Teacher perspectives and judgments of students' race and gender are known to influence their assessment of primary and secondary students' academic achievements. However, little is known about the effect on children's academic achievement of preschool teacher perspectives and judgments of students' race and gender, which forms the basis for this study. The purpose of this study was to analyze teacher assessment of preschool children's mathematics and science skills on the Desired Results Developmental Profile (DRDP) and Teacher Strategies GOLD (TSG), along with teacher comments written in preparation for each child's parent-teacher conference, to determine if there was a relationship between preschool teachers' assessment and comments and the race and gender of the child. Wason's theory of confirmation bias formed the theoretical foundation of this study. The research questions addressed the relationship between preschool teacher assessments recorded on the DRDP and TSG regarding children's mathematics and science skill and teacher comments coded from Racasens linguistic model and those children's race and gender. Archival data from 2 Head Start centers in a western and southwestern state were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U test, and the point-biserial Pearson correlation. The Mann-Whitney U test found no statistically significant differences in DRDP and TSG scores by students' race and gender. The point-biserial Pearson correlation found no statistically significant correlation between race or gender and teacher comments. This study contributes to positive social change by confirming observational assessments to be free from teacher bias, supporting their continued use with preschool children to promote their learning and development.

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Целью работы является исследование повышения эффективности труда сотрудников промышленного предприятия с учетом влияния когнитивных искажений. Для этого был разработан методический подход, в основу которого положен учет когнитивных искажений, включающий в себя классификацию групп рабочих по уровню когнитивных искажений и эффективности труда, а также комплекс мероприятий, направленных на нивелирование влияния когнитивных искажений, что позволит снизить воздействие когнитивных искажений и достигнуть более высоких показателей эффективности труда на промышленном предприятии. / The aim of the work is to study the improvement of the labor efficiency of employees of an industrial enterprise, taking into account the influence of cognitive distortions. For this purpose, a methodical approach was developed, which is based on the account of cognitive distortions, including the classification of groups of workers by the level of cognitive distortions and labor efficiency, as well as a set of measures aimed at leveling the influence of cognitive distortions, which will reduce the impact of cognitive distortions and achieve higher labor efficiency indicators at an industrial enterprise.

Titel: Psykologiska bias påverkan på försäkringsbranschen – En kvalitativ studie om samvariationen mellan psykologiska bias och efterfrågan på företagsförsäkringar. Författare: David Byman & Gustav Köhler Handledare: Mikael Knutsson Bakgrund: Att vara felaktigt försäkrad kan leda till allvarliga ekonomiska konsekvenser för företag. Perioden mellan år 2021–2023 har präglats av stora ekonomiska och geopolitiska påfrestningar vilka påverkat inflationen, världsekonomin och den internationella handeln. De unika marknadsförhållandena har resulterat i stor osäkerhet på de finansiella marknaderna och gett upphov till nya bedömningar inom risk och försäkring. Omfattande forskning har visat att både bedömningar och beslut påverkas av psykologiska faktorer. Av denna anledning är det relevant att studera hur psykologiska faktorer påverkar dessa bedömningar inom risk och försäkring för att hjälpa företag fatta bättre beslut i framtiden. Syfte: Undersökningens syfte är att, genom en abduktiv ansats, analysera i vilken utsträckning experter inom risk- och försäkringsområdet upplever att de psykologiska faktorerna risktolerans, vana, överkonfidens, förlustaversion, dispositionseffekten, kognitiv förmåga och optimism och pessimism påverkat svenska företags riskbedömningar mellan 2021–2023. Metod: För att besvara studiens syfte har en kvalitativ metod med elva semistrukturerade intervjuer utförts. Slutsats: Resultaten från de studerade experterna visar att samtliga undersökta psykologiska faktorer kan påverka företags beslutsfattande inom risk och försäkring, dock på olika sätt och i varierande omfattningar. Av de undersökta fallgroparna är det risktolerans, överkonfidens, förlustaversion, vana och känslor som har haft störst påverkan. / Title: Psychological biases' impact on the insurance industry – A qualitative study on the covariation between psychological biases and the demand for corporate insurance. Authors: David Byman & Gustav Köhler Supervisor: Mikael Knutsson Background: Being wrongly insured can lead to serious financial consequences for businesses. The period between the years 2021-2023 has been marked by major economic and geopolitical strains which have affected the inflation, world economy and international trade. The unique market conditions have resulted in great uncertainty in the financial markets and given rise to new assessments in risk and insurance. Extensive research has shown that both assessments and decisions are influenced by psychological factors. For this reason, it is relevant to study how psychological factors influence these decisions in risk and insurance to help companies make better decisions in the future. Purpose: The purpose of the survey is to, through an abductive approach, analyze the extent to which experts in the risk and insurance field perceive that the psychological factors risk tolerance, habit, overconfidence, loss aversion, the disposition effect, cognitive ability and optimism and pessimism have influenced Swedish companies' risk assessments during the years 2021-2023. Method: To fulfill the purpose of the study, a qualitative method with eleven semi- structured interviews has been conducted. Conclusion: The results from the studied experts show that all the examined psychological factors can influence companies' decision-making within risk and insurance, however in different ways and to varying extents. Among the investigated pitfalls, risk tolerance, overconfidence, loss aversion, habit, and emotions have had the greatest impact.

