Marlou Poppelaarsonline
Short bio
I am a Postdoctoral researcher passionate about internalizing psychopathology prevention and the use of technology and innovation for this purpose while stimulating intrinsic motivation. I love to read, cook and bake everything delicious. Working on finishing my dissertation and Two Dots (Level 3682 and counting).
Top-3 games
- Two Dots
- Journey
- Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
Stars can’t shine without darkness
D H Sidebottem - Fragile Truths
About me
Having recently defended my dissertation entitled Engaging Youth in Depression Prevention: Testing the Effectiveness and Appeal of Applied and Commercial Video Games, I am now looking for my next research adventure. I am a behavioural scientist passionate about internalizing psychopathology intervention, intrinsic motivation, and the use of video games and other technological advancements for this purpose. As a PhD-student and Postdoctoral researcher my projects focused on mechanisms in commercial and applied video games that may promote mental health in adolescents. Having experienced first-hand the limitations of using symptom questionnaires to select youth for prevention programs, I believe that innovative theoretical, methodological and intervention research is needed to lower the disease burden of internalizing mental health disorders and I am excited to contribute to this with my own work.
Projects I’ve worked on
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CategoryDepressionDate09/06/2020Study/CourseLocation
Can I Play Some More? Promoting Adolescent Well-being Through Engaging Video Games
About the projectCommercial video games may offer a cheap and readily available way to help us understand in what way video games can be used to promote adolescent well-being. Excellent targets for this are games that involve social interaction, encourage both positive and negative emotions and are identified by youth themselves as potentially beneficial. By letting youth play several commercial video games in different settings, we can learn how games interact with well-being and motivation in both short and long-term.
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CategoryResilienceDate19/01/2022Study/CourseLocation
Nonspecific Factors in Video Games for Mental Health
About the projectMore and more games are designed to promote mental health. If these games are found to be effective, it is important to investigate which factors are responsible for the improvements in mental health. Most often, this type of research focuses on the specific clinical techniques that were designed into the game. However, from the clinical literature it is known that, for instance, expectations, motivation, and one’s mindset about the malleability of symptoms play a major role in positive intervention outcomes. In my project I aim to investigate these nonspecific factors and examine how we can manipulate these factors in order to optimize video games for mental health.
My updates
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top update
Marlou Poppelaars successfully defended her doctoral thesis!
Marlou Poppelaars - 17-12-2021On November 26th, 2021 GEMH-lab's own Marlou publicly defended her PhD thesis entitled: "Engaging Youth in Depression Prevention: Testing the Effectiveness and Appeal of Applied and Commercial Video Games". In this blog you can find a link to her doctoral thesis as well as a link to the recorded defense.
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Should you play Pokemon Go with your family?
Marlou Poppelaars - 18-12-2018In a small side street leading from the riverfront up to the city center a strange collection of people were gathered. Among them pre-teen children accompanied by a parent, a group of about a dozen teenage boys, several smaller groups of older teenagers and young adults, interspersed by older adults and senior citizens. All gathering to and playing together with the aim of battling and catching the legendary Pokémon Giratina. So why is it that Pokemon go still attracts so many players from all ages? And should your family join in?
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May roundup: A kaleidoscope of options for depression and anxiety
Marlou Poppelaars - 31-05-2018The month of May is almost over, which means that in the next few days we are switching over to a new topic. In case you missed any of our blogs this month, I have compiled them all here.
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Dark Souls: A reflection of depression and a way to cope?
Marlou Poppelaars - 18-05-2018Dark Souls is a video game series often described as dark and incredibly difficult. Honestly, one of the last games I would have considered as beneficial for those dealing with depression. My first impression may very well be wrong though...
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Do It Yourself: Dealing with depression and anxiety
Marlou Poppelaars - 04-05-2018Everyone has moments when they feel sad, lonely, numb, exhausted, depressed, nervous or anxious. This is a normal part of the ups and downs of life and most people will experience one or more periods in their lives, when they have a diagnosable depression or anxiety disorder. But even if things are not quite that bad, you may still want to do something to help yourself feel better!
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Theme Month May – Can you help me?
