Abschlussarbeiten (BSc/MSc Psychologie)

Typ: Bachelor- oder Masterarbeit

Betreuer: Kristin Jankowsky, Ulrich Schroeders

Kurzbeschreibung: For personality inventories, it has been shown repeatedly that single items (personality nuances) predict specific life outcomes such as marriage or divorce and health-related indicators such as smoking, sport or BMI more accurately than facets or domains. Using data from the LISS panel (a Dutch Longitudinal Internet studies for the Social Sciences), this thesis will try to predict comparable life and health-related outcomes by means of a measurement instrument assessing personality pathology such as the Severity Indices of Personality Problems (SIPP).

Referenzen:

• Mõttus, R., & Rozgonjuk, D. (2021). Development is in the details: Age differences in the Big Five domains, facets, and nuances. Journal of personality and social psychology, 120(4), 1035–1048. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000276
• Seeboth, A., & Mõttus, R. (2018). Successful explanations start with accurate descriptions: Questionnaire items as personality markers for more accurate predictions. European Journal of Personality, 32(3), 186–201. https://doi.org/10.1002/per.2147
• Stewart, R. D., Mõttus, R., Seeboth, A., Soto, C. J., & Johnson, W. (2021). The finer details? The predictability of life outcomes from Big Five domains, facets, and nuances. Journal of Personality, 00, 1– 16. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12660

Typ: Bachelor- oder Masterarbeit

Betreuer: Kristin Jankowsky, Ulrich Schroeders

Kurzbeschreibung: Initial findings of a Covid-19 survey in the UK (https://cls.ucl.ac.uk/covid-19-survey/) suggested that early phases of the pandemic had a particularly negative effect on the mental health of young adults and women. To examine which 19-year-olds are at higher risk and, contrary, which factors might foster resilience (e.g., Verdolini et al., 2021) against the pandemic's negative impact on the mental health, openly available data from the Covid-19 survey will be supplemented with the additional information of the latest wave of the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS, https://cls.ucl.ac.uk/cls-studies/millennium-cohort-study/). Among others, the MCS includes extensive background variables and mental health assessments of the same young adults at age 17. Possible outcomes are the trajectories of psychological distress, life satisfaction, and well-being.

Referenzen / Links:

• https://cls.ucl.ac.uk/poor-mental-health-in-lockdown-most-common-among-young-women/
• Verdolini, N., Amoretti, S., Montejo, L., García-Rizo, C., Hogg, B., Mezquida, G., Rabelo-da-Ponte, F. D., Vallespir, C., Radua, J., Martinez-Aran, A., Pacchiarotti, I., Rosa, A. R., Bernardo, M., Vieta, E., Torrent, C., & Solé, B. (2021). Resilience and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of affective disorders, 283, 156–164. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2021.01.055

Typ: Masterarbeit

Betreuer: Kristin Jankowsky, Ulrich Schroeders

Kurzbeschreibung: The Big Five personality trait openness to experiences represents a combination of creativity, intellect, differentiated interests, aesthetic sensitivity, the tendency to actively seek out new experiences or being thoughtful about (new) ideas. Items measuring openness have several shortcomings that potentially bias a fair assessment: (a) items are often based on Western culture (e.g., “Do not enjoy going to art museums”, Johnson, 2005), (b) some items are outdated (e.g., “I’ve never really enjoyed looking through an encyclopedia”, Ashton & Lee, 2007), and (c) others are specifically affected by age or socio-economic status (e.g., “Thinks poetry and plays are boring”, Soto & John, 2017). As such, measures of openness do not provide fair and comparable assessment, as they capture a wide range of non-related participant characteristics. The goal of this thesis is to identify openness items (or measures) that are least (or most) affected by culture/country, gender, SES, and age. Different analytical approaches are possible including relative importance regression models (Grömping, 2006) or Ant Colony Optimization (Olaru et al., 2019).

Referenzen:

• Ashton, M.C., & Lee, K. (2007). Empirical, Theoretical, and Practical Advantages of the HEXACO Model of Personality Structure. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 11(2), 150-166. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1088868306294907
• Grömping, U. (2006). Relative importance for linear regression in R: The package relaimpo. Journal of Statistical Software, 17(1), 1–27. https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v017.i01
• Johnson, J. A. (2005). Ascertaining the validity of individual protocols from Web-based personality inventories. Journal of Research in Personality, 39(1), 103–129. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2004.09.009
• Olaru, G., Schroeders, U., Hartung, J., & Wilhelm, O. (2019). Ant Colony Optimization and Local Weighted Structural Equation Modeling. A Tutorial on Novel Item and Person Sampling Procedures for Personality Research. European Journal of Personality, 33(3), 400–419. https://doi.org/10.1002/per.2195
• Soto, C. J., & John, O. P. (2017). The next Big Five Inventory (BFI-2): Developing and assessing a hierarchical model with 15 facets to enhance bandwidth, fidelity, and predictive power. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(1), 117–143. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000096