The best performing Transformer-based Language Models are monolingual and mainly focus on high-resource languages such as English. In an attempt to extend their usage to more languages, multilingual models have been introduced. Nevertheless, multilingual models still underperform on a specific language when compared to a similarly sized monolingual model that has been trained solely on that specific language. The main objective of this thesis project is to explore how a multilingual model can be improved for Swedish which is a low-resource language. We study if a multilingual model can benefit from further pre-training on Swedish or on a mix of English and Swedish text before fine-tuning. Our results on the task of semantic text similarity show that further pre-training increases the Pearson Correlation Score by 5% for specific cross-lingual language settings. Taking into account the responsibilities that arise from the increased use of Language Models in real-world applications, we supplement our work by additional experiments that measure stereotypical biases associated to gender. We use a new dataset that we designed specifically for that purpose. Our systematic study compares Swedish to English as well as various model sizes. The insights from our exploration indicate that the Swedish language carries less bias associated to gender than English and that higher manifestation of gender bias is associated to the use of larger Language Models. / De bästa Transformerbaserade språkmodellerna är enspråkiga och fokuserar främst på resursrika språk som engelska. I ett försök att utöka deras användning till fler språk har flerspråkiga modeller introducerats. Flerspråkiga modeller underpresterar dock fortfarande på enskilda språk när man jämför med en enspråkig modell av samma storlek som enbart har tränats på det specifika språket. Huvudsyftet med detta examensarbete är att utforska hur en flerspråkig modell kan förbättras för svenska som är ett resurssnålt språk. Vi studerar om en flerspråkig modell kan dra nytta av ytterligare förträning på svenska eller av en blandning av engelsk och svensk text innan finjustering. Våra resultat på uppgiften om semantisk textlikhet visar att ytterligare förträning ökar Pearsons korrelationspoäng med 5% för specifika tvärspråkiga språkinställningar. Med hänsyn till det ansvar som uppstår från den ökade användningen av språkmodeller i verkliga tillämpningar, kompletterar vi vårt arbete med ytterligare experiment som mäter stereotypa fördomar kopplade till kön. Vi använder en ny datauppsättning som vi har utformat specifikt för det ändamålet. Vår systematiska studie jämför svenska med engelska samt olika modellstorlekar. Insikterna från vår forskning tyder på att det svenska språket har mindre partiskhet förknippat med kön än engelska, samt att högre manifestation av könsfördomar är förknippat med användningen av större språkmodeller.

