Masterarbeiten

Beschreibung: Many contemporary social problems, for example the disruption caused by advanced technologies, are complex and ill-defined, requiring creative solutions that are at once novel, useful, and feasible. While the psychology of idea generation has been studied extensively, much less is known about idea generation in the context of new and complex societal issues. This thesis project explores how individuals generate solutions to such social problems. Depending on the student's interests and a research proposal developed together with the advisor, the project can take one of several possible directions: how people ideate on these emerging problems; how they evaluate potential solutions and make decisions about them, weighing novelty, impact, and feasibility; which psychological characteristics during ideation support efforts to solve problems; or what the consequences of engaging in ideation on these complex problems might be, particularly for chaging people's beliefs (e.g. perceived interdependence). Among the ones suggested above, the specific direction of the thesis will depend on the justification of the research question, theoretical considerations and its relevance to real-world issues with applied implications. Also, the student is free to bring additional theoretical angles, as long as they build a resonable research proposal in one of the suggested questions above.

Reading Examples:
Amabile, T. M. (1983). The social psychology of creativity: A componential conceptualization. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45(2), 357?376.
Glück, J., & Brienza, J. P. (2025). Wisdom in action: A call to bridge fields in psychology (and beyond) to solve complex world problems. American Psychologist.
Kim, S., Rodas, M. A., & Goncalo, J. A. (2025). Creativity connects: Generating creative ideas on behalf of a brand increases feelings of connection. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 01461672251338686.
Yang, W., Green, A. E., Chen, Q., Kenett, Y. N., Sun, J., Wei, D., & Qiu, J. (2022). Creative problem solving in knowledge-rich contexts. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 26(10), 849?859.
Johnson, W., & Proudfoot, D. (2024). Greater variability in judgements of the value of novel ideas. Nature Human Behaviour, 8(3), 471?479.
Meyer, M. L., Hershfield, H. E., Waytz, A. G., Mildner, J. N., & Tamir, D. I. (2019). Creative expertise is associated with transcending the here and now. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 116(4), 483.
Kontakt: M. Onur Yasa, E-Mail

Beschreibung: How does perceiving a decline in acceptance towards one?s group impact engagement in collective action? How do people vary in their perception of a backlash, and do people develop different strategies to address this backlash (e.g., by disidentifying with the group, disengaging, or instead increasing engagement)?
Drawing on data collected as part of the Swiss LGBTIQ+ Panel annual survey, this master?s thesis will investigate how perception of the future and past situation of different LGBTIQ+ subgroups can impact engagement in collective action.

Eisner, L., Settersten, R., Turner-Zwinkels, F., & Hässler, T. (2022). Perceptions of intolerant norms both facilitate and inhibit collective action among sexual minorities. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 25(7), 1797-1818.

Lizzio?Wilson, M., Wenzel, M., Thomas, E. F., Osborne, D., & Skitka, L. J. (2025). What is, what was and what could be: Simultaneously comparing how emotional reactions to the past, present and future predict collective action. European Journal of Social Psychology, 55(7), 1369-1396.

Lizzio-Wilson, M., Thomas, E. F., Louis, W. R., Wilcockson, B., Amiot, C. E., Moghaddam, F. M., & McGarty, C. (2021). How collective-action failure shapes group heterogeneity and engagement in conventional and radical action over time. Psychological Science, 32(4), 519-535.

Eisner, L. & Hässler, T. (2025). Swiss LGBTIQ+ Panel - 2025 Summary Report. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/xgmue_v1
Kontakt: Léïla Eisner, E-Mail

Beschreibung: Wie verteilen Menschen Ressourcen, wenn nicht genug für alle da ist? In dieser Masterarbeit sollen empirische Daten gesammelt werden zu verschiedenen Verteilungssituationen (u.a., humanitäre Hilfe). Verschiedene ethische Prinzipien können dabei experimentell kontrastiert werden.
Kontakt: Johannes Ullrich, E-Mail

Beschreibung: We are offering a Master?s Thesis based on a new theoretical framework of social inequalities and social change. Please first read the article ?Beyond Identity: A Framework for the Study of Social Inequalities and Social Change? (see https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840X.2025.2457885) and then get in touch with Simone Sebben to schedule a meeting in which we can discuss what this thesis would entail (e.g., the precise topic and procedure). For this thesis, you would need to program an online experiment and conduct your statistical analyses in R.
Kontakt: Simone Sebben, E-Mail