Contents

Thesis, Introduction.

Hurray! You are thinking about doing your thesis project with me (at any level). On this page I will provide some topics which I would (prefer to) supervise. It also has some further information on the projects. This is still in progress, all feedback welcome. Do also alert me to dead links, which I will fix. Information on the thesis supervision itself can be found here.

I strongly prefer that you pick a topic within the set below. My experience is that preset topics tend to lead to higher marks. Students also face less agony in terms of decisions.

If you want to go off the beaten path and suggest your own project: I am a behavioural scientist with an interest in methodology. I work broadly on social relationships, so topics akin to social psychology, relationship research, evolutionary psychology, and personality psychology fall within my interests. I’ll consider projects which you have developed / proposed in those areas, but there is no ‘unlimited’ choice. Some projects also simply cannot be done as part of your degree, due to legal, practical, ethical, or scientific reasons. With ‘scientific’ reasons I mean that what you have in mind might be so complex that it cannot be unpacked in a single project - it is a question for say a PhD project. (For example, what you have in mind is a complex mediation model, but it is unlikely that you are able to collect the data to test such a model).

My experience is that students also propose projects which tend to be unrealistic, so ask yourself whether your project is all that it is cracked up to be. If it is not, then why not opt for a replication study, for example. I do not weigh ‘novelty’ in my judgment of your thesis or whether your findings are ‘significant’ or not. I also provide a list of topics which I prefer not to supervise, to help guide you but I am always open to be convinced.

Embarras du choix (A wide range of topics to choose from)

Overwhelming

Replication projects: Does a finding hold up?

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As you should by now know, psychology is facing a replication crisis (e.g., Ritchie, 2020). Therefore, we should aim to routinely replicate findings from the published literature (Zwaan et al., 2018).

Beware that you will need to be able to as closely replicate the original study as possible and that I expect you to obtain a sample size which is 2.5x the original sample size. Therefore, these types of projects work well if there is more than one student but you can also do one your own.

Good candidate projects have straightforward designs, have the materials available or accurately enough described to allow for replication.

Here are some examples of student projects which were based on replications.

There is some variation, and you can also suggest your own, but I am particularly interested in replication projects dealing with interpersonal relationships (e.g., jealousy, love).

These could be good candidates or starting points:

Relationships / Jealousy.

Prosocial behaviour / altruism

Colour

Consumer Psychology

Nature / Spirituality

Personality / Organisational Psychology

Person perception

Traffic Behaviour

Other

  • The Psychological well-being of Celebrity Worshippers. check here

There is an opportunity to also replicate our work on hunger and preferences for larger bodies/objects. This would be a project which involves face-to-face data collection.

Social networks.

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Instagram and egocentric friendship networks.

In this project, individuals will export their own data and then answer questions on their close friends. You will explore the degree to which ‘being close on Instagram’ relates to offline closeness.

Due to the nature of the data collection, this project cannot be conducted online. This can be run as a group project for data collection.

LinkedIn and egocentric social networks.

In this project, individuals will export their own data and then answer questions on their support network. You will explore the degree to which contact relates to offline social support. Other topics relating to organisational psychology can also be addressed with this project.

Due to the nature of the data collection, this project cannot be conducted online. This can be run as a group project for data collection.

Individual differences in social networks

Some individuals have a larger social network while others have a smaller one. Why is this the case? One reason for this could be that this is due to differences in personality (see Malcolm et al., 2021). I am looking for projects expanding this work (for example, looking at other individual difference variables). This can be conducted online but you will likely need around 200+ cases to make this a very good project.

Read more here:

  • Malcolm, C., Saxton, T.K., McCarty, K., Roberts, S.G.B., & Pollet, T.V. (2021). Extraversion is associated with advice network size, but not network density or emotional closeness to network members. Personality and Individual Differences, 168, 110311. read paper here

Network analysis of specific groups.

The prerequisite is that you will need access to a specific interesting group (e.g., carers for adults with learning disabilities, climbers, teachers, refugees, army veterans, professional poker players, Dungeon & Dragons enthusiasts, farmers, knitters, CS Go players, … – it can be any interesting group…). For example, you are part of this community or have very strong links to people in this community. You will typically need around 200 participants, if you would want to make robust inferences. For example, you could map out the social support networks of people who are part of this group but also who these people are turning to for support (same gender, same interest, friends/colleagues/kin?).

Here is an example borne out of a student project. This project looked at well-being and social support networks of people with Type I diabetes.

