was systematically built by extracting news from 5 different newswires. These texts were manually classified according to their polarity alignment and associated entity. Sentiment Analysis techniques were applied and evaluated using the corpus. Based on the concept of outliers, a methodology for bias detection was created. Bias was analysed using the proposed methodology on the generated corpus for candidates to the government of the state of São Paulo and to presidency, being identified in two newswires for the three above-defined types

O interesse da psicologia experimental pelo estudo da emoção e sua relação com a cognição foi, até pouco tempo, deixado em segundo plano. Recentemente, com o avanço da neurociência cognitiva, as pesquisas começaram a enfatizar, também, a investigação da relação cognição-emoção, gerando vários modelos explicativos. Mais recentemente, os teóricos voltaram sua atenção para a avaliação cognitiva, em estados de humor negativos como a depressão e ansiedade. Este trabalho investigou, através de experimentos controlados, as três grandes hipóteses que existem sobre o processamento de informação na ansiedade. O estudo foi realizado com 50 estudantes universitários de ambos os sexos. Foi utilizado o software Super Lab®, folhas de registro para avaliação das respostas e a escala Beck para a mensuração do nível de ansiedade. O primeiro experimento avaliou o impacto que estímulos semânticos ambíguos têm no tipo de escolha e na tomada de decisão; os resultados, calculados pela ANOVA, indicaram que os participantes tendem a escolher mais significados negativos, frente a uma escolha ambígua, se comparada às neutras F(1, 49) =107,08, p0,0001. Além disso, os participantes mais ansiosos diferem em média dos menos ansiosos no tempo que levam para se decidirem F(1, 49) =4689, p=0,033. O segundo experimento utilizou uma versão original da tarefa de Stroop emocional; em uma delas, avaliamos o papel que a classe gramatical tinha na focalização atencional dos participantes e, para tanto, utilizamos verbos, adjetivos e substantivos, neutros e ameaçadores, em slides individuais. Uma análise posthoc de Bonferroni indicou que os adjetivos ameaçadores são os que mais elevam a atenção dos participantes com p0,05. Pudemos perceber, também, que a parcela mais ansiosa da amostra leva, em média, mais tempo para nomear as cores das palavras ameaçadoras, de um modo geral F(1, 99) =6,656, p=0,011, o que indica uma grande hiper-vigilância para ameaça em geral. Na segunda tarefa de stroop, queríamos avaliar se palavras abstratas e concretas, neutras e ameaçadoras, eram processadas de um modo diferente. Os resultados indicaram que não, porém os participantes mais ansiosos demonstraram maior seletividade atencional, quando as palavras ameaçadoras foram tomadas como um todo F(1, 99) = 4270, p=0,041, o que pode indicar uma análise primitiva e pouco discriminada. No terceiro experimento, utilizamos listas de palavras com sete itens, onde o item central podia ser neutro ou ameaçador, sendo que, posteriormente, o participante evocava as palavras de que se lembrava. Os resultados indicaram que os participantes se lembraram igualmente bem das palavras iniciais e finais em ambas as listas; contudo, quando a palavra central era negativa, a lembrança foi significativamente mais elevada F(1, 49) = 25, 579, p0,0001, o que pode indicar que temos a tendência a memorizar melhor estímulos negativos. Em conjunto, nossos dados demonstram que os vieses cognitivos são características encontradas em todos os níveis de ansiedade, o que indica que eles devem fazer parte de processamento de informação normal, em situações de perigo. As diferenças encontradas nos participantes mais ansiosos indicam uma maior utilização de recursos executivos, em etapas posteriores de processamento. As implicações clínicas e experimentais são discutidas / The interest of experimental psychology for the study of emotions and its relation with the cognition was, until some time ago, left in second plain. Recently, with the advance of the cognitive neuroscience, the research had started to emphasize also the inquiry of the relation cognition-emotion, generating some clarifying models. More recently, the theoreticians had come back their attention toward the cognitive evaluation in negative mood states as depression and anxiety. Through controlled experiments, the three great hypotheses that exist on the processing of information in the anxiety were investigated in this work. The study was realized with 50 university students of both sexes. The software Super Lab® was used, registration sheet for evaluation of the answers and the Beck scale for the mensuration of the anxiety levels. The first experiment evaluated the impact that ambiguous semantic stimulatons have in the type of choice and taking of decision; the results, calculated for the ANOVA, had indicated that the participants tend to choose more negative meanings, front to a ambiguous choice, if compared with the neutral F (1, 49) =107,08, p0,0001. Moreover, the most anxious participants differ on average from less anxious in the time that lead to decide F (1, 49) =4689, p=0,033. The second experiment used an original version of the emotional Stroop task; in one of them, we evaluate the paper that the grammatical category had in the atencional focalization of the participants and, for in such a way, we use verbs, adjectives and substantives, neutral and threatening, in individual slides. An analysis post-hoc of Bonferroni indicated that the threatening adjectives are the ones that more raise the participants attention with p0,05. We could notice, also, that the most anxious parcel of the sample, takes more time, on average, to nominate the colors of the threatening words in a general way F (1, 99) =6,656, p=0,011, what indicates a great hiper-monitoring for threat in general. In the second stroop task, we wanted to evaluate if abstract and concrete words, neutral and threatening, were processed in a different way. The results had indicated that not, however the most anxious participants demonstrated more atencional selectivity, when the threatening words had been taken as a whole F (1, 99) = 4270, p=0,041, what it can indicate a primitive and few discriminated analysis. In the third experiment, we use lists of words with seven itens, where the central item could be neutral or threatening, being that, later the participant evoked the words that remembered. The results had indicated that they had remembered the initial and final words equally well in both the lists; however, when the central word was negative, the recall was significantly more raised F (1, 49) = 25, 579, p0,0001, what can indicate that we have the trend to better memorize negative stimulatons. In joint, our data demonstrate that the cognitive bias are characteristic and found in all anxiety levels, what shows that they must be part of the normal information processing, in danger situations. The differences found in the most anxious participants indicate a bigger use of executive resources, in posterior stages of processing. The clinical and experimental implications are discussed