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This thesis explores consumer perceptions of aesthetically imperfect, or 'ugly,' foods and investigates the willingness to purchase and consume these products as a strategy to reduce food waste. The study delves into cognitive biases that lead to the rejection of nutritionally sound yet visually unappealing foods, significantly contributing to food wastage. Through a comprehensive food perception survey, this research examines the impact of visual appeal, expected taste, price, and bundling strategies on consumer choices, particularly focusing on the enhancement of the attractiveness of 'ugly' foods when paired with aesthetically pleasing ones.Key findings highlight that while consumer biases heavily influence the initial reaction of 'ugly' foods based on appearance, innovative marketing strategies like bundling can shift perceptions and increase consumer willingness to purchase. Crucially, the thesis identifies post-purchase ownership perception as a significant factor in influencing future consumer behavior. Ownership of 'ugly' foods, even in a hypothetical sense, positively affects consumers’ perceptions and behaviors, increasing their likelihood to repurchase and recommend these products, thus indicating a sustainable shift in consumption patterns. This research provides actionable insights for stakeholders in the food industry to mitigate consumer biases against 'ugly' foods, thereby enhancing sustainability and ethical consumption practices. The broader implications of these findings suggest that addressing post-purchase perceptions can effectively contribute to reducing global food wastage and fostering more environmentally responsible food consumption.

Ce manuscrit comporte trois essais qui partagent l’objectif commun d’évaluer l’impact de la confiance en soi sur les décisions des agents économiques à l’aide de la méthode expérimentale. Ce travail se concentre sur trois thèmes relatifs à l’économie comportementale du travail : le travail au noir, la recherche d’emploi et le travail en équipe. Le premier chapitre analyse les biais d’optimisme dans le contexte du travail irrégulier. Ce travail fournit une mesure des biais d’optimisme à travers un processus de décision. Les résultats montrent que les modalités d’annonce du contrôle altèrent la perception du risque : la désignation du nombre d’agents aléatoirement contrôlés tend à encourager l’optimisme des fraudeurs. Le second chapitre étudie comment l’incertitude quant à l’habileté et l’estime que les demandeurs d’emploi ont d’eux-mêmes affectent leurs décisions de recherche. Les résultats montrent qu’en moyenne les agents peu habiles ne modifient pas leur salaire de réserve, alors que les sujets très habiles tendent à diminuer leurs exigences salariales et donc à stopper plus rapidement leur recherche. Cependant, les décisions des agents peu habiles ne sont pas homogènes : les agents peu compétents ont des exigences salariales d’autant plus élevées qu’ils ont une haute estime d’eux-mêmes. Le troisième chapitre vise à évaluer dans quelle mesure l’image que les travailleurs ont d’eux-mêmes conditionne leur choix d’effort lorsqu’ils travaillent en groupe. Les résultats montrent que les agents qui sur évaluent (sous-évaluent) leur habileté exercent plus (moins) d’effort que les sujets qui ont une perception correcte de leurs compétences. Les résultats révèlent également que les individus bénéficient de la sur-confiance de leur partenaire, mais pas de leur propre biais, alors que la sous-confiance détériore le bien-être de tous les membres de l’équipe. / This dissertation contains three essays that estimate the effects of self-confidence on economic agents’ decisions. An experimental approach is used for those contributions. This work is interested in three topics concerning behavioral labor economics: moonlighting, job search and teamwork. The first chapter investigates the existence of optimism biases in the context of irregular work. This essay proposes a measure of optimism biases through a decision process. The results show that the way the monitoring policy is announced deeply affects the perception of the risk at stake: the designation of the number of randomly controlled agents tends to foster the cheats’ optimism. The second chapter studies how the uncertainty on ability and self-esteem of job-seekers affect their search behaviors. The results show that on average the low ability agents’ decisions are not affected by the uncertainty about their ability, whereas the high ability agents tend to decrease their reservation wage and thus to stop their search faster. However, the low ability agents’ decisions are not homogeneous: the higher the worker’s self-esteem is, the higher his reservation wage is. The third chapter aims at estimating how workers’ self-image biases affect effort choices and team production. The results show that the workers who overestimate (underestimate) their ability provide higher (lower) effort levels than the unbiased. The results also reveal that the agents benefit from their partner’s confidence, but not from their own bias. Conversely, the presence of underconfident agents in the team damages the welfare of both teammates.