  • Cheyne, T., Smith, M.A., & Pollet, T.V. (2020, July 30th). Egocentric network characteristics of persons with Type 1 Diabetes and their relationships to perceived social support and well-being. PsyArxiv https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/fng7x

Crudely put there are two designs. In the example above, you focus on sampling individuals (e.g., Individuals with a certain diagnosis, army personnel, mothers who breastfeed, etc). This is likely the ‘easier option’. Alternatively, you can pick a group of interest (e.g., a support group for parents with disabled children, a church, a food bank, a charity, … .) and try to map everybody in that group. For this design, the sample can be smaller but we might need/want multiple measurements and we need to carefully consider ethical issues.

Meta-science: doing science on science… ?!

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There are a range of projects to be conducted which deal with the methods used in different fields in psychology. The benefits of these types of projects are that in most cases the data are already there (or you have control over the data collection).

The ‘Prometheus effect’ in psychology: Are effect sizes exaggerated?

The first time an effect is published, its effect size tends to be exaggerated (e.g., Jennions & Moller, 2002). This is known as the Prometheus effect or Winner’s curse. Via collating data from meta-analyses, you will examine whether an original effect is exaggerated when compared to its meta-analytic estimate and whether this exaggeration is larger for some fields than for others.

How diverse are the samples used in cross-cultural psychology?

A recurrent criticism of psychology is that our samples are largely non-representative (e.g., Arnett, 2008). In this project you will code articles from journals in cross-cultural psychology to find out which samples they use. I am open to including other journals or disciplines. Alternatively, you can explore standard textbooks on cross-cultural psychology to find out which cultures are covered in textbooks.

This project works best if there is more than one student.

Here is a paper relating to this project:

Pollet, T.V., & Saxton, T.K. (2019). How diverse are the samples used in the journals ‘Evolution & Human Behavior’ and ‘Evolutionary Psychology’?. Evolutionary Psychological Science, 5, 357–368. open access

How diverse are the samples used in journals covering psychopathology?

A recurrent criticism of psychology is that samples largely are non-representative, and mostly consist of students (e.g., Arnett, 2008). In this project you will code articles from journals such as Depression and Anxiety or Schizophrenia Research to find out which samples they use. How many of these are clinical samples? How many are from non-Western societies? I am open to suggestions of other journals.

This project works best if there is more than one student.

Here is a paper relating to this project, following a similar approach:

Pollet, T.V., & Saxton, T.K. (2019). How diverse are the samples used in the journals ‘Evolution & Human Behavior’ and ‘Evolutionary Psychology’?. Evolutionary Psychological Science, 5, 357–368. open access

Are the samples in journals on Obesity representative of the general population.

Nearly all work in psychology suffers from selection bias: some people will not sign up to certain studies. In the case of obesity, this could imply that there is range restriction: people exceeding a certain BMI might be unlikely to take part in advertised studies. Via coding samples of a leading journal and comparing those to the general population, we can find out if certain weight categories are over- or underrepresented.

This project works best if there is more than one student.

Here is a paper relating to this project, following a similar approach:

Pollet, T.V., & Saxton, T.K. (2019). How diverse are the samples used in the journals ‘Evolution & Human Behavior’ and ‘Evolutionary Psychology’?. Evolutionary Psychological Science, 5, 357–368. open access

Which religions are covered in journals on the psychology of religion?

Sampling is an issue for nearly all work in psychology. While christianity is the largest denomination across the world, other major religions such as Islam and Hinduism have over a billion followers. To which extent, do journals on the psychology religion also cover non-christian religious?

This project works best if there is more than one student.

Here is a paper relating to this project, following a similar approach:

Pollet, T.V., & Saxton, T.K. (2019). How diverse are the samples used in the journals ‘Evolution & Human Behavior’ and ‘Evolutionary Psychology’?. Evolutionary Psychological Science, 5, 357–368. open access

Which sports are covered in journals on sport psychology?

As with everything we study, bias rears its ugly head. There is reason to suspect that some sports will be overrepresented as more money is invested in them (e.g., Basketball, football) and therefore likely receive disproportionate attention in the literature. Some sports are also on the fringes and have only recently been added to the Olympics (or scientific study). There might also be class based biases which play into this (e.g., a focus on the study of fencing over boxing or MMA).

There are also extensions possible to this research project, for example, to which degree is the focus on ‘elites’ versus amateurs? Are men overrepresented compared to women?

If you are into e-sports, a project is also possible examining which sports (/games) are covered.

