Faculty of Psychology
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Faculty of Psychology

Projects & Collaborations

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Schweizer Befragung zur Behandlung von Zwangsstörungen: Wo stehen wir, und wohin soll es gehen aus der Perspektive von Betroffenen und Behandelnden

Research Project  | 2 Project Members

Zwangsstörungen (OCD) betreffen etwa 2-3 % der Bevölkerung und haben erhebliche Auswirkungen auf das Leben der Betroffenen. Typische Symptome sind aufdringliche Zwangsgedanken und zwanghafte Handlungen, die den Alltag massiv beeinträchtigen. Ohne Behandlung verlaufen Zwangsstörungen oft chronisch und können zu sozialer Isolation, beruflichen Einschränkungen und psychischer Belastung führen.

Die Exposition mit Reaktionsverhinderung (ERP) ist eine nachweislich effektive Methode zur Behandlung von Zwangsstörungen. Dabei setzen sich Betroffene in einem therapeutischen Rahmen den angstauslösenden Reizen aus, ohne die gewohnten Zwangshandlungen auszuführen. Diese Methode unterstützt sie dabei, alternative Bewältigungsstrategien zu entwickeln. Obwohl die Wirksamkeit von ERP gut belegt ist, zeigen internationale Studien, dass sie in der Praxis selten angeboten wird. Für die Schweiz fehlen bislang systematische Daten zur Anwendung von ERP und zur Versorgungslage von OCD-Betroffenen. 



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Delivering the next generation of open Integrated Assessment MOdels for Net-zero, sustainable Development

Research Project  | 2 Project Members

DIAMOND will update, upgrade, and fully open six IAMs that are emblematic in scientific and policy processes, improving their sectoral and technological detail, spatiotemporal resolution, and geographic granularity. It will further enhance modelling capacity to assess the feasibility and desirability of Paris-compliant mitigation pathways, their interplay with adaptation, circular economy, and other SDGs, their distributional and equity effects, and their resilience to extremes, as well as robust risk management and investment strategies. This will be done via integration of tools and insights from psychology, finance research, behavioural and labour economics, operational research, and physical science. We will develop a transdisciplinary scientific approach to legitimise the implementation process and co-create research questions that stretch the frontiers of climate science, as well as establish vibrant communities of practice to transparently open model enhancements and to develop capacities, thereby lowering the entrance barriers to the established IAM community.

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3R-sTrategies and Harm-benefIt analysis

Research Project  | 6 Project Members

Background: The law requires scientists to argue that the 3Rs (replacement, reduction, refinement) have been maximized, i.e. that the same benefits could not have been achieved with lower impact on animal welfare. Guidelines developed by the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences explain how scientists need to fill in the required forms and to carry out harm-benefit-analysis (HBA). The guidelines refer to the instrumental and goal-related necessity of experiments, the classification of harms, as well as to the "legitimate interests of society" defined by Art. 137 of the Animal Protection Ordinance. Whether a particular experiment is acceptable is typically evaluated on a case-by-case basis and needs to be approved by a cantonal animal ethics committee (AEC). The Swiss guidelines don't provide specific orientation (e.g. concrete case examples) which types of balancing of interests or cut-off points are considered acceptable. International studies show considerable inconsistency as to how AECs and their individual members evaluate animal protocols. As long as inconsistencies remain poorly understood and opaque, they can be a source of decreased confidence of society in the decision-making process. Studies have shown that limited openness surrounding animal research undermines public trust. Transparency, on the contrary, improves public perceptions. A broader discussion of cases will bring transparency to the context of public debate and advance ethically sound, consistent decision-making. Objectives and methods: 1. Identify strategies designed to improve consistency of research project evaluations and assess critically how they integrate the 3Rs with HBA: Carry out a literature review and ethical analysis on decision-making aids that have been proposed (I) to evaluate and integrate multiple-stakeholder views in decision-making and (II) to promote systematic, accountable practice for HBA by AECs. As these aids - discourse or metric models - have been predominantly developed in the EU or North America, we will examine to which extent they are useful and appropriate in the Swiss legal and administrative context. 2. Obtain novel Swiss comparative qualitative and quantitative data on how and why the public (using clickworkers, n=1000) and relevant stakeholders (see 2a.) make decisions concerning ethical acceptability of a selection of realistic and concrete animal experiments by putting them in the hypothetical role of AEC members that decide on acceptance or rejection of these experiments and making them explain the reasons for their decisions. The cases will be first evaluated by an expert "gold standard" (ethicists and scientists). 2a. Understand factors that influence decision making (role and understanding of the 3Rs, weighing of interests, emotional or other psychological factors, influence of decision-aids identified in 1.) and test decision tipping points by using a convergent parallel mixed methods design (questionnaires, focus groups, participatory multiple-criteria decision analysis [MCDA]). We will compare decision making of the public with that of groups that are likely to benefit (patients, n=200), and actors involved in animal research and its ethical approval (100 junior and 100 senior scientists, 50 AEC members and cantonal administrators); 800 students (psychology, biology, pharmaceutical sciences) from 4 universities (Basel, Lausanne, Fribourg, EPFL) are included to test the influence of teaching interventions. 2b. Use these insights into the decision-making process to identify barriers to appropriate 3R and HBA understanding and implementation in different stakeholder groups. 2c. Develop innovative methods of teaching (e.g. mock AEC settings involving students as AEC members integrating different decision-aids resulting from step 1., see above) and test the influence of teaching on decision making. 3. Combine results from 1. and 2. to foster participatory decision making. The aim is to promote increased knowledge and transparent dialogue in different stakeholder groups in Swiss society about consistent ways to implement the 3Rs and weighing of interests, based on empirical findings and related to concrete cases. Assemble a collection of case examples (made available online) where arguments of the gold standard are explained and compared to findings from the empirical surveys. Importance and benefits: This interdisciplinary project fills a highly important theoretical and practical research gap concerning decision making about which animal experiments are ethically acceptable. It is of high value for several national and international academic debates, as well as of direct practical value for Swiss stakeholders as it advances not only understanding of the 3Rs and HBA, but also their implementation. By putting participants in the role of hypothetical AEC members the empirical part functions as participatory educational intervention that increases transparency and ethical reflection in Switzerland.