Typ: Bachelor- oderMasterarbeit

Betreuer: Kristin Jankowsky, Ulrich Schroeders

Kurzbeschreibung: Primal world beliefs are considered "extremely basic beliefs about the world as a whole, such as the belief the world is dangerous" (https://myprimals.com/). Clifton et al. (2019) compiled an inventory consisting of 99 items (e.g., “On the whole, the world is an uncomfortable and unpleasant place”) measuring 26 primals. The question arises what is the connection between the new taxonomy of primal world beliefs and already existing measures of personality that also include beliefs, attitudes, and the like. What are the conceptual and empirical similarities and differences? For this thesis, it will be necessary to collect data on (a) primals, (b) personality, and (c) life outcomes. Data collection could be a joint effort of two applicants, whereas different aspects can be examined by each individual applicant. For example, if primals constitute a jangle fallacy could be studied with confirmatory factor analyses. Or if primals predict life outcomes over and above traditional personality assessment could be studied at the scale level with regressions or at the item level with machine learning algorithms (Rosenbusch et al., 2021).

Referenzen:

• Clifton, J. D. W., Baker, J. D., Park, C. L., Yaden, D. B., Clifton, A. B. W., Terni, P., Miller, J. L., Zeng, G., Giorgi, S., Schwartz, H. A., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2019). Primal world beliefs. Psychological Assessment, 31(1), 82–99.https://doi.org/10.1037/pas0000639
• Rosenbusch, H., Soldner, F., Evans, A. M., & Zeelenberg, M. (2021). Supervised machine learning methods in psychology: A practical introduction with annotated R code. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 15(2), Article: e12579, https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12579

Typ: Bachelor- oder Masterarbeit

Betreuer: Priscilla Achaa-Amankwaa, Ulrich Schroeders

Kurzbeschreibung: The historical division of Germany into East and West has contributed to the emergence of two slightly different cultures in Germany, forming a kind of collective knowledge (Schuman & Corning, 2000). Although the German reunification is more than 30 years ago, there are still differences in the knowledge bases of East and West Germans. These differences between East and West Germans of different ages are to be investigated at the level of individual knowledge items from the domain of public events knowledge (Beier & Ackerman, 2001; Hambrick et al., 2007). Knowledge about public events include, for example, knowledge about celebrated athletes, musicians, and influential politicians. Using data from an age-heterogeneous sample, the applicant examines to what extent differences in knowledge trace back to regional and cohort differences. Preferentially this is done with machine learning algorithms (Rosenbusch et al., 2021).

Referenzen:

• Beier, M. E., & Ackerman, P. L. (2001). Current-events knowledge in adults: An investigation of age, intelligence, and nonability determinants. Psychology and Aging, 16(4), 615–628. https://doi.org/10.1037/0882-7974.16.4.615
• Hambrick, D. Z., Meinz, E. J., & Oswald, F. L. (2007). Individual differences in current events knowledge: Contributions of ability, personality, and interests. Memory & Cognition, 35(2), 304–316. https://doi.org/10.3758/bf03193451
• Rosenbusch, H., Soldner, F., Evans, A. M., & Zeelenberg, M. (2021). Supervised machine learning methods in psychology: A practical introduction with annotated R code. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 15(2), Article: e12579, https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12579
• Schuman, H. & Corning, A. D. (2000). Collective Knowledge of Public Events: The Soviet Era from the Great Purge to Glasnost. American Journal of Sociology, 105(4), 913–956. https://doi.org/10.1086/210396

Typ: Bachelor- oder Masterarbeit

Betreuer: Katja Roost, Ulrich Schroeders

Kurzbeschreibung: The Regulating Emotions in Parenting Scale (REPS, Rodriguez & Shaffer, 2021) is a new measure focusing on emotion regulation of parents in the different parenting context. Effective parenting is considered a critical contributor to child emotional, cognitive, and social development. Variables that enable parents to meet the demands inherent to the parenting role, and manage the child's and personal needs (often at the same time) have been shown to buffer the stress of parenting and to prevent a potentially unhealthy dynamic. The REPS explained greater variance in outcome measures in parenting than general emotion regulation measures, suggesting incremental validity of the scale. The aim of the thesis is to develop a German translation of the REPS using appropriate techniques (Hambleton, 2005) and to explore the psychometric properties in a sample of parents, including further parenting measures to address questions of validity in a German sample.

Referenzen: 

• Hambleton, R. K. (2005). Issues, designs, and technical guidelines for adapting tests into multiple languages and cultures. In R. K. Hambleton, P. F. Merenda, & C. D. Spielberger (Eds.), Adapting educational and psychological tests for cross-cultural assessment (pp. 1–38). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.
• Rodriguez, V. J., & Shaffer, A. (2021). Validation of the regulating emotions in parenting scale (REPS): Factor structure and measurement invariance. Journal of Family Psychology, 35(4), 468-477. https://doi.org/10.1037/fam0000808