This project works best if there is more than one student.

Here is a paper relating to this project, following a similar approach:

Pollet, T.V., & Saxton, T.K. (2019). How diverse are the samples used in the journals ‘Evolution & Human Behavior’ and ‘Evolutionary Psychology’?. Evolutionary Psychological Science, 5, 357–368. open access

Intelligence - but whose?

The journal Intelligence is the leading journal on intelligence. In this project, you will find out which samples they use to base their conclusion on. Is there representation from developing countries, for example, or are the samples predominantly focusing on developed countries?

Here is a paper relating to this project, following a similar approach:

Pollet, T.V., & Saxton, T.K. (2019). How diverse are the samples used in the journals ‘Evolution & Human Behavior’ and ‘Evolutionary Psychology’?. Evolutionary Psychological Science, 5, 357–368. open access

Which are the most dominant personality models being used?

Psychologists have been studying personality for a very long time. The most dominant classification is a five factor model but researchers have more recently argued for a six factor model (HEXACO), as well as focussing on the ‘Dark Triad’ of personality. In this project you would survey leading personality journals and find out which models researchers are using for personality.

Ashton, M. C., & Lee, K. (2009). The HEXACO–60: A Short Measure of the Major Dimensions of Personality. Journal of Personality Assessment, 91(4), 340–345. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223890902935878

Visualisations in standard psychology text books.

Bar charts can hide a lot of information. Yet, they are often the default (and while I am hopefully improving, they are also common in my papers). In this project, you will explore and examine the type of figures used in psychology text books. We will focus on a subdiscipline such as evolutionary psychology or consumer psychology, for example.

Bar charts

Statistical power and moderation effects in social psychology.

You will have heard of the 2 x 2 design. But: were you aware that you likely need around 4 times (if not more) the sample size to establish an interaction effect as opposed to a main effect (Gelman et al., 2020). In this project, you will examine what the typical sample sizes are which are used for 2 x 2 designs and whether interactions are adequately ‘powered’ in social psychology.

Evolutionary psychology textbooks and use of animal examples.

Evolutionary psychology often draws upon animal examples. In this exploratory project, you will index which species feature in Evolutionary Psychology textbooks.

Evolutionary psychology textbooks and use of anthropological examples.

Evolutionary psychology studies the human mind from an evolutionary perspective via a variety of methods. Often, anthropological data are also invoked as evidence. However, there tends to be only a handful field sites where anthropologists, or at least those with an interest in evolution and human behaviour, have ventured. In this project, you will index which societies have been used as examples in these text books.

Evolutionary psychology textbooks and scientific racism.

The Pioneer fund is a controversial organisation which has funded research into eugenics. In this project, you will examine the degree to which researchers funded by the Pioneer fund are cited in Evolutionary Psychology text books.

‘National Intelligence’: How is it used as a concept?

Intelligence is thought to be an individual level construct. Yet, some researchers have argued that we can calculate an estimate of intelligence for a country ?!. Unsurprisingly, this is very controversial. In this project, you will examine for which types of research ‘national intelligence’ has been used and what its statistical relationship is with other constructs (e.g., GDP per capita).

What is the typical sample size used in undergraduate/masters psychology projects at our University?

In this project, you will code the sample sizes used in theses in psychology, as well as the method used. It is important as this will allow us to examine whether student projects have sufficient statistical power. It will also help your future colleagues by tallying what is normative.

What is the ‘type’ of sample used in undergraduate/masters psychology projects at our University?

A recurrent criticism of psychology is that our samples are largely non-representative (e.g., Arnett, 2008). In this project you will code theses from psychology and the samples they use. Are they predominantly students? Are some of them fairly diverse (international students) or are they mostly British? Are they mostly dominated by one gender? These are the types of questions you are able to address.

Body Mass Index (BMI): A continuous measure that often gets ‘binned’.

Some metrics are continuous but we end up turning them into categories. This is typically a bad idea. With the Body Mass Index (BMI), rather than analysing a continuous variable, researchers might rely on categories such as overweight, underweight, healthy and obese. This comes at an information cost. In this project, you will systematically review papers from the journal ‘Body Image’ and assess how often researchers apply binning to BMI when testing hypotheses.

Meta-analysis of validated scales: Are we measuring things consistently across different groups?

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Often in psychology we use a developed scale but then this scale gets applied to other populations. For example, we might develop a scale on condom use with a student sample, but then this measure gets used with, for example, sex workers. Measurement can be very problematic in such cases. The purpose of this project to examine how reliable measures are and whether the reliability varies across contexts.

