Students who study social psychology, which is a research based discipline, can find many areas for thesis research. For example, a student might set up a scenario involving a date rape and manipulate the age of the woman to determine the effect of age on attributions of responsibility. A student might vary the hair color of a stimulus person to determine its effect of perceptions of beauty. Students might develop a scenario involving an emergency and see whether people are more likely to help if the victim is similar to themselves.
Graduate students can find many ideas for thesis research on child and adolescent development. For example, students might research the effect of mother-child attachment on children's independence, the effect of a child's physical attractiveness on how parents and other family members interact with them, or the development of gender roles in families where the father has a job usually associated with women. Students can also conduct research on attitudes toward death and dying as they correlate to the age of the participant.
Students enrolled in clinical or counseling psychology programs can conduct research on the influence of the age or the marital status of a counselor on perceptions of a potential client. They could conduct a survey about people's attitudes toward counseling or specific types of psychotherapy. They could also conduct a survey on people's attitudes toward clients with different types of mental disorders or the need for counseling for member of the armed services who have been traumatized.
Students interested in psychology and the law can find many ideas for their thesis research. For example, they might study whether jurors are influenced by the race or gender of the defendant or victim; whether jurors are more likely to believe an older child or a younger child, whether personality variables such as Belief in a Just World or Self Esteem influence perceptions of criminal activity. They can also conduct research on attitudes toward police officers, judges, and attorneys.