Thesis Topics
Potential topics for thesis supervision.
Contents
- Thesis, Introduction.
- Embarras du choix (A wide range of topics to choose from)
- Replication projects: Does a finding hold up?
- Reality TV and game shows: Strategic decisions on camera
- Social networks.
- Meta-science: doing science on science… ?!
- Which countries are included in meta-analyses in psychology?
- Are the samples in journals on Obesity representative of the general population.
- Which religions are covered in journals on the psychology of religion?
- Which sports are covered in journals on sport psychology?
- Intelligence - but whose?
- Which are the most dominant personality models being used?
- Evolutionary psychology textbooks and use of animal examples.
- Meta-analysis of validated scales: Are we measuring things consistently across different groups?
- Traffic behaviour: Gender differences in risk taking.
- Measuring student satisfaction: Do we know if you are satisfied?
- Gender and leadership in Psychology courses
- Projects which I prefer not to supervise.
- References
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.
In some cases I will set the topic for you. This is the case, for example, where I have group supervision.
If you are allowed to pick your own topic, then 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 very 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)

Replication projects: Does a finding hold up?
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.
- Many students contributed to a replication project on birth order and jealousy published in Personality and Individual Differences.
- Sarah Dawson’s Bachelor thesis project on fat talk. This was incorporated in a paper for Body Image. Check the paper here.
- Lotte Groeneboom & Joanne Costello’s Masters Thesis Project on ‘Red laptops’. This formed study 1 for a paper. Check the paper. This was published in Displays.
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.
- Forgiveness or breakup: Sex differences in responses to a partner’s infidelity https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930143000202
- Women’s sexual strategies: the hidden dimension of extra-pair mating. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0191-8869(99)00151-8 – Particularly Study 4.
- Does height relate to Relationship Satisfaction, Jealousy, and Mate Retention in men https://doi.org/10.1177/147470490900700310. Only sampled men.
- The Role of Social Network Sites in Romantic Relationships: Effects on Jealousy and Relationship Happiness. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2011.01552.x. (note that this is a large study)
- Relational satisfaction and jealousy across marital types. https://doi.org/10.1080/08934219209367540 – Requires married couples.
- The Big 5 and relationship maintenance on Facebook. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407518772089
Body Image
- Does this book make me look fat? The effect of protagonist body weight and body esteem on female readers’ body esteem. Requires a sizable sample.
Prosocial behaviour / altruism
- Sex Differences in Violent versus Non-Violent Life-Threatening Altruism. You will require a sizable sample.
- Altruism between Romantic Partners: Biological Offspring as a Genetic Bridge between Altruist and Recipient. You will require a sizable sample.
Colour
- Dressed for Sex: Red as a Female Sexual Signal in Humans. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0034607#s2 Experiment 1 seems a good candidate.
- Was she wearing red? The function of victim-blaming in women’s intrasexual competition. https://doi.org/10.1111/sjop.12870. You will require quite a sizable sample.
- Does the receptacle influence the perceived flavour of a drink? https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/2044-7248-3-3. We would only aim to replicate the US sample in the UK. This study can be run online.
- Does the colour of the mug influence the taste of the coffee? https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/2044-7248-3-10. Study 2 seems a good candidate. You will require a sizable sample.
Consumer Psychology
- Consumer perceptions of cultured meat.
- Zero is a special price - Many experiments but experiment 1 is a candidate.
- The deadweight loss of christmas. A study on giving cash at christmas!
Nature / Spirituality
- Spirituality mediates the relationship between engagement with nature and psychological wellbeing - this will require a large sample.
- Nature Connectedness and Eudaimonic Well-Being: Spirituality as a Potential Mediator This will require a large sample.
Personality / Organisational Psychology
- The HEXACO and five-factor models of personality in relation to RIASEC vocational interests
- “The Darkest of all” The relationship between the Dark Triad traits and organizational citizenship behavior
- Coworkers Behaving Badly: How the Dark Triad Influences Responses to Witnessing Workplace Misconduct This will require a large sample.
- Are Dishonest Extraverts More Harmful than Dishonest Introverts? The Interaction Effects of Honesty-Humility and Extraversion in Predicting Workplace Deviance
Person perception
- Larger than Life: Humans’ Nonverbal Status Cues Alter Perceived Size. Study 2 is a good candidate.
Traffic Behaviour
Celebrities / Miscellaneous
- The Psychological well-being of Celebrity Worshippers. check here
Reality TV and game shows: Strategic decisions on camera
Game shows and structured reality formats are, in effect, naturally occurring experiments: contestants make high-stakes decisions (who to vote off, how much risk to take, what something is worth, whether to lie) under fixed rules, and the whole thing is recorded for you. This makes them a rich, freely available data source for projects on social decision-making, gender, and strategic behaviour. Data collection is via coding broadcast episodes, so there is no participant recruitment – but you will need a clear coding protocol, a realistic plan for how many episodes you can code, and a second coder for an inter-rater reliability check.