For this project you will need to use the free software JASP and you’ll need to learn a bit about meta-analysis (but it is not that hard! + it will look great on your CV).

Candidate scales to explore

Some candidate measures to explore (others to be added soon). You might need to be on campus and logged in with the library to access these.

Body image

Cyberpsychology / Social media / Gaming

Social Psychology

Jealousy / Envy / rivalry

Health and clinical psychology

Romantic relationships, LGBTQIA+ and sexual behaviour

This handbook might offer some further ideas of measures to explore in the context of sexuality.

Environmental psychology

Miscellaneous

Guardian ‘blind dates’ database.

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The Guardian news paper has a returning column in its weekend edition whereby people go on a date. We are compiling a database on these dates.

In this project you will contribute to the database, and then you can use the database for your project. It allows you to answer questions on for example, whether men or women are more ‘choosy’. Why do some people get high ratings and others low ratings? Are homosexual dates more or less likely to find a match than heterosexual dates?

Celebrities

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In this project, you would examine age gaps in relationships in Hollywood celebrities in their marriages or examine late life fatherhood of celebrities. We want to examine to which degree they are similar or different from the general population. For example, do male celebrities father children later in life than the typical American man?

Traffic behaviour: Gender differences in risk taking.

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In previous work, we have observed gender differences in every day risk taking in traffic. For example, all else being equal, male cyclists were less likely to use lights at night than female cyclists. Another finding comes from a student project: we found that male pedestrians were less likely to use a safe route when exiting the metro than female pedestrians.

I would welcome further work in this area. This work tends to be observational. In order to have a great thesis, you will require large samples and/or multiple studies, due to the simplicity of its design. It is however, really straightforward to do and deals with real life behaviour.

Some examples:

  • Observing gender differences in helmet use on e-scooters. There are now e-scooters all over Newcastle upon Tyne. In this project, you would test if men are less likely to wear a helmet than women. There are additional avenues to explore. For example, does helmet use vary based on group size.

  • Observing gender differences in mobile phone use while crossing the road.

  • Observing gender differences in crossing the road while the light is still red or ‘jaywalking’.

  • Observing gender differences in using a button and waiting to cross.

Here is an example project conducted at Northumbria University.

Here is a paper we wrote on cyclists:

  • Cobey, K.D.*, Stulp, G.*, Laan, F., Buunk, A.P. & Pollet, T.V. (2013). Sex differences in risk taking behavior among Dutch cyclists. Evolutionary Psychology, 11, 350-364. (*Authors contributed equally), access .pdf here

Gender differences in everyday risk taking during ‘Covid19 times’.

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This builds on the above framework. All else being equal, men take more risks in daily life than women. Can we observe this in everyday behaviour?

  • Observing gender differences in use of hand sanitiser when entering a building.
  • Observing gender differences in mask wearing on campus.
  • Observing gender differences in mask wearing on public transport.

Here is a paper we wrote on these behaviours:

  • Bainbridge, S., Allsopp, S., & Pollet, T.V. (2022). Gender differences and mask wearing: an observational study on a University campus and a mini-meta-analysis. Human Ethology, 37, 36-45. access .pdf here

Measuring student satisfaction: Do we know if you are satisfied?

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The National Student Survey is a commonly used tool to measure student satisfaction. It is argued to consist of eight scales but it is unclear to which degree this measure has been rigorously validated. Our research suggests that these eight dimensions are not easily identified. Another aspect of reliability which has seemingly not been assessed is a test-retest correlation of the items. In this project, you will administer the survey twice and examine whether the NSS is temporally stable. Ideally, you would collect minimum 270+ responses in the first wave, in order to assess the factor structure. Therefore, this project might work well as a collaborative project involving more than one student (you are able to have separate research questions, e.g., differences between courses, or one project focussing on factor analysis and one on test-retest).

‘There are no funny women in standup comedy’ - Random guy.

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Together with Clare Cook, I am conducting research on gendered perceptions of stand-up comedians. In this project, we will explore if female standup comedians are perceived as less funny than male standup comedians. We are also interested in finding out other stereotypes (e.g., are attractive women in comedy seen as less funny). There is also a possibility to look at perceptions of mental health in standup comedy.

Individual differences in “Buy now, pay later”

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There is an increase in services which allow you to ‘buy now and pay later’ (e.g., Klarna). In this project, you will examine the individual differences in who uses these types of products. For example, do individuals who tend to hoard, rely more on these products?

