Themen für Bachelorarbeiten

Beschreibung: Speciesism refers to prejudices for the rights of one species - humans - to exert dominion over others. Speciesism supports exploitative behaviors among humans in relation to animals including animal agriculture, labor, and entertainment. Although most people do not support the exploitation of animals when asked explicitly, they support it implicitly through their voting, consumption, and other behaviors. Moreover, speciesism is often not recognized in discussions of other social justice causes oriented around supporting those with less power against those who have exploited them, such as racism, sexism, ableism, or homo/transphobia. The goal of this thesis is to review research on the psychological foundations of speciesism, to connect this research to research on power-based exploitation and social justice more generally, and to pursue the question of why people with social justice concerns nevertheless support the exploitation of non-humans.

Bastian, B., Loughnan, S., Haslam, N., & Radke, H. R. (2012). Don?t mind meat? The denial of mind to animals used for human consumption. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38(2), 247-256.

Caviola, L., Everett, J. A. C., & Faber, N. S. (2019). The moral standing of animals: Towards a psychology of speciesism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 116(6), 1011?1029.

Dhont, K., Hodson, G., & Leite, A. C. (2016). Common ideological roots of speciesism and generalized ethnic prejudice: The social dominance human?animal relations model (SD?HARM). European Journal of Personality, 30(6), 507-522.

Kontakt: Christopher Hopwood, E-Mail

Beschreibung: Romantic partners must negotiate many aspects of their daily life to have a successful relationship. This can be challenging when certain values and patterns of behaviors do not align. One example of how this can play out is when one partner eats less animal products than the other. The goal of this thesis is to review the literature on plant-based diets and relationship dynamics to develop a model of how partners with different diets navigate this difference, and whether partners might be in a unique position to influence one another's eating behaviors.
Kontakt: Christopher Hopwood, E-Mail

Beschreibung: Vegetarian and vegan diets are increasing in Switzerland and other Western countries. People adopt these diets for various reasons, including those related to health, the environment, and animal rights. However, many vegetarians eventually go back to eating animals. The goal of this thesis is to do a literature review of studies on vegetarian backsliders to better understand the reasons that people do not sustain a vegetarian diet.
Kontakt: Christopher Hopwood, E-Mail

Beschreibung: Climate change poses a grave threat to existence. As psychologists, we can play a role in combatting climate change by understanding the psychological factors that support proenvironmental behavior. A variety of attitudinal and motivational variables have been empirically linked to proenvironmental behavior. However, these variables are often studied in isolation from one another by different research teams or in different sub-disciplines. A comprehensive model of proenvironmental attitudes and motives would bring order to this literature, promote communication across sub-disciplines, and provide a heuristic framework for future research. The goal of this thesis is to review the literature to identify and summarize measures that have been used to assess proenvironmental psychological variables, toward the generation of a comprehensive model.

Nielsen, K. S., Clayton, S., Stern, P. C., Dietz, T., Capstick, S., & Whitmarsh, L. (2021). How psychology can help limit climate change. American Psychologist, 76(1), 130-144.

Soutter, A. R. B., Bates, T. C., & Mõttus, R. (2020). Big Five and HEXACO personality traits, proenvironmental attitudes, and behaviors: A meta-analysis. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 15(4), 913-941.

Steg, L., Bolderdijk, J. W., Keizer, K., & Perlaviciute, G. (2014). An integrated framework for encouraging pro-environmental behaviour: The role of values, situational factors and goals. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 38, 104-115.

Kontakt: Christopher Hopwood, E-Mail

Beschreibung: Relationships are fundamental to the human experience, and listening is a fundamental feature of relationships. But what is happening between people while they listen to one another? Different people listen in different ways, depending on who they are, who they are listening to, and what situation they are in. There are a variety of taxonomies of listening styles. The goal of this thesis is to summarize these different models of listening styles, and to attempt to generate a comprehensive model of the different ways that people approach listening.

Watson, K. W., Barker, L. L., & Weaver III, J. B. (1995). The listening styles profile (LSP-16): Development and validation of an instrument to assess four listening styles. International Journal of Listening, 9(1), 1-13.

Weaver III, J. B., Watson, K. W., & Barker, L. L. (1996). Individual differences in listening styles: Do you hear what I hear?. Personality and Individual Differences, 20(3), 381-387.

Weger Jr, H., Castle Bell, G., Minei, E. M., & Robinson, M. C. (2014). The relative effectiveness of active listening in initial interactions. International Journal of Listening, 28(1), 13-31.
Kontakt: Christopher Hopwood, E-Mail