200188 SE Theorie und Empirie wissenschaftlichen Arbeitens (Geist und Gehirn) 1 (2023S)

AIMS
After following this course:
a) You are able to set up and carry out an empirical study to generate new knowledge of a psychological theme, using customary psychological methods and with minimal supervision
b) You are able to report the planned study methods and analyses in a pre-registration protocol
c) You are able to appropriately interpret the results of the empirical study
d) You are able to communicate about this work in written form

CONTENTS AND METHODS
During this 1-semester TEWA, you will further expand and deepen your research skills by setting up and carrying out a research project on the highly relevant topic of meat consumption. Furthermore, you will deepen you communication skills by reporting on this project in written form.

Most humans agree that harming animals is wrong, yet a lot of people still regularly consume meat. While this behaviour is not only in conflict with peoples’ attitudes and moral compass, a meat-heavy diet is also associated with negative health outcomes and leads to an increased emission of greenhouse gases. It follows that reducing the amount of meat consumption benefits individuals as well as the climate. However, humans still enjoy eating meat and often justify their meat consumption arguing it is natural, normal, necessary, and nice. A potentially promising method to decrease individual meat consumption is increasing empathy with and moral concern for farm animals through human-like depictions of these animals.

In this research project, you will investigate ways to reduce meat consumption through mentalizing. You will be part of an ongoing research line of the Environmental Psychology Group. At the start of the course, you will become familiar with the theoretical background of the research line as well as the main variables of interest. Four different research groups will be formed that each will focus on a farmed animal species (pigs, cows, chickens, fish). Each group will program the study using Qualtrics, collect data, and process the data afterwards. Before data collection starts, each group has to submit a pre-registration protocol in which they document the study design and the methodology. Lastly, once data collection is finished and the data has been pre-processed, the course lecturers will provide you with a summary of the study results. Based on this, you have to submit an individual research report in which you interpret the study results. Altogether, this TEWA prepares you to conduct an empirical study in the domain of Environmental Psychology.