What is it that makes challenge and complexity so appealing to humans? Research derived from positive psychology have tried to answer this question, and in the process found evidence suggesting that people experience different feelings as the perception of difficulty rises. In this study, using Gudrun Eckblad’s scheme theory as premise, we predicted that reported feelings of pleasure would be most ...

Children’s birthday celebrations are a social event including different social activities and birthday rituals. As previous research show rituals to enhance cohesion amongst its ritual participants, we assumed in-group and out-group memberships could be established at birthday celebrations between children in an already constituted group. With this study we aim to gain a better understanding of ...

Every day we make decisions that influence our well-being. Because of this, it is crucial that we make the most optimal decisions possible in order to minimize unnecessary loss or suffering. Some groups might be more vulnerable to making maladaptive choices, such as those suffering with chronic pain, which is associated with various cognitive impairments. As it currently stands there is not a clear ...

Previous research has shown that experimental manipulations aiming at inducing choice strategies resembling learned helplessness (LH) in healthy adults influence the arbitration between simple and complex decision-making strategies. However, research regarding decision-making and LH-manipulations with experimental pain is lacking. Therefore, the present study applied the new LH-induction method with ...

Research conducted on trauma patients has shown that the local brain regions in patients diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is smaller than in people who are not diagnosed with PTSD. Therefore, the research question we address in this master thesis is: Are there structural brain differences in participants that have experienced traumatic incidents in their lives? We also use anxiety ...

Procrastination describes a phenomenon where people voluntarily delay working on a task despite being aware of potential negative consequences. It’s been associated with negative consequences related to performance, well-being, and physical and mental health. One potential solution research has somewhat neglected in procrastination research is Interest. What research exist on this topic indicates ...

The aim of the present study was to investigate why women drop out from university, with specific focus on female students from science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). We developed three hypotheses based on stereotype threat theory (Steele & Aronson, 1995) and attribution theory (Heider, 1958). The hypotheses were as following: H1) The experience of stereotype threat is related to ...

The purpose of this master's thesis was to investigate whether or not students who were identified with poor literacy skills at 3rd grade, displayed poor literacy skills at the start of 1st grade and in 2nd grade. The theoretical framework for the master's thesis is the prevailing etiological model for dyslexia, namely the Multiple Deficit Model (MDM). It suggests that dyslexia (and other developmental ...

Is it possible to influence people´s willingness to donate money? In two experiments we investigated whether participant´s (N = 417) willingness to donate money to a charitable cause could be influenced by mental representations and social distance towards the donation target. In both experiments we manipulated the perceived social distance towards the donation target, and the construal level of the ...

Frafall på universitetet representerer en rekke sosiale og sosioøkonomisk utfordringer. En gruppe som er mer utsatt for å droppe ut fra universitetene i Norge, er innvandrerstudenter. Denne gruppen er preget av høyere frafall enn sine norske medstudenter, samtidig som forskning viser at denne gruppen er utsatt for negative stereotypier i akademia. Den høye frafallstatistikken kan delvis forklares ...