Hi everyone,

You are invited to attend the next seminar from the Psychology Seminar Series on Wednesday 10 November 2025, 11:00-12:00pm in BR 3.81.

Attendance will be collated at the end of the seminar and RISE points will be allocated accordingly. 

To join the session online, click here: MS Teams

This seminar will feature two short talks, followed by discussion and Q&A. Please see below for details: 

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Dr Martin Turner, Reader, School of Psychology

A CBT Game Approach to Mental health and Emotion Regulation in children and adolescents (CBT GAMER) 

There has been an increasing focus on the development of serious games aimed at reducing mental health symptoms in children and young adults by gamifying therapeutic interventions designed to teach healthy thought processes and emotional regulation. Over the past 3 years, we have developed (through co-design and rapid sprints) a serious game called Dragon Mind. The game is based on CBT principles, mostly drawing on Ellis’ REBT and Gross’ process model of emotion regulation. In this talk, I cover the processes of designing and developing the game, demonstrate some game features, and share some preliminary data that pertains to its reception and effects. 

Dr Tom Hostler, Senior Lecturer, School of Psychology

Dr Sofia Persson, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Leeds Beckett University

Description as Prescription? A Registered Report on The Effect of Evolutionary Psychology on Biological Essentialism and Rape Attributions  

Sexual violence against women and girls is a serious concern, and victim blame is prevalent across society. Past research has suggested that evolutionary psychology theories on women’s and men’s behaviour have the potential to promote sexist and victim-blaming attitudes among laypeople. This talk presents the findings of a study investigating whether evolutionary explanations for male sexual aggression impact rape attributions following an ‘ambiguous’ rape vignette. Our two-part study collected data from 606 demographically representative UK participants. We presented them with brief facts about sexual violence against women, followed by one of two potential psychological explanations for men’s aggression, drawn from science outreach videos: an evolutionary explanation presented by David Buss, or a social-cultural explanation presented by Jackson Katz. Participants then completed a measure of biological essentialism, and following this, read a short vignette about a rape scenario and completed measures of rape attributions. Our results indicated that the evolutionary condition led to higher victim culpability through an increase in biological essentialism. We conclude that evolutionary psychology has the potential to increase victim-blaming attitudes through an increase in the belief that gender roles are natural and immutable. A key aspect of this study was the use of the “Registered Report” publication format, where studies are sent out for peer review and accepted for publication before data collection occurs. The talk will also cover the benefits of this format and the researchers’ experience of this type of study.  

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Any questions, please contact Danielle Labhardt or Matt Brooks on psychologyseminars@mmu.ac.uk.

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