Themen für Bachelorarbeiten

Beschreibung: Mentale Buchführung bezeichnet das Phänomen, dass Menschen ihre finanziellen Aktivitäten psychologisch in Kategorien einteilen, sogenannte «mentalen Konten», die wie ein inneres «Haushaltsbuch» funktionieren (Thaler, 1999). Statt finanzielle Mittel als austauschbar zu behandeln, werden Einnahmen und Ausgaben mental bestimmten Kategorien zugewiesen, etwa für Haushalt, Freizeitaktivitäten, Geschenke, oder Urlaube. Diese kognitive Strukturierung kann einerseits helfen den Überblick zu behalten und Entscheidungen zu vereinfachen, andererseits aber zu scheinbar paradoxen oder ökonomisch fragwürdigen Verhaltensweisen führen. Obwohl das Phänomen vielfach untersucht wurde, ist wenig darüber bekannt, wie sich mentale Buchführung zwischen Personen unterscheidet und über die Lebensspanne hinweg verändert. Erste Hinweise deuten darauf hin, dass Unterschiede in Persönlichkeitsmerkmalen, Selbstkontrolle, und Zeitorientierung ? alles altersabhängige Faktoren ? auch die mentale Buchführung beeinflussen können (Muehlbacher & Kirchler, 2019). Die geplante Bachelorarbeit soll einen Beitrag zur entwicklungspsychologischen Entscheidungsforschung leisten, indem sie die vorhandene Literatur diskutiert und untersucht, ob und wie sich mentale Buchführung zwischen jüngeren und älteren Erwachsenen unterscheidet.

Literatur:
Muehlbacher, S., & Kirchler, E. (2019). Individual differences in mental accounting. Frontiers in Psychology, 10.

Thaler, R. H. (1999). Mental accounting matters. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 12(3), 183?206.
Kontakt: Dr. Sebastian Horn, E-Mail

Beschreibung: In motivation psychology, effort and exhaustion are often seen as cues to slow down or withdraw from activity. Yet, recent studies highlight that people may assign positive value to these experiences, which can meaningfully impact how they engage with physical activity and whether they sustain it over time. This thesis invites you to explore and critically analyze how individuals? perceptions and valuations of effort and exhaustion influence their motivation in exercise experiences and adherence.

Stähler, J., Bieleke, M., Wolff, W., Gruber, M., Barzyk, P., & Schüler, J. (2025). The experience of physical effort is related to the value of physical effort during low, moderate, and vigorous exercise.
Kontakt: Beatrice Tarapoanca, 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

Beschreibung: Humans are social beings. Belonging to social groups forms part of a person?s self-concept, takes on emotional significance, and influences our behavior. So how do people respond when confronted with historical atrocities committed by groups they identify with, such as their nation, ethnic group, or political party? Do they experience guilt and accept responsibility, or do they deny, minimize, and morally disengage? And how do their internal experiences translate into behavior? The aim of this bachelor thesis is to discuss these questions based on empirical evidence and psychological theory.

The thesis can be written in English or German.

Literature:
Wohl, M. J. A., Branscombe, N. R., & Klar, Y. (2006). Collective guilt: Emotional reactions when one?s group has done wrong or been wronged. European Review of Social Psychology, 17(1), 1?37. https://doi.org/10.1080/10463280600574815
Kontakt: Jasmin Weber, MSc, E-Mail

Beschreibung: Soziale Identität leistet einen wichtigen Erklärungsbeitrag, um Verhalten, Einstellungen oder Wohlbefinden in unterschiedlichen Kontexten zu verstehen. In Experimenten kann die soziale Identität mit verschiedenen Techniken manipuliert werden, um kausale Aussagen über deren Wirkung zu treffen. In dieser Bachelorarbeit soll untersucht werden, welche verschiedenen Techniken es zur Manipulation der sozialen Identität gibt und für welche Forschungsfragen diese jeweils eingesetzt werden.

Referenz
Haslam, S. Alexander, Penelope J. Oakes, Katherine J. Reynolds, & John C. Turner. (1999). Social Identity Salience and the Emergence of Stereotype Consensus. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 25, (7): 809?18. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167299025007004.
Kontakt: Sophie Kittelberger, MSc, 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.

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