Marlou Poppelaars - 03-05-2018No matter how natural receiving help can be, asking for help can be difficult. This month, in honour of Mental Health Awareness Month , we will focus on help-seeking for anxiety and depression and we will discuss different types of help, different ways you can find help and things you can do to help yourself.
Events View all events
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UNTILL11November15NovemberAbout the event
Surf your stress week at Wageningen University & Research
LocationWageningen, The Netherlands
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UNTILL13September15SeptemberAbout the event
EARA 2018
LocationGhent, Belgium
GEMH Lab speaks at the biennial conference of the European Association for Research on Adolescence (EARA) which took place in Ghent between September 12 and September 15 2018.
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UNTILL12September15SeptemberAbout the event
European Association for Research on Adolescence - 2018
LocationGhent, Belgium
Symposium: Promoting emotional resilience through games for emotional and mental health at EARA 2018
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UNTILL07March09MarchAbout the event
International Convention of Psychological Science 2019
LocationParis, France
Symposium: “Video Games for Promoting Emotional and Mental Health in Young People" at ICPS 2019
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UNTILL16May17MayAbout the event
Health By Tech
LocationGroningen, the Netherlands
Multidisciplinary conference on technological innovations for wellbeing Symposium: Video games for promoting emotional and mental health in young people
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UNTILL16May17MayAbout the event
Supporting Health by Tech
LocationGroningen, The Netherlands
The conference Supporting Health by Technology (9th Edition) will be organised in the MartiniPlaza in Groningen (the Netherlands). The conference is organised by the Dept. of Health Psychology of the University Medical Center Groningen & the Dept. of Psychology, Health and Technology of the University of Twente (Centre for eHealth and Wellbeing Research), under the auspices of The Dutch eHealth Foundation (www.NeHS.nl)
My publications
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Explicit Mental Health Messaging Promotes Serious Video Game Selection in Youth with Elevated Mental Health Symptoms
Poppelaars, M., Wols, A., Lichtwarck-Aschoff, A., & Granic, I. (2018). Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01837
Author: Marlou Poppelaars
Upload date: 09-10-2018
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The Impact of Explicit Mental Health Messages in Video Games on Players’ Motivation and Affect
Poppelaars, M., Lichtwarck-Aschoff, A., Kleinjan, M., & Granic, I. (2018). The impact of explicit mental health messages in video games on players’ motivation and affect. Computers in Human Behavior, 83, 16-23. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2018.01.019
Author: Marlou Poppelaars
Upload date: 07-01-2018
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The Role of Motivation to Change and Mindsets in a Game Promoted for Mental Health
Wols, A., Poppelaars, M., Lichtwarck-Aschoff, A., & Granic, I. (2020). Entertainment Computing, 100371.
Author: Aniek Wols
Upload date: 07-07-2020
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A Randomized Controlled Trial Comparing Two Cognitive-Behavioral Programs for Adolescent Girls with Subclinical Depression: A School-Based Program (Op Volle Kracht) and a Computerized Program (SPARX)
Poppelaars, M., Tak, Y. R., Lichtwarck-Aschoff, A., Engels, R. C. M. E., Lobel, A., Merry, S. N., Lucassen, M. F. G., & Granic, I. (2016). Behaviour Research and Therapy, 80, 33-42. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2016.03.005
Author: Marlou Poppelaars
Upload date: 05-01-2016
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Autonomous and Controlled Motivation in a Randomized Controlled Trial Comparing School-based and Computerized Depression Prevention Programs
Poppelaars, M., Tak, Y. R., Lichtwarck-Aschoff, A., Engels, R. C. M. E., Lobel, A., Merry, S. N., Lucassen, M. F. G., & Granic, I. (2014). In Schouten, B., Fedtke, S., Schijven, M., Vosmeer, M. & Gekker, A. (Eds.), Games for Health 2014 (pp. 125-135). Germany: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-07141-7_17
Author: Marlou Poppelaars
Upload date: 10-29-2014
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Videospellen: De Positieve Effecten
Granic, I., Lobel, A., Poppelaars, M., & Engels, R. C. M. E. (2015). Kind en Adolescent, 36 (1), 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12453-014-0066-8
Author: Marlou Poppelaars
Upload date: 01-22-2015
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Marlou Poppelaars on Google Scholar
Developmental Psychopathology