Themen für Bachelorarbeiten

Beschreibung: The idea that people avoid effort has been challenged by growing research showing that effort can elicit pleasure, meaning, or reward. These findings suggest that experiences of effort and exhaustion vary across individuals. This thesis will (1) provide an overview of empirical and theoretical work on effort and exhaustion being associated with pleasure, meaning, or reward, (2) explore the individual differences contributing to these responses, and (3) outline conceptual and methodological gaps for future investigation.

Literature:
Inzlicht, M., Shenhav, A., & Olivola, C. Y. (2018). The effort paradox: Effort is both costly and valued. Trends in cognitive sciences, 22(4), 337-349.
Kraus, J., Mlynski, C., Hartmann, F., Clay, G., Goschke, T., Silani, G., & Job, V. (2025). The pleasure of effort: Cognitive challenges trigger hedonic physiological responses. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1546(1), 100-111.
Kontakt: Beatrice Tarapoanca, MSc, E-Mail

Beschreibung: Punishment is widely discussed as a mechanism for maintaining cooperation and defending social norms, particularly among individuals who strongly identify with and value their own group. However, sanctioning can also backfire when driven by emotional and hierarchical motives such as revenge, threat reduction, or dominance projection, sometimes resulting in the punishment of cooperators themselves despite intentions to protect the group. This thesis will synthesize existing literature to examine the psychological drivers of destructive ingroup sanctioning, and how individuals justify or pursue punishment as group-protective even when it carries long-term social and cooperative costs, contributing to clearer theoretical framing for future research on cooperation breakdown and social punishment dynamics.

Wu, J., Luan, S., & Raihani, N. (2022). Reward, punishment, and prosocial behavior: Recent developments and implications. Current Opinion in Psychology, 44, 117-123.
Kontakt: Dr. Sae In Lee, E-Mail

Beschreibung: Exhaustion is crucial to people's daily lives, impacting their overall well-being and performance. Measuring mental exhaustion is a challenging question that researchers have been working on. This review aims to explore various indicators and approaches employed to effectively assess mental exhaustion. For instance, self-report scales, physiological markers and cognitive performance tasks. This review offers valuable guidance for future research in understanding and addressing the complexities of exhaustion.

Reference:
Smith, M. R., Chai, R., Nguyen, H. T., Marcora, S. M., & Coutts, A. J. (2019). Comparing the Effects of Three Cognitive Tasks on Indicators of Mental Fatigue. The Journal of Psychology, 153(8), 759?783. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223980.2019.1611530
Kontakt: Ziqi Zhang, M.Ed., E-Mail

Beschreibung: Retirement represents a major life transition, characterized by various changes in routines, activities, and social life when an individual leaves active employment. Consequently, as individuals approach retirement, they experience motivation changes that may deeply influence their overall well-being. This thesis aims to explore whether and how different types of pre-retirement leisure activities and leisure routines influence individuals? well-being and adjustment during the transition to retirement.

Reference:

Henning, G., Stenling, A., Bielak, A. A., Bjälkebring, P., Gow, A. J., Kivi, M., ... & Lindwall, M. (2021). Towards an active and happy retirement? Changes in leisure activity and depressive symptoms during the retirement transition. Aging & mental health, 25(4), 621-631. https://doi.org/10.1080/13607863.2019.1709156

Earl, J. K., Gerrans, P., & Halim, V. A. (2015). Active and adjusted: Investigating the contribution of leisure, health and psychosocial factors to retirement adjustment. Leisure Sciences, 37(4), 354-372. https://doi.org/10.1080/01490400.2015.1021881
Kontakt: Dr. Kang Leng Ho, E-Mail

Beschreibung: How we feel throughout the workweek changes. As exhaustion commonly arises from work-related strain and demands, time away from such demands is essential for recovery. Exhaustion follows weekly trajectories and cycles, with notable differences between Fridays and the earlier weekdays. As work demands ease toward the end of week and the weekend approaches, opportunities for rest and recovery increase. Exhaustion tends to be lowest during the weekends. This thesis aims to explore whether employees? exhaustion on Fridays differs from other week days, and whether this pattern may be explained by reduced workload on Fridays or by the anticipation of upcoming weekend recovery.

Reference: Weigelt, O., Siestrup, K., & Prem, R. (2021). Continuity in transition: Combining recovery and day?of?week perspectives to understand changes in employee energy across the 7?day week. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 42(5), 567-586. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2514
Kontakt: Dr. Kang Leng Ho, E-Mail

Beschreibung: Ob das Ergebnis einer Entscheidung als Gewinn oder Verlust wahrgenommen wird, hängt oft von unseren Erwartungen ab. Dabei scheint auch das Nachdenken über alternative mögliche Verläufe zu beeinflussen, ob wir uns mit einem Ergebnis eher glücklich oder unglücklich fühlen. Diese Arbeit soll einen Überblick über die Forschung zu individuellen Unterschieden in Erwartungen und Referenzpunkten (und damit der Beurteilung von Gewinnen und Verlusten) bei Entscheidungsprozessen geben und die empirische Forschung zu diesem Thema berücksichtigen.

