Themen für Masterarbeiten

Beschreibung: Speciesism is prejudiced or discriminatory belief s or attitudes among humans about non-human animals. Previous research has shown that speciesist attitudes are positively related to other discriminatory attitudes, such as racism, sexism, and homophobia. However, this research is based on measures that do not distinguish different non-human species from one another. It is likely that a person's level of speciesism varies across different species. For example, people may believe it is more acceptable to exploit a mosquito than a cow, more acceptable to exploit a cow than an ape, etc. The goals of this study would be to a) determine what species people typically think of when completing a measure of speciesism and b) examine whether varying target species systematically affects speciesism scores and correlates.

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: The transition to plant-based food has many benefits for the health of the planet, social justice, and health. Most research on attitudes about plant-based food has been conducted in Western samples. This study would use data collected from 23 countries around the world, in which respondents rated how familiar they are and how interested they are in plant-based food. The project could focus on country-level differences, as well as individual differences (e.g., gender, age, ses) within each country.

Kontakt: Christopher Hopwood, E-Mail

Beschreibung: The way people behave depends in part on the situations they are in. This study would also use previously collected data from partners, one of whom eats more animal products than the other, who had four conversations: best things in their relationship, biggest challenges in their relationship, and why they do/don?t eat more/less animal products. These interactions were coded for warmth and dominance as the two people discussed these topics. This study would involve using generalizability theory models to examine how these interactions differed from one another.

Fox, S. E., Thomas, K. M., Durbin, C. E., & Hopwood, C. J. (2021). A variance decomposition of the Continuous Assessment of Interpersonal Dynamics. Psychological Assessment, 33(5), 427?442.

Meisel, S. N., Colder, C. R., & Hopwood, C. J. (2022). Assessing parent-adolescent substance use discussions using the continuous assessment of interpersonal dynamics. Journal of personality assessment, 104(6), 800-812.
Kontakt: Christopher Hopwood, E-Mail

Beschreibung: Climate change is a major threat to well-being and security, and human behavior change will be a major factor in addressing the threat. Because sustainable behavior is affected by attitudes towards climate change, social science research has focused significant attention on individual differences in environmental attitudes. However, this research has been conducted almost exclusively in Western or, less often, Asian countries. The goal of this study is to understand environmental attitudes in three sub-saharan African countries: Kenya, Namibia, and South America. Using data recently collected in those countries, this thesis will involve testing the factor structure and measurement equivalence of an environmental attitudes measure in these countries, as well as correlations with personality variables.
Kontakt: Christopher Hopwood, E-Mail

Beschreibung: Listening is an important behavior for many interpersonal contexts and situations, and different people listen in different ways. There are a variety of taxonomies of listening styles, but none are rooted in general models of individual differences. Using pilot data that has already been collected as well as new data generated for this project, the goal of this thesis would be to test a five-factor model of listening with dimensions that reflect those of basic personality traits.

Sims, C. M. (2017). Do the big-five personality traits predict empathic listening and assertive communication?. International journal of listening, 31(3), 163-188.

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.

Kontakt: Christopher Hopwood, E-Mail

Beschreibung: Three interpersonal dynamics have been established across many studies in which temporal variation in warmth and dominance is examined across individuals and dyads over time: a) orthogonality, such that warmth and dominance are independent of each other, b) reciprocity, such that one person?s dominance is associated with the other?s submissiveness, and c) similarity, such that one person?s warmth is associated with the other?s warmth. However, these parameters may differ within any particular person or dyad, a pattern known as ergodicity. The tendency for individual dyads to be systematically similar or different from these general tendencies, and correlates of such differences, has not been examined. The goal of this study would be to examine ergodicity using data that have already been collected in which the interpersonal interactions of couples were coded across four types of interaction.

Fox, S. E., Thomas, K. M., Durbin, C. E., & Hopwood, C. J. (2021). A variance decomposition of the Continuous Assessment of Interpersonal Dynamics. Psychological Assessment, 33(5), 427?442.

Lane, S. T., Gates, K. M., Pike, H. K., Beltz, A. M., & Wright, A. G. (2019). Uncovering general, shared, and unique temporal patterns in ambulatory assessment data. Psychological Methods, 24(1), 54-69.

Sadler, P., Ethier, N., Gunn, G. R., Duong, D., & Woody, E. (2009). Are we on the same wavelength? Interpersonal complementarity as shared cyclical patterns during interactions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97(6), 1005?1020.

Kontakt: Christopher Hopwood, E-Mail