As the Hispanic population continues to grow in the United States, especially in the South, it is critical for healthcare workers to provide culturally competent care as required by certain laws. The Latina experience is of significant importance due to the role Latina mothers play in their families and communities. It is necessary to understand the perspective of this population and the experience of the Latina mother in regards to healthcare; specifically, how have language barriers hindered care, what perceptions of bias or discrimination have been encountered, and how do these factors influence their healthcare decisions and outcomes. Research has been conducted that identifies language and bias as barriers to access; however, further research is necessary to identify how these barriers influence a Latina mother’s perception of the healthcare system with an emphasis placed on East Tennessee. Therefore, it is critical for more studies to be conducted in order to identify what public health officials can change in order to provide equal access to this significant demographic.

Previous research supports the idea that individuals high in trait anger tend to experience more hostile attribution bias. According to the Integrative Cognitive Model, cognitive factors, such as rumination, may increase the risk of hostile attribution bias and any subsequent aggressive behaviors. Sex differences are apparent in rumination and anger expression. The present research explored the potential role trait rumination plays in hostile attribution bias as well as potential conditional effects of sex on this relationship. Participants were asked to complete a number of self-report measures and vignettes of ambiguously hostile situations adapted to improve reliability. Hypotheses were largely supported and trait anger rumination was significantly predictive of hostile attribution bias; however, conditional effects of sex were non-significant. The adapted hostile attribution bias measure had improved reliability and may have utility for a survey-based method to assessing hostile attribution bias. Findings may further our understanding of hostile interpretations and potential for subsequent aggressive behaviors in high trait ruminators in ambiguous situations as well as lead to potential areas of intervention to reduce anger and anger rumination.

Research in cultural psychology suggests that mind and behavior are necessarily cultural. The implications of this perspective call into question assumptions of scientific psychology's cultural neutrality and indicate that it may be a form of cultural community in its own right. As such, it seems that it will necessarily be defined by certain cultural biases that are exclusive of other cultural biases. Nevertheless, providing that scientists can strive to identify their explicit and implicit cultural biases, and so long as they can define their sciences in terms of cultural biases that are rational and mandatory within the internal logic of psychology, psychology's specific cultural biases may enable them to advance knowledge in ways that other cultural approaches, such as religion or ethics, cannot. This paper suggests criteria for identifying whether any given cultural biases within psychology might be justified or unjustified and reviews exemplars of justified and unjustified implicit and explicit cultural biases. It also discusses how, in cases of unjustified cultural bias, alternative cultural perspectives can be instrumental in scientific advancement. Ultimately, the paper suggests that psychologists can be culturally inclusive without compromising the truly critical cultural biases that make psychological science worthwhile. Moreover, it suggests ways in which cultural inclusion may be beneficial for individual psychologists, the discipline of scientific psychology as a whole, and in how psychological science engages with other cultural communities.

<p>The first of the two essays in this dissertation uses primary data from Bangladesh to explore the role of microloan repayment frequency (weekly vs. bi-weekly, assigned randomly) on loan repayment performance of microfinance borrowers after controlling for their inherently distinct time preferences. The findings show that the borrowers’ individual time preference is an important determinant of their repayment behavior. Specifically, the repayment performance of present-biased borrowers improves significantly when they happen to be assigned to the weekly repayment schedule instead of the bi-weekly schedule. Also, irrespective of time preference, borrowers are found to invest more in new businesses under a more flexible (i.e., bi-weekly) repayment schedule. Overall, our findings suggest that instead of a "one size fits all" approach, by offering loans with a weekly (bi-weekly) repayment schedule matched to the present-biased (time-consistent) borrowers, the MFIs might be able to minimize their transaction costs while ensuring high repayment rates. This would also benefit the borrowers by enabling them to venture into new business investments. </p> Using primary data from Bangladesh, the second essay seeks to examine two aspects of religiosity that might affect the microfinance borrowers’ repayment performance. First, whether individual religiosity influences repayment behavior. Second, whether the impact of religiosity changes with borrowers’ age, and level of community religiosity. The results show religiosity to be a significant determinant of a borrower’s repayment behavior, as individuals with higher religiosity are found to be better borrowers. Also, the positive impact of religiosity is stronger for older borrowers, and for borrowers who live in comparatively less religious community. These findings indicate that MFIs can take into consideration the degree of individual and community religiosity to decide on the intensity of supervision required for borrowers. Borrowers with higher level of religiosity can possibly go on with minimal level of supervision as they are less likely to default. This reduced supervision would reduce travel costs incurred by MFI staff, making operations more cost-effective. This will also help free up loan officers’ and borrowers’ time. Thus, MFIs and borrowers can take advantage of this and invest time to other productive activities. The MFIs can also make better use of the freed-up staff to increase coverage.

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