Themen für Bachelorarbeiten

Beschreibung: Glaubt man aktuellen qualitativen und quantitativen Analysen, befindet sich die interdisziplinäre Forschung in eine Glaubwürdigkeitskrise: Es werden i.d.R. nur «positive» wissenschaftliche Befunde publiziert, die i.d.R. weder reproduzierbar noch replizierbar sind (O?Boyle & Götz, 2022). Ein möglicher Grund dafür liegt in sog. researchers' degrees of freedom, da Wissenschafter bei der Vorbereitung, Umsetzung und Analyse ihrer Studien viele Entscheidungen treffen müssen, die mitunter das schlussendliche Ergebnis dieser beeinflussen (Simmons et al., 2011). Vor diesem Hintergrund schlugen Steegen et al. (2016) sog. Multiverse Analysen vor, mit Hilfe derer alle möglichen Entscheidungen, die Wissenschafter im Rahmen ihrer Arbeit treffen, parallel modelliert werden, um somit den tatsächlichen Einfluss dieser auf ein Studienergebnis sichtbar zu machen (e.g., Breznau et al., 2022; Del Giudice & Gangestad, 2021; Harder, 2020; Heyman & Vanpaemel, 2022).

Vor diesem Hintergrund ist es das Ziel der Literaturarbeit, (1) Multiverse Analysen im Kontext des wissenschaftlichen Arbeitens zu erklären und dabei Vor- und Nachteile zu beleuchten, (2) empirische Arbeiten zu identifizieren, die solche Analysen eingesetzt haben und diese zu evaluieren sowie (3) eine konstruktiv-kritische Diskussion zu führen, ob Multiverse Analysen ein geeignetes Instrument darstellen, um wissenschaftliche Forschung transparenter und reproduzierbarer zu machen.

Initiale Literatur:
Breznau, N., Rinke, E. M., Wuttke, A., Nguyen, H. H. V., Adem, M., Adriaans, J., Alvarez-Benjumea, A., Andersen, H. K., Auer, D., Azevedo, F., Bahnsen, O., Balzer, D., Bauer, G., Bauer, P. C., Baumann, M., Baute, S., Benoit, V., Bernauer, J., Berning, C., ? ?ó?tak, T. (2022). Observing many researchers using the same data and hypothesis reveals a hidden universe of uncertainty. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(44), e2203150119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2203150119
Del Giudice, M., & Gangestad, S. W. (2021). A traveler?s guide to the multiverse: Promises, pitfalls, and a framework for the evaluation of analytic decisions. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 4(1), 251524592095492. https://doi.org/10.1177/2515245920954925
Harder, J. A. (2020). The multiverse of methods: Extending the multiverse analysis to address data-collection decisions. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 15(5), 1158?1177. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691620917678
Heyman, T., & Vanpaemel, W. (2022). Multiverse analyses in the classroom. Meta-Psychology, 6. https://doi.org/10.15626/MP.2020.2718
O?Boyle, E. H., & Götz, M. (2022). Questionable research practices. In L. J. Jussim, J. A. Krosnick, & S. T. Stevens (Eds.), Research integrity: Best practices for the social and behavioral sciences (pp. 260?294). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190938550.003.0010
Simmons, J. P., Nelson, L. D., & Simonsohn, U. (2011). False-positive psychology: Undisclosed flexibility in data collection and analysis allows presenting anything as significant. Psychological Science, 22(11), 1359?1366. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797611417632
Steegen, S., Tuerlinckx, F., Gelman, A., & Vanpaemel, W. (2016). Increasing transparency through a multiverse analysis. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11(5), 702?712. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691616658637
Kontakt: Martin Götz, E-Mail

Beschreibung: Imagine it?s a Friday evening, and you decided to go to a restaurant with a couple of friends. You have enjoyed your dinner, and now you want to pay the bill. You all agree that paying individually is the worst outcome, as it will take time off of your Friday night. If someone decides to step up and front the bill, that would be better for everyone (this person included). On the other hand, the person who volunteers will have to pay the whole cost upfront and then wait some days in order to get the money back. Maybe, this person will have to remind the others, and there is a (small) risk that someone will not pay the money back at all. In other words, everyone would prefer to have someone else volunteer, but they prefer to volunteer themselves over having no volunteers at all. Under a game-theoretical analysis, such a situation can be called a volunteer?s dilemma (Diekmann, 1985). In the volunteer?s dilemma there is cooperation problem arising from the lower benefits that the volunteer receives, and a coordination problem arising from deciding who will volunteer (Diekmann & Przepiorka, 2016).
How can differences in the design (e.g., group size; Bergstrom et al., 2019; Kopányi-Peuker, 2019) and the individuals (e.g., culture; Olivola et al., 2020) influence people?s decision to volunteer?

The aim of the proposed literature review is (1) to provide an overview of empirical and theoretical research on the volunteer?s dilemma (2) to explore differences in cooperation rates based on design and individual differences (3) to discuss the findings and identify directions for future research.