An umbrella ethics application is already in place for these topics, which should speed up your ethics process considerably.
As with the replication projects above, these can be done solo but work especially well as group projects: each person codes a batch of episodes using a shared protocol, and each writes up a different research question from the same dataset.
Voting behaviour
- Gender and voting in The Traitors (non-celebrity UK series). Who gets banished at the round table, who gets ‘murdered’, and who gets recruited as a traitor – and do gender and age predict these, over and above game performance? Work on Survivor provides a ready-made template. For example, one study found that in early episodes women, minorities, and older contestants received more elimination votes, with the pattern reversing later in the game.
- Dilks, L. M., Thye, S. R., & Taylor, P. A. (2010). Socializing economic theories of discrimination: Lessons from Survivor. Social Science Research, 39(6), 1164–1180. view paper
- O’Mara Kunz, E. M., Howell, J. L., & Beasley, N. (2023). Surviving racism and sexism: What votes in the television program Survivor reveal about discrimination. Psychological Science. view paper
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Proximity and/or gender in voting on The Weakest Link. Researchers at Lincoln found that contestants avoided voting off the person standing directly next to them (a ‘neighbour avoidance’ effect), and that this effect was stronger when there was less consensus about who the weakest player was. The BBC series offers a fresh dataset for a replication. Note that the findings on gender are mixed, which makes this a good test case.
- Goddard, P., Ashley, R., Fuller, G., & Hudson, I. (2011). Love thy neighbour: Proxemic bias in the voting strategy of contestants in the TV quiz-show “The Weakest Link”. Proceedings of the 2011 IAREP/SABE/ICABEEP Conference. view paper
- Levitt, S. D. (2004). Testing theories of discrimination: Evidence from Weakest Link. Journal of Law and Economics, 47(2), 431–452. view paper
- Antonovics, K., Arcidiacono, P., & Walsh, R. (2005). Games and discrimination: Lessons from the Weakest Link. Journal of Human Resources, 40(4), 918–947. view paper
- Strategic under-scoring in Come Dine with Me. Contestants privately score each other’s dinner parties, and the highest scorer wins a cash prize, which creates an incentive to under-score rivals. German and Swedish versions of the show have already been studied, so a UK replication and extension is a good candidate project.
- Schüller, D., Tauchmann, H., Upmann, T., & Weimar, D. (2014). Pro-social behavior in the TV show “Come Dine With Me”: An empirical investigation. Journal of Economic Psychology, 45, 44–55. view paper
- Ahmed, A. (2013). Co-ethnic preferences in a cooking game: A study based on Come Dine With Me in Sweden. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 36(12), 2220–2236. view paper
- Retaliation and bias in Four in a Bed. B&B owners take turns staying at each other’s establishments, rate each other anonymously, and then pay what they think their stay was worth. The winner is the B&B that receives the highest percentage of its asking price. Because hosts see their feedback before they visit their rivals, the show lets you test retaliation: do owners who received harsh feedback pay less to, and rate more harshly, the person who criticised them? Underpaying a rival also saves the guest money, so the show adds a financial motive to the competitive one found in Come Dine With Me. You can also test more familiar biases, whether ethnic minority owners or same-sex couples are penalised, and whether guests hold more expensive B&Bs to a higher standard. The show has run since 2010, so there is plenty of data.
- Bolton, G., Greiner, B., & Ockenfels, A. (2013). Engineering trust: Reciprocity in the production of reputation information. Management Science, 59(2), 265–285. view paper
- Halliday, S. D., & Lafky, J. (2019). Reciprocity through ratings: An experimental study of bias in evaluations. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 83, 101480. view paper
- Ahmed, A. (2013). Co-ethnic preferences in a cooking game: A study based on Come Dine With Me in Sweden. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 36(12), 2220–2236. view paper
Deception
- Deception detection in The Circle. Contestants interact only via text-based profiles; some play as themselves, others as ‘catfish’ with a fabricated identity. How accurately do genuine players spot catfish? Do catfish get rated differently? Do gender, age, or similarity predict who gets blocked? Because there are no nonverbal cues, this is a naturally occurring test of text-only deception detection.
