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Centre for Culture and Evolution @brunelcce.bsky.social · 2d

🧵 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

High rates of polygyny do not lock large proportions of men out of the marriage market

www.pnas.org

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Brunel Psychology @brunelpsy.bsky.social · 14d

Dr Julio Rodríguez Larios introduced our BSc Psychology programme and led a hands-on workshop on Electroencephalography (EEG). Students also had the opportunity to explore our campus, learn about ongoing research projects, and ask questions about studying Psychology at Brunel

Brunel Psychology @brunelpsy.bsky.social · 14d

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 🧠

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Brunel Psychology @brunelpsy.bsky.social · 15d

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

so high stakes

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Brunel Psychology @brunelpsy.bsky.social · 15d

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

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Centre for Culture and Evolution @brunelcce.bsky.social · 19d

🧵 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 🧪

Kin-Directed Altruism and Male Androphilia in Thailand: Investigating the Roles of Femininity and Neuroticism - Archives of Sexual Behavior

The kin selection hypothesis (KSH) proposes that same-sex attracted individuals offset their lowered direct reproduction via kin-directed altruism that increases close genetic relatives’ reproduction,...

link.springer.com

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Brunel Psychology @brunelpsy.bsky.social · Sep 5

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

Main Panel A – Medicine, Health and Life Sciences – REF 2029

2029.ref.ac.uk

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Brunel Psychology @brunelpsy.bsky.social · Sep 5

Dr Matteo Marco and Prof Veena Kumari were awarded a small grant to study "Is verbal aggressiveness associated with a reduced ability to process abstract concepts?" 💬🗣️

AND Dr Ray Norbury has a small grant to study "Finding a route to creativity” 🧑‍🎨

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Brunel Psychology @brunelpsy.bsky.social · Sep 5

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

British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grants

The BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grants are available to support primary research in the humanities and social sciences. These awards, up to £10,000 in value and tenable for up to 24 months, are provi...

www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk

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Centre for Culture and Evolution @brunelcce.bsky.social · Sep 5

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)

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Daniel Conroy-Beam @dconroybeam.bsky.social · Aug 28

Annie Wertz plants a flag for plan and learning research!

Evolutionary Psychology (the podcast) @epthepod.bsky.social · Aug 26

This week, @anniewertz.bsky.social talks about her ground-breaking work exploring what infants know, and come prepared to learn, about 🌱plants🌿! (Annie gets credit for all plant-based puns in this episode).

youtu.be/bMbDieccEtc

www.podbean.com/eas/pb-67k8k...

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e...

Plants, Infants, and the Evolution of Social Learning with Annie Wertz

YouTube video by Evolutionary Psychology (The Podcast)

youtu.be

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Dr Lora Adair @loraadair.bsky.social · Aug 29

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

Centre for Culture and Evolution @brunelcce.bsky.social · Jul 3

🧵 1/ New Paper from CCE’s Julieta Baker and @loraadair.bsky.social and colleagues from @brunelpsy.bsky.social , Henry Ford Health and Tina's Haven on the “The sociocultural ecology of resilience” in SSM - Qualitative Research in Health 📣🤩

The sociocultural ecology of resilience: A comparative study among women in the United Kingdom

Resilience is often framed as an internal, individual process. However, this perspective overlooks the complex relationship between individuals and th…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · Aug 29

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...

Nina Metz @ninametz.bsky.social · Aug 29

Thinking about the fact that in 1976 an audience instantly got the joke about a nearly 40 year movie (by that point) because as a culture we had a working familiarity with older pop culture

Trying to think if a sketch show today could do an effective joke based on a detail from a film made in 1988

Old Hollywood @theoldhollywood.bsky.social · Aug 29

"I saw it in the window and I just couldn't resist it."

Starlett O'Hara (Carol Burnett) shows off her curtain couture in "Went with the Wind!" on The Carol Burnett Show, 1976

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Rebecca Sear @rebeccasear.bsky.social · Aug 31

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...

Image from the blog showing 5 solutions to countering scientific racism

1. Introduce students to the complexities of developmental processes
2. Introduce students to the complexities of inheritance processes
3. Explain that variation between racialised groups in behavioural and cultural traits is not caused by genetic differences
4. Debunk scientific racism in school and university level science curricula
5. Acknowledge and contextualised the racist histories of academic fields

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EHBEA @ehbea.bsky.social · Sep 2

🚨 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

EHBEA @ehbea.bsky.social · Jul 19

🚨GRANT APPLICATION🚨

Call for the WORKSHOP/EVENT GRANT from EHBEA is officially open!