Medvec, V. H., Madey, S. F., & Gilovich, T. (1995). When less is more: Counterfactual thinking and satisfaction among Olympic medalists. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69(4), 603?610. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.69.4.603

Mellers, B. A., & Yin, S. (2023). Reference-point theory: An account of individual differences in risk preferences. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 20(1), https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916231190393
Kontakt: Dr. Sebastian Horn, E-Mail

Beschreibung: Mental effort is a highly explored concept in fields of study related to human behavior. However, disentangling mental effort from task demands, performance, and arousal is not straight forward. For this thesis, you are tasked with identifying and discussing potential psychophysiological measures as indicators of mental effort, exhaustion and/or recovery. Optionally, this work could examine the practical feasibility of using such measures in field or experimental settings.

Gieseler, K., Loschelder, D. D., Job, V., & Friese, M. (2021). A preregistered test of competing theories to explain ego depletion effects using psychophysiological indicators of mental effort. Motivation Science, 7(1), 32?45. https://doi.org/10.1037/mot0000183
Thomson, K. S., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2022). The "effort elephant" in the room: What is effort, anyway? Perspectives on Psychological Science: A Journal of the Association for Psychological Science, 17(6), 1633?1652. https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916211064896
Kontakt: Tove Hensler, MSc, E-Mail

Beschreibung: Intentional norm violations aimed at generating positive societal outcomes can play a central role in activism and resistance movements. Actions such as civil disobedience and disruptive protest are frequently motivated by intrinsic moral convictions and prosocial goals. However, what responses such behaviors provoke vary significantly. In this thesis, you are invited to explore the psychological factors that influence whether such norm violations are perceived as justified, admirable, or unacceptable. You could approach this question from a motivational or developmental perspective, for example considering how individual goals, moral convictions, or developmental stage influence judgments of prosocial norm violations.

Marques, J., & Pinto, I. R. (2023). Inclusion, exclusion, and marginalization of group deviants. Oxford research encyclopedia of psychology.
Kontakt: Tove Hensler, MSc, E-Mail

Beschreibung: Soziale Identität kann das emotionale Wohlbefinden beeinflussen. Dies hat sich besonders während Krisenzeit wie der Coronapandemie gezeigt. In dieser Bachelorarbeit soll untersucht werden, welche Mechanismen erklären, dass sich soziale Identität auf das emotionale Wohlbefinden auswirkt, sowohl vor als auch während einer Gesundheitskrise.

Referenz
Huang, H. Y., Li, H., & Hsu, Y. C. (2022). Coping, COVID knowledge, communication, and HBCU student's emotional well?being: Mediating role of perceived control and social connectedness. Journal of Community Psychology, 50(6), 2703-2725.
Kontakt: Sophie Kittelberger, MSc, E-Mail

Beschreibung: According to shared reality theory (Echterhoff et al., 2009), people are motivated to create shared realties with others to fulfill their needs for accurate knowledge and social connection. The internet allows us to connect with like-minded people on virtually any belief or value. The aim of this thesis is to discuss how shared reality formation in online echo chambers affects moral belief formation on both an individual and societal level based on empirical evidence and psychological theory.

The thesis can be written in English or German.

Literature: Echterhoff, G., Higgins, E. T., & Levine, J. M. (2009). Shared reality: Experiencing commonality with others' inner states about the world. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4(5), 496?521. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6924.2009.01161.x
Kontakt: Jasmin Weber, MSc, E-Mail

Beschreibung: Effort plays a key role in learning, decision-making, and goal pursuit. Yet, measuring how individuals differ in their experience of effort remains a complex and open question. While many cognitive tasks reliably produce group-level effects, they often fail to capture stable
individual differences. This review project will explore how effort is currently conceptualized, what methods are used to measure it (e.g., self-reports, behavioral tasks), and why many commonly used tasks may not be suitable for individual differences research. The project will also discuss possible solutions, such as task redesign or the use of trial-level data. By reviewing current approaches, the goal is to better understand how effort can be studied as a stable trait across individuals and guide future empirical work.

Reference:
Hedge, C., Powell, G., & Sumner, P. (2018). The reliability paradox: Why robust cognitive tasks do not produce reliable individual differences. Behavior Research Methods, 50(3), 1166?1186. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-017-0935-1
Kontakt: Ziqi Zhang, M.Ed., E-Mail