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Evidence-based pathways towards sustainable judgment and decision-making: A multi-dimensional perspective

Research Project  | 1 Project Members

Climate change is among the largest threats for humanity, calling for significant changes at various levels, including individual actions. Psychology can contribute to a better understanding of human judgment and decision-making shaping individual actions and "climate footprints" and can ultimately provide solutions for interventions to promote sustainable decisions. Despite this potential, however, there is still a lack of consideration and inclusion of psychological research in climate policy design. Here, I propose that this disregard of findings is due to the fact that previous research has mainly examined climate relevant behavior, affect, and cognition in isolation, without considering the cultural and temporal contexts in which they take place. Most research on environmental psychology has focused on Western samples. Studies examining variation in climate change relevant variables or the effectiveness of behavioral interventions across nations are scarce. It thus remains unknown whether the knowledge generated in the field can be applied to policy design around the globe, including the world's most significant regions for climate change. Similarly, longitudinal studies investigating judgments and decisions across time are scarce, limiting assumptions about how the effectiveness of interventions depends on temporal context. The existing research applying cross-cultural and longitudinal approaches is mainly based on correlational designs, while research using experimental designs to infer decision processes is missing. As a consequence, little is known about the cognitive and affective mechanisms underlying cultural and temporal variation in decision-making and causal conclusions cannot be drawn. The here-proposed Eccellenza project aims to address these knowledge gaps. The first major goal of the project is to better understand how individual judgments, decisions, and the underlying psychological processes vary across nations and time. To this end, we will develop and validate experimental paradigms to assess decisions and underlying cognitive and affective processes in the climate and energy domain. We then seek to examine cross-cultural variation in decision-making in a large cross-cultural study with 12 nations around the globe as well as temporal variation in decision-making in a longitudinal 4-years study in three selected nations from North America, Europe, and Asia. The experimental approach coupled with cutting-edge cross-cultural and longitudinal research methodology will not only provide more reliable, valid, and causal evidence about cross-cultural variation in decision-making but also reveal in-depth why such differences occur. The second major goal is to better understand how the effectiveness of behavioral interventions to promote sustainable decisions varies across nations and time. To this end, we will integrate the generated findings into the development of behavioral interventions and examine the effectiveness of the interventions across 12 nations as well as across an important climate change event (i.e., UN climate conference). The cross-cultural and longitudinal validation of behavioral interventions will reveal when, where, and how behavioral interventions work, either in isolation or in combination with classic policies. The combination of cross-cultural environmental psychology with rigorous experimental research methodology as proposed here is likely to make a strong contribution to theory development and at the level of society. To address the multidimensional nature of climate change, we will mobilize a group of international leading experts from various disciplines including psychology, sociology, economics, affective science, information science, and energy policy. This international network will ensure that the findings will be disseminated broadly across scientific communities as well as specifically into the regions where the insights are needed. This means that the policy recommendations drawn from this project can be applied to the design of targeted behavioral climate policies in the world's most significant regions for global climate change.