Gender and leadership in Psychology courses

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In this project, you will find out whether gender influences programme leadership for accredited BPS courses. Women have been less likely to have been offered leadership positions? Is this also the case for acting as a programme leader in psychology?

Individual differences in Statistical knowledge.

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You will examine the degree to which your fellow students understand basic concepts in statistics, and whether there are individual differences and how knowledge of statistics is related to performance on exams. This project can be run online. The most interesting project would include a longitudinal component (i.e. at start of semester versus at end of semester). It is therefore better suited as a master project.

E-sports

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E-sports are a rapidly emerging phenomenon and a million or even billion dollar industry. In this area there is room to explore some psychological phenomena, typically documented in regular sports. For example:

  • The ‘too much talent effect’ : If you continue to add excellent players, is there a point after which performance goes down?
  • Is there a ‘home advantage’?
  • Does changing a coach work?
  • Are hierarchies in e-sports stable?
  • Do red teams win more than other colours?

Projects which I prefer not to supervise.

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There could be exceptions to the rule but below you’ll find a list of topics which I will for various reasons (prefer to) not supervise. Exceptions exist, for example, if you have an extremely good idea for a replication project. I also list some topics here not because of some dislike, but rather because there are others, much better placed, in our department to work with you on these topics. You can reach out to me if you want more information.

  • Projects using a Qualitative methodology. I have very, very limited experience with Qualitative methods.
  • Projects involving eye tracking, reaction time measurement, EEG, NIRS, Body Scanning, Virtual reality, hormone measurements (saliva). I have no experience with these methods and I feel I cannot adequately supervise projects using these methods.
  • Projects involving ‘special populations’. I do not have access to ‘special populations’, so I cannot supervise projects involving children, vulnerable adults, service users, people with (mental) health diagnoses, or whichever special population you have in mind. However, if you have strong ties with these communities, then perhaps projects on social networks are still viable.
  • Projects in Cognitive Psychology. (unless they deal with colour and/or are well thought out replication projects).
  • Projects in Consumer Psychology / Marketing (unless they deal with colour and/or are well thought out replication projects).
  • Projects in Positive Psychology / Happiness studies.
  • Projects in Sport Psychology (unless they are dealing with social network analysis or listed above)
  • Projects in Organisational Psychology (unless they are dealing with social network analysis or listed above)
  • Projects in Parapsychology.
  • Projects in Forensic Psychology (e.g., rape acceptance myths) or on eye-witness testimony.
  • Projects on COVID-19 (but see exceptions above).
  • Projects on body image and the media.
  • Projects on nutrition, supplements, or aromas.
  • Projects on the ‘Dark Triad’ of personality (Narcissism, Machiavellianism, Psychopathy - unless they are dealing with well thought out replications).
  • Projects on attachment theory and/or psychological trauma.
  • Projects on sleep.
  • Projects on autism.
  • Projects on body attractiveness, face perception, etc.
  • Projects on birth order (unless they would be replication style projects, especially relating to family relationships or jealousy).
  • Projects on social media addiction (but see the example of meta-analysing the reliability of one of these scales).
  • Projects on aggression, violence, rape, sexual violence.
  • Projects on human-animal relationships.
  • Projects on stress and mental health (unless they are dealing with social network analysis).
  • Projects on Instagram/Facebook/TikTok (unless they are dealing with social network analysis).
  • Projects on addiction, smoking, alcohol, drug consumption (unless they are dealing with social network analysis).
  • Projects on social identity, ethnicity, and/or intergroup behaviour (unless these are related to social network analysis or well thought out replication projects).
  • Projects on sexual orientation, gender identity, masculinity/femininity, 2D:4D ratios (unless these are related to social network analysis or well thought out replication projects).

References

Arnett, J. J. (2008). The Neglected 95%: Why American Psychology Needs to Become Less American. American Psychologist, 63(7), 602–614. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.63.7.602

Gelman, A., Hill, J., & Vehtari, A. (2020). Regression and other stories. Cambridge University Press.

Jennions, M. D., & Møller, A. P. (2002). Relationships fade with time: A meta-analysis of temporal trends in publication in ecology and evolution. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 269(1486), 43–48. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2001.1832

Ritchie, S. (2020). Science fictions: Exposing fraud, bias, negligence and hype in science. Random House.

Zwaan, R. A., Etz, A., Lucas, R. E., & Donnellan, M. B. (2018). Making replication mainstream. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 41, e120. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X17001972

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