Randomised study of the effects of sense of entitlement and conflict of interest contrarianism on researcher decision-making to work with the alcohol industry

Background: It is well established that the tobacco industry used research funding as a deliberate tactic to subvert science. There has been little wider attention to how researchers think about accepting industry funding. We developed, then tested, hypotheses about two psychological constructs, namely, entitlement and conflict of interest contrarianism (CoI-C) among alcohol researchers who had previously received industry funding.Methods: A mixed-methods pilot study involved construct and instrument development, followed by an online survey and nested 3-arm randomised trial. We randomly allocated alcohol industry funding recipients to one of three conditions. In two experimental conditions we asked participants questions to remind them (and thus increase the salience) of their sense of entitlement or CoI-C. We compared these groups with a control group who did not receive any reminder. The outcome was a composite measure of openness to working with the alcohol industry.Results: 133 researchers were randomised of whom 79 completed the experiment. The posterior distribution over effect estimates revealed that there was a 94.8% probability that reminding researchers of their CoI-C led them to self-report being more receptive to industry funding, whereas the probability was 68.1% that reminding them of their sense of entitlement did so. Biomedical researchers reported being more open to working with industry than did psychosocial researchers.Conclusion: Holding contrarian views on conflict of interest could make researchers more open to working with industry. This study shows how it is possible to study researcher decision-making using quantitative experimental methods

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescent mental health

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescent mental health is a widespread concern. However, to date, there is limited empirical evidence which can causally attribute changes to the pandemic. With the aim of overcoming some of the existing methodological limitations, the current study utilised a naturally occurring experiment within two ongoing school-based trials. Depressive symptoms, externalising difficulties (e.g., behaviour problems such as losing your temper or hitting out), and life satisfaction were assessed at baseline and 1-year follow-up across two groups. One group entered the study in phase 1 (2018; pre-COVID-19 group; N = 6,419) and were controls as they did not experience the COVID-19 pandemic between baseline and follow-up. The second group entered the study in phase 2 (2019; COVID-19 group; N = 5,031) and were exposed to the pandemic between baseline and follow-up, therefore providing a natural experiment. Key Findings • The COVID-19 pandemic led to increased adolescent depressive symptoms and decreased life satisfaction • If the COVID-19 pandemic had not occurred, estimates suggest that we would observe 6% fewer adolescents with high depressive symptoms which is a difference of 1.6% in prevalence (27.1% to 25.4%) • There was no overall effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescent externalising difficulties • Girls’ mental health may have been more negatively impacted by the COVID 19 pandemic than boy