Initial literature:

Bergstrom, T., Garratt, R., & Leo, G. (2019). Let me, or let George? Motives of competing altruists. Games and Economic Behavior, 118, 269?283. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geb.2019.09.002
Diekmann, A. (1985). Volunteer?s Dilemma. The Journal of Conflict Resolution, 29(4), 605?610.
Diekmann, A., & Przepiorka, W. (2016). ?Take One for the Team!? Individual Heterogeneity and the Emergence of Latent Norms in a Volunteer?s Dilemma. Social Forces, 94(3), 1309?1333. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/sov107
Kopányi-Peuker, A. (2019). Yes, I?ll do it: A large-scale experiment on the volunteer?s dilemma. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 80, 211?218. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2019.04.004
Olivola, C. Y., Kim, Y., Merzel, A., Kareev, Y., Avrahami, J., & Ritov, I. (2020). Cooperation and coordination across cultures and contexts: Individual, sociocultural, and contextual factors jointly influence decision making in the volunteer?s dilemma game. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 33(1), 93?118. https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.2135
Kontakt: Filippo Toscano, E-Mail

Beschreibung: Social dilemmas are situations in which the interests of a group clash with the interests of an individual. Specifically, the group is better off when everyone cooperates, but individually it?s better to avoid doing so (i.e., it?s better to free-ride; Nowak, 2006). For example, people in a train talk quietly to ensure a relaxing trip for everyone. However, if someone receives a call, they might decide to answer, disturbing those around them, instead of rejecting the call. Subsequently, another person on the train could decide to reprimand the person on the phone ? punishing the free-rider. Experimentally, the introduction of sanctions (punishment or rewards) is a common approach to incentivize cooperation (van Lange et al., 2014), and has been shown to be effective (Fehr & Gächter, 2000).
Punishers might be preferred as partners in later interactions (Nelissen, 2008), but interestingly, they are not always seen in a good light (Eriksson et al., 2017), and might, for example, end up with a worse reputation than non-punishers (Ozono & Watabe, 2012). Therefore, the question arises: what makes the perception of sanctioners change? Moreover, given the uncertain reputational benefits, what are the motivations behind people?s decisions to sanction?

The aim of the proposed literature review is (1) to provide an overview of empirical and theoretical research on sanctions in social dilemmas (2) to explore motivations and perceptions related to sanctions (3) to discuss the findings and identify directions for future research.

Initial literature:

Eriksson, K., Andersson, P. A., & Strimling, P. (2017). When is it appropriate to reprimand a norm violation? The roles of anger, behavioral consequences, violation severity, and social distance. Judgment and Decision Making, 12(4), 396?407. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1930297500006264
Fehr, E., & Gächter, S. (2000). Cooperation and Punishment in Public Goods Experiments. American Economic Review, 90(4), 980?994. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.90.4.980
Nelissen, R. M. A. (2008). The price you pay: Cost-dependent reputation effects of altruistic punishment. Evolution and Human Behavior, 29(4), 242?248. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2008.01.001
Nowak, M. A. (2006). Five Rules for the Evolution of Cooperation. Science, 314(5805), 1560?1563. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1133755
Ozono, H., & Watabe, M. (2012). Reputational benefit of punishment: Comparison among the punisher, rewarder, and non-sanctioner. Letters on Evolutionary Behavioral Science, 3(2), 21?24. https://doi.org/10.5178/lebs.2012.22
van Lange, P. A. M., Rockenbach, B., & Yamagishi, T. (Eds.). (2014). Reward and punishment in social dilemmas. Oxford University Press.
Kontakt: Filippo Toscano, E-Mail

Beschreibung: «COVID-19 kommt aus einem Labor, wurde von Bill Gates entwickelt oder existiert gar nicht.», «Joe Biden hat die Wahl um die Präsidentschaft in den USA eigentlich verloren und Donald Trump ist auch heute noch Präsident der USA.» oder auch «Der Klimawandel ist nicht real.» Menschen, die solche Aussagen für wahr halten, werden gemeinhin als Verschwörungstheoretiker bezeichnet. Da die Zahl der Anhänger von Verschwörungstheorien in den letzten Jahren enorm gestiegen ist (Douglas et al., 2017), hat sich auch die psychologische Forschung diesem gesellschaftlich relevanten Thema zugewandt. Dabei versucht sie, herauszufinden, wer wann an Verschwörungstheorien glaubt und welche Konsequenzen ein Glauben an diese mitunter mit sich bringt (e.g., Douglas et al., 2019; Imhoff & Lamberty, 2020; Sutton & Douglas, 2020; van Prooijen & van Vugt, 2018).

Vor diesem Hintergrund ist es das Ziel der Literaturarbeit (1) einen Überblick über die theoretischen Modelle, die genutzt werden, um den Glauben an Verschwörungstheorien sowie die Konsequenzen davon, wissenschaftlich zu untersuchen, zu geben (2) exemplarische empirische Befunde zusammenzutragen, die in der aktuellen Literatur zum Thema «Glauben an Verschwörungstheorien» existieren sowie (3) eine konstruktiv-kritische Diskussion zum aktuellen Wissensstand bzgl. des Glaubens an Verschwörungstheorien zu führen.

Initiale Literatur:

Douglas, K. M., Sutton, R. M., & Cichocka, A. (2017). The psychology of conspiracy theories. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 26(6), 538?542. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721417718261
Douglas, K. M., Uscinski, J. E., Sutton, R. M., Cichocka, A., Nefes, T., Ang, C. S., & Deravi, F. (2019). Understanding conspiracy theories. Political Psychology, 40(S1), 3?35. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12568
Imhoff, R., & Lamberty, P. (2020). A bioweapon or a hoax? The link between distinct conspiracy beliefs about the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak and pandemic behavior. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 11(8), 1110?1118. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550620934692
Sutton, R. M., & Douglas, K. M. (2020). Conspiracy theories and the conspiracy mindset: Implications for political ideology. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 34, 118?122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2020.02.015
van Prooijen, J.-W., & van Vugt, M. (2018). Conspiracy theories: Evolved functions and psychological mechanisms. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 13(6), 770?788. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691618774270
Kontakt: Martin Götz, E-Mail