1/ New paper from @brunelpsy.bsky.social CCE in Evolution & Human Behavior looks at secularisation in Mauritius 🇲🇺 Nachita Rosun, @matthewmgervais.bsky.social and @aiyanakoka.bsky.social have been testing big theories outside the usual Western settings 🌏 🔗 👇

🧵 1/ 🧠📊 New paper in Brain Communications by Dr Matteo De Marco and colleagues uses network science to rethink how cognition changes in Alzheimer’s disease 🧪 🔗

🎉 Congratulations to Andrei Barbanta! 🎉 We’re delighted to share that Andrei Barbanta, our outstanding Technician at Brunel University of London psychology, has won a British Psychological Society Technician Award 🏆👏

🧠✏️ How does the brain actually design? Join us for a talk by Prof John S Gero (Drexel University) on what neuroscience reveals about designing: from architects to engineers, tools to AI Cohosted by CCN and @brunelcce.bsky.social 📅 4 Feb | 11-12 📍 Bannerman 109 + online Open to all 👋 👇 🔗

📢 Happening this time next week! Open to all! 🔓 📅29th January 2-4pm Brunel campus or online Further info 👇

Dusted off the ol' blog after years of heavy disuse because I'm h*ckin' excited to tell y'all about some of the exciting things we're trying in our stats/methods/skills curriculum at Brunel! Read! Share! Tell us what you think! #psychscisky 🧪 #philsci #methodology #teaching

Is the world becoming more religious? Is a Christian revival underway in the UK? I'll discuss these questions in London next week: Wed. at @ucl.ac.uk www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/events/2... Thur. at @brunelpsy.bsky.social students.brunel.ac.uk/whats-on/sha... & Thur. at Kings www.linkedin.com/pulse/really...

@willgervais.com wonderfully showcasing the work of CCE members @replicatedtypo.bsky.social @michealdebarra.bsky.social and @abbeyepage.bsky.social in re vamping the research methods at @brunelpsy.bsky.social 💙 We’re learning as we go but dead excited 📚☠️🤗 Follow for updates 🧪

📢 Talk announcement bringing together @brunelcce.bsky.social and CCN research centres! 📢 Dr Conrad Hackett (Pew Research Center) joins us on 📆29th Jan, 2-4pm to unpack the latest global religion survey and how it diverges from Pew’s influential 2015 projections 🌍📊 Open to all! 🔓

1/ 👩‍🎓 Big shout-out to Brunel PhD student Hannah Mays and supervisor @nelliferenczi.bsky.social from @brunelpsy.bsky.social for contributing written evidence on misogyny in the manosphere and online content to a major policy consultation

1/ At Brunel Psychology, we’re excited to share a recent project and video featuring @byroncreese.bsky.social and the development of SmartSocks 🧦🤯 - wearable tech designed to help detect distress in people living with dementia in collaboration with health-tech start-up Milbotix 🎥 👇

1/ In a recent @britishacademy.bsky.social video @rebeccasear.bsky.social from @brunelpsy.bsky.social takes a clear-eyed look at the 21st‑century rise of eugenics - an ideology that should have been left behind, yet is now re‑emerging in a number of troubling ways ⚠️🧬 🧪 Watch the full talk here 🎥👇

EHBEA 2026 has extended the deadline till the 9th January #holidaymircale

1/ 🎉 Huge congratulations to Dr @byroncreese.bsky.social from @brunelpsy.bsky.social , whose NIHR-funded project has been featured in this month’s Leading Edge!

1/ 🧵 New PNAS paper by CCE’s @michealdebarra.bsky.social @aiyanakoka.bsky.social with Angel V Jiménez and Nachita Rosun🎉 📄 Why do people turn to religious or supernatural cures? 🧪🏺 #evolpsy #evolanth #evolutionarybehaviouralsciences #culturalevolution

@michealdebarra.bsky.social and @aiyanakoka.bsky.social discuss all about this research in this short video 📹 👏🎬

🧵 1/ Excited to share this work from CCEs Francisco Gómez Jiménez, whose research explores gender diversity across cultures 🌍 Francisco introduces the muxes of the Istmo Zapotec community in Oaxaca, Mexico - a remarkable example of longstanding, culturally grounded gender diversity 🏳️‍🌈 🎥👇

1/ 🎙️ New paper by Dr Aiyana Willard argues it’s time to retire HADD = “we’re hardwired to see agents EVERYWHERE” and replace it with something that *actually* fits the evidence 🪦➡️📚 @brunelpsy.bsky.social 🔗 Read it 👇

1/ 🎉 New Brunel Psychology publication alert co-authored with Dr Pauldy Otermans and Sofia Barbosa Boucas, is now out in the European Journal of Education! “Students’ Views on Their Academic Skills Development” 📚✨

🧵 1/ Delighted to share that the edited volume Interprofessional Ethics Across the Life Course in Health and Social Care is now published with Brunel Psychology Sofia Barbosa Bouças as an contributor. 📘✨ #InterprofessionalEthics #BrunelResearch

1/ 🩸 New Research by former CCE Tristin Agtarap and CCE member Julieta Baker 📣👏 A new paper in *Sexuality Research & Social Policy* explores how menstrual product choices and menstrual-care practices shape empowerment, autonomy and connection to the body

📚 Brunel Psychology is thrilled to highlight the brilliant work of our colleagues @neuronerdsb.bsky.social and Dr Pauldy Otermans who contributed to a chapter “Co-produce belonging activities with staff and students” 👉 www.routledge.com/Student-Belo...