If you are interested in organising a scientific workshop or an outreach event please check the link and apply!

DEADLINE: September 11th, 2025

www.cambridge.org/core/members...

Awards

Welcome to Membership Services

www.cambridge.org

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Centre for Culture and Evolution @brunelcce.bsky.social · Sep 3

This blog is continually relevant and an important read 📕 👀

Centre for Culture and Evolution @brunelcce.bsky.social · Jul 4

🧵 1/ Eugenics isn’t ancient history

@rebeccasear.bsky.social from @brunelpsy.bsky.social traces how the 19th-century idea of “improving” humanity through selective breeding keeps mutating - and why it never stopped threatening human rights 👇

The 21st Century Resurgence of Eugenics

www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk

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Rebecca Sear @rebeccasear.bsky.social · Sep 3

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

Title slide:

"Britons are evolving to be poorer and less well educated": documenting the return of the eugenic concept of "dysgenic fertility" in teh 2020s

by Rebecca Sear and Cathryn Townsend

TL;DR summary

- the subtext underlying some pronatalism is concern over who is (not) having children = "dysgenic fertility"

- academic has facilitated discussion of dysgenic fertility
- a small number of eugenicists have kept alive discussion of eugenics in the academia, and eugenic ideology is being promoted (again) in academic journals

- a more critical approach is needed both when conducting research and when communicating with public audiences

Public concern about low fertility: the 1920s
and the 2020s. Great Hall 001.
Chair: Alice Reid
Population narratives from Malthus to Musk -
Dermot Grenham
Hypothetical Thinking and the Switch on/Switch off Policy Solution Model: intervening cell cultures and human cultures1920s-present - Rebecca Close
“Britons are evolving to be poorer and less well educated”: Documenting
the return of the eugenic concept of “dysgenic fertility” in the 2020s -
Rebecca Sear, Cathryn Townsend

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Centre for Culture and Evolution @brunelcce.bsky.social · Aug 28

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

Rebecca Sear @rebeccasear.bsky.social · Aug 27

The conversations Siobhan has initiated have been great so far 😊 hopefully funding will really help us move the evolutionary behavioural sciences forward in a productive direction

Siobhán Cully 🇺🇸 🐱🥼🤓🩼 @siobhancully.bsky.social · Aug 27

And super duper immensely excited to share that we received funding to continue conversations on the past, present, and future of evolutionary behavioral sciences! w/ @anthrofuentes.bsky.social, @rebeccasear.bsky.social, @sarahalami.bsky.social

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Brunel Psychology @brunelpsy.bsky.social · Aug 22

5/ Practical takeaway ⚙️

Offer toggle-able choices (fonts, spacing, titles, layouts) and don’t hard-code colour schemes. Build tools that adapt to users—whether in classrooms, workplace training, or digital products 🤝

#Neurodiversity #SEN #InclusiveDesign #Education
@brunelgradschool.bsky.social

Brunel Psychology @brunelpsy.bsky.social · Aug 22

4/ Why it matters 🧑‍🏫💼💻

Listening to lived experience isn’t a nice-to-have - it’s how we build learning & support that works for the individual, not “the average”

Personalised presentation -> better access, less friction

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Brunel Psychology @brunelpsy.bsky.social · Aug 22

3/ Key finding ✅🎯

Across groups, preferences were remarkably consistent, with one option per variable generally preferred by all - except background colour, which differed by group

Design defaults help, but colour should be flexible 🎨

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Brunel Psychology @brunelpsy.bsky.social · Aug 22

2/ What they did 🧠📋

N = 204 adults with range of neurodevelopmenta disorders (ADHD, autism, dyslexia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia)
Asked for preferences for: font style/size, character & line spacing, title design, background colour, reward icons, instruction layout of educational materials

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Brunel Psychology @brunelpsy.bsky.social · Aug 22

🧵 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. 🧩

How do adults with neurodevelopmental disorders prefer information being presented?

Neurodiverse children do not always benefit from a typical learning environment and therefore may be at a disadvantage when learning alongside their peers. Many of these children have different pre...

www.tandfonline.com

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Centre for Culture and Evolution @brunelcce.bsky.social · Aug 15

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

@brunelpsy.bsky.social #ehbea #culturalevolution

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James Winters @replicatedtypo.bsky.social · Aug 15

🚨🚨 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

Modelling the emergence of open-ended technological evolution

Humans stand alone in terms of their potential to collectively and cumulatively improve technologies in an open-ended manner. This open-endedness provides societies with the ability to continually exp...

arxiv.org

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