- DePaulo, B. M., Lindsay, J. J., Malone, B. E., Muhlenbruck, L., Charlton, K., & Cooper, H. (2003). Cues to deception. Psychological Bulletin, 129(1), 74–118. view paper
- Lie detection in Would I Lie to You?. Celebrities read out claims about themselves, often from cards they have not seen before, and the opposing team has to decide whether each claim is true or a lie. The answer is then revealed, so every judgement can be checked against the truth. This makes the show a large natural dataset for testing well-established findings from lie-detection research: that people are only slightly better than chance at detecting lies, that they tend to believe what they are told (the “truth bias”), and that whether someone is believed depends more on the person telling the story than on the skill of the people judging it. Regular panellists appear across many series, so you can separate how believable individual storytellers are from how good the teams are at spotting lies. Because verdicts are reached through team discussion, you can also look at how group decisions compare with individual ones.
- Bond, C. F., Jr., & DePaulo, B. M. (2006). Accuracy of deception judgments. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10(3), 214–234. view paper
Risk-taking and overconfidence
- Gender and overconfidence on The Chase. After the cash builder, each contestant chooses between a lower offer (safer), the amount they earned, or a higher offer (riskier). Their cash builder score gives a measure of ability. The key question is whether men take the higher offer more often than women with the same cash builder score. That pattern would indicate overconfidence rather than a simple difference in risk preference. I have coded episodes of The Chase in the past, so the feasibility is proven. A recent study of the Australian version found that higher-ability contestants were more likely to choose riskier options, and that gender differences were limited; the UK version, and the ability-by-gender test specifically, remain open.
- Neumann, P. (2026). Who deviates from the compromise option? The role of ability and risk-taking in the quiz show The Chase. Applied Economics Letters. view paper
- Niederle, M., & Vesterlund, L. (2007). Do women shy away from competition? Do men compete too much? Quarterly Journal of Economics, 122(3), 1067–1101. view paper
- Barber, B. M., & Odean, T. (2001). Boys will be boys: Gender, overconfidence, and common stock investment. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116(1), 261–292. view paper
- Confidence and buzzing on University Challenge. Do men and women differ in how often, or how early, they buzz in, relative to how often they get the answer right? This would pair well with The Chase project, as two naturalistic tests of gender and confidence. Other aspects which you could consider, is team captaincy and going with or ignoring others’ suggestions.
Estimation, anchoring, and valuation
- Anchoring in Escape to the Country / A Place in the Sun. Buyers state a budget up front, which is a natural anchor, and prices are revealed as the episode unfolds. Do buyers’ price guesses (e.g., for the ‘mystery house’) drift towards their stated budget or towards previously revealed prices? This works best framed as a calibration and anchoring study, with gender as a possible moderator rather than the main question.
- Northcraft, G. B., & Neale, M. A. (1987). Experts, amateurs, and real estate: An anchoring-and-adjustment perspective on property pricing decisions. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 39(1), 84–97. view paper
- Estimation and the ‘winner’s curse’ in Bargain Hunt. Teams buy antiques at a fair with expert guidance, then sell them at auction. For each item you can code the purchase price, the expert’s estimate, and the hammer price. Do teams systematically overpay? Do items bought on the expert’s advice do better than items the team chose against it? Does this vary by item type or by team gender composition?
- Thaler, R. H. (1988). Anomalies: The winner’s curse. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2(1), 191–202. view paper
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Certain offer versus gamble in Dickinson’s Real Deal. Sellers choose between a dealer’s cash offer (certain) and sending the item to auction (uncertain), with an independent valuation as a reference point. This is a naturalistic test of risk preferences and reference dependence, and would pair nicely with the Bargain Hunt project.
- Anchoring in negotiation: Dragons’ Den. Entrepreneurs open with an explicit offer, for example £50,000 for 10% of their business, which implies a valuation of the company. The pitch ends with an on-screen deal or no deal. This lets you test whether the entrepreneur’s opening valuation anchors the final deal, how much ground entrepreneurs give up, and whether competition between several interested Dragons pushes valuations up. It also lets you ask whether outcomes differ by the entrepreneur’s gender or the type of business. Laboratory studies show that first offers strongly predict final settlements, and Dragons’ Den lets you test this with real money at stake. The show has run on the BBC since 2005, and there is an American equivalent, Shark Tank.
- Galinsky, A. D., & Mussweiler, T. (2001). First offers as anchors: The role of perspective-taking and negotiator focus. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(4), 657–669. view paper
- Northcraft, G. B., & Neale, M. A. (1987). Experts, amateurs, and real estate: An anchoring-and-adjustment perspective on property pricing decisions. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 39(1), 84–97. view paper
Social networks.
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, caregivers for relatives with dementia, etc). This is likely the ‘easier option’.
Alternatively, you can pick a group of interest (e.g., a support group for parents/caregivers 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… ?!
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).
Which countries are included in meta-analyses in 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 meta-analyses to find out which samples they use.
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
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.
Meta-analysis of validated scales: Are we measuring things consistently across different groups?
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).
- Alaric Lloyd’s Bachelor thesis project on sexual self-esteem. Check the published paper here.