🧠👀 Dr Rachel Bennetts, our expert in face processing at Brunel psychology, shared her thoughts in @theguardian.com on a fascinating new study exploring what makes some people exceptional at recognising faces 😶‍🌫️ 🔗 👇

🤩 Methods, stats and critical thinking is getting a massive overhaul at @brunelpsy.bsky.social thanks to the hard work of CCE @willgervais.com @replicatedtypo.bsky.social @michealdebarra.bsky.social and @abbeyepage.bsky.social 💪💅

🧵 1/ Excellent and impactful work from CCE second in command @loraadair.bsky.social published in the New Metro over the weekend about Outcry Witness It’s an anonymous website where sexual-assault survivors can safely tell their stories. No names, no pressure. Just a record in their own words 🗣️🛡️

🧵 1/ New paper from CCEs @rebeccasear.bsky.social led by @hggaddy.bsky.social with @anthrolog.bsky.social challenging some common assumptions about polygyny (there are many…) it's open access 🔓 🧪 @brunelpsy.bsky.social

On 16 September 2025, we were delighted to welcome students from Halliford School to our Psychology campus at Brunel 🤩 If you would like to arrange a visit for your students and discover what our Psychology Department has to offer, please get in touch 🧠

It’s time for the psychology pub quiz. The prize is this amazing Brunel mascot soft toy 🧸 🦖 so high stakes

It's the start of welcome week here at Brunel and the new Psychology undergrads are meeting their personal tutors and lecturers 👏 🎓

🧵 1/ New paper co-authored by Francisco Gomez Jimenez from the CCE and colleagues explores same-sex sexuality within an evolutionary framework published in Archives of Sexual Behavior 🧪

📣 CCN's leader Veena Kumari has been selected for the #REF2029 Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience panel 🥳👏

@brunelpsy.bsky.social has been super successful in the latest round of British Academy / Leverhulme Trust funding with two awards 🤩💅👏🥳

The recent IARR 2025 mini conference on "Gender, sexuality and relationships" co-led by CCE's Stan Gaines was a great success 🏳️‍🌈😌🫂 The mini-conference was named for the Gender, Sexuality and Relationships (GSR) theme group within Brunel University of London’s Centre for Culture and Evolution (CCE)

Annie Wertz plants a flag for plan and learning research!

taking a social/relational perspective on resilience in recovery - super proud of this work and so grateful to our participants 🫶

At Brunel I was teaching stats to first-year psychology students in the same building (!) where Alex from Clockwork Orange was "rehabilitated". The joke was writing itself, and I had the feeling nobody was getting it...

Race Isn’t Biological — So Why Do So Many Still Think It Is? @kevinlala.bsky.social and @kztwyman.bsky.social blog about their recent paper in the journal Evolutionary Human Sciences www.cambridge.org/core/blog/20...

🚨 GRANT APPLICATION 🚨 Do not forget to apply for the workshop/event grant from EHBEA in case you are organising a scientific event 😉 DEADLINE: September 11th, 2025

This blog is continually relevant and an important read 📕 👀

Coincidentally, was talking about eugenics again yesterday at the #BSPS2025 conference. Dermot Grenham and Alice Reid organised a very interesting session on similarities in public concern about low fertility in the 1920s and 2020s

Exciting news for the evolutionary behavioural sciences ❤️🐒🧪 co-led with CCE's Director @rebeccasear.bsky.social CCE at @brunelpsy.bsky.social is an unique blend of cultural evolution, psychology, anthropology, cross-cultural studies, human behavioural ecology and demography - so this is EXCITING

🧵 1/ New research alert 🚀 Pauldy Otermans, @neuronerdsb.bsky.social ‬, Aditya, Seon, Cooper & Roomi published “How do adults with neurodevelopmental disorders prefer information being presented?” in Educational Media International Takehome message - personalisation matters. 🧩

🧵 1/ 📢 New CCE pre-print on open-ended technological evolution by @replicatedtypo.bsky.social and @matcharbonneau.bsky.social ‬👇 @brunelpsy.bsky.social #ehbea #culturalevolution

🚨🚨 New preprint 📜 with Mathieu Charbonneau (@matcharbonneau.bsky.social‬): Modelling the emergence of open-ended technological evolution (arxiv.org/abs/2508.04828). Feedback welcomed! #Evolution #Technology #Culture #OpenEnded #TechnologicalEvolution #CulturalEvolution 🧵: 1/29

🧵 1/ 🎓 New paper from the @Brunelpphy team @neuronerdsb.bsky.social‬ and Pauldy Otermans on “the dynamics of student assessment” published in the latest issue of Cogent Education

The Spirits and Sources folks attended the Goddess Conference last week 🧙‍♀️🪬🧚 lots of fieldwork 🏞️🔍, participant observation and ethnography 🧑‍🤝‍🧑📋🖊️, and community building 🌐🤝🏘️ as well as embodied experience 🙏💃🌀 @brunelpsy.bsky.social @brunelgradschool.bsky.social

@brunelpsy.bsky.social hosted the International Association for Relationship Research (IARR) on the topic of “Gender, Sexuality, and Relationships” last week with amazing representation from Brunel undergrad, MSc and PhD researchers ❤️🤩 all mentored by the 🌟 @loraadair.bsky.social 🌟

🧵 1/8 🌟Brand spanking new paper (again) by CCE’s @loraadair.bsky.social and ex-PhD student Tristin Agtarap on culture and the policies and procedures that regulate sex ed and abortion care in Sexuality Research and Social Policy 📢 @brunelgradschool.bsky.social l @brunelpsy.bsky.social l