Journals

Declaration of Competing Interests

• Requirement: All manuscripts submitted to the Journals of the British Psychological Society must contain a declaration of significant competing interests which may be included in the paper alongside any acknowledgements when published. You will be asked to declare any potentially competing interests as part of the online submission process. No manuscript will be considered for publication unless this information is included.
• Statement: If there are no potentially competing interests to be declared, please enter ‘none’. The following wording will be published: ‘Declaration of interests: None’.
• Openness: There is nothing inherently unethical about conflicts of interests but they should be acknowledged and openly stated. Papers will not be rejected simply because of a competing interest. It is intended that the reader may judge and, if necessary, make allowances for possible bias on the information being reported.
• Definition: A competing interest exists when the author(s) or their institution(s) have a personal or financial involvement (alone or in relationship with other persons or organisations) that might inappropriately affect the author(s) scientific judgement, interpretation of data (either in the current manuscript or material that has been referenced) or presentation of information positively or negatively (with or without the author(s) consciously knowing about it).
• Categories: Possible competing interests can be divided into two broad categories:
  1. Financial interests - The author(s) or their institutions stand to gain or lose financially from the publication of the paper. Examples include employment by an organisation, research grants, salaries, consultancy fees, funds for a member of staff, stocks or shares, patent interests, or being the copyright holder and/or recipient of royalties from a psychological test.
  2. Non-financial interests - The author(s) or their institution(s) have an academic link, rivalry, close relationship with or antipathy to a person or organization whose interests may be affected by the publication of the paper.
• Significance: It is difficult to define what constitutes a ‘significant’ competing interest because this is a matter of judgement. The author(s) should consider whether they or their institution are likely to be substantially affected by their secondary interest(s) upon publication of the manuscript. In general, the safest and most open course of action is to declare any competing interests that others might view as conflicting even if the author(s) themselves do not. The author(s) should also disclose any financial or other interests that might cause them, their institution(s) or the British Psychological Society embarrassment were they to become public after the publication of the paper.
• Anonymity: The Editor and Associate Editor (if applicable) will be able to view the declaration of interests as part of the review process but they will not be visible to the reviewers.
• Publication: A declaration of interests may be removed prior to publication at the discretion of the Editor if it is deemed to be insignificant.