Empirically-Informed Activism: Understanding the Science of the Mind to Fight Sexual Violence on College Campuses

This interactive session presented by Leslie Berntsen of University of Southern California synthesizes psychological research to help participants understand and effectively combat rape culture on college campuses from an additional theoretical framework. Discussion topics include the cognitive underpinnings of victim-blaming tendencies, social factors that can facilitate or inhibit bystander intervention, and the neural bases of sexual objectification.

This workshop was part of the Prevention Track at the 2015 National Sexual Assault Conference that held September 2 – 4 in Los Angeles, CA. View the conference materials including workshop handouts and slides here. The Prevention track was sponsored by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. Learn more about PreventConnect Campus – an online resource to advance building comprehensive, strategic and intentional prevention programming on college campuses.