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
- The Psychological Need Satisfaction in Exercise Scale
- Weight- and Body-Related Shame and Guilt Scale (WEB–SG)
- The Photo manipulation scale
- The Perception of Teasing Scale (POTS): A Revision and Extension of the Physical Appearance Related Teasing Scale (PARTS). larger project.
- The Body Checking Questionnaire
- The Interpersonal Sexual Objectification Scale
Cyberpsychology / Social media / Gaming
- Smartphone Application-Based Addiction Scale (SABAS)
- The Instagram Addiction Scale
- The Global Assessment of Trolling scale (GAIT)
- The Tinder Motives Scale
- Player Experience of Need Satisfaction and Game Experience Questionnaire
Social Psychology
- the 2-Way Social Support Scale
- The 12 Item Social and Economic Conservatism Scale (SECS)
- The Bullshit Receptivity (BSR) scale - large project
- The left-wing authoritarianism scale - the LWA should be the counterpart to the Right-Wing Authoritarianism scale.
- The Newcomer Socialization questionnaire - a measure measuring newcomers’ socialization to organisations - large project
- The conspiracy mentality questionnaire - large project
- The Short Internalized Homonegativity Scale
- The Self-Talk Scale
- The Tendency to Gossip Questionnaire
- The Personal Sense of Power Scale
- The Vaccine Hesitancy Scale
- The Liberal Feminist Attitude and Ideology Scale
Jealousy / Envy / rivalry
- Benign and malicious envy - large project.
- The Facebook Jealousy Scale - large project
Health and clinical psychology
- CAST-6 - short-form of the children of alcoholics screening test
- The Birth Satisfaction Scale Revised
- Social Anhedonia
- The Fear of being scale
- The Short Anxiety Screening test
- Various Measures for fear of heights (acrophobia): Abelson & Curtis, 1989, Cohen, 1977 , Steinman & Teachman, 2020
- Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS-18)
- Group-Based Medical Mistrust Scale
- Attitudes towards donation of oocytes - (oocytes are immature eggs donated, for example, in fertility treatment).
- Neonatal intensive care parent satisfaction
- The Covid19 phobia scale
- Diabetes Fear of Injecting and Self-Testing Questionnaire
- Pain attitudes and Stoicism/Cautiousness
- The Vaccine Hesitancy Scale
- The brief HIV knowledge questionnaire
Romantic relationships, LGBTQIA+, and sexual behaviour
- Romantic Disengagement Scale (RDS)
- Relational distance
- Reasons for parenthood scale
- The Dating Anxiety Scale for Adolescents
- The Facebook Jealousy Scale - large project
- The brief HIV knowledge questionnaire
- The Internalized Homonegativity Inventory for gay men
This handbook might offer some further ideas of measures to explore in the context of sexuality.
Family relationships
Environmental psychology
- Environmental distress
- Nature Exposure scale : A scale proposed to measure exposure to nature.
Miscellaneous
- Boredom in free time. Bored?
- Multidimensional State Boredom scale. Continuously bored? large project.
- The preference for solitude scale
- The Self-undermining scale. This scale deals with self-undermining behaviour at work.
- The adult reading motivation scale
- The Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire
- Art Experience Questionnaire
- The free will inventory: Measuring beliefs about agency and responsibility
- Animal Empathy Scale
- Utrecht Homesickness Questionnaire
- Food Disgust scale
Traffic behaviour: Gender differences in risk taking.
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:
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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.
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Observing gender differences in mobile phone use while crossing the road.
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Observing gender differences in crossing the road while the light is still red or ‘jaywalking’.
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Observing gender differences in using a button and waiting to cross.
Here is an example project conducted at Northumbria University.
- Eryn O’Dowd’s Bachelor thesis project on gender differences in everyday risk taking. This was published in Letters on Evolutionary Behavioral Science
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
Measuring student satisfaction: Do we know if you are satisfied?
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).
Gender and leadership in Psychology courses
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?
Projects which I prefer not to supervise.
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 using these teachniques also typically will not be possible within the time frame of your thesis.
- 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, teachers, prisoners, 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 are topics listed above)
- Projects in Organisational Psychology (unless they are dealing with social network analysis or are topics listed above)
- Projects in Parapsychology.
- Projects in Forensic Psychology (e.g., rape acceptance myths) or on eye-witness testimony.
- Projects on generative AI (unless these are replications).
- Projects on COVID-19 (but see exceptions above).
- Projects on body image and the media (but see exceptions above).
- 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 or neurodivergence.
- 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 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, or exceptions listed above).
- Projects on addiction, smoking, alcohol, drug consumption (unless they are dealing with social network analysis). This includes projects on social media addiction (but see the example of meta-analysing the reliability of one of these scales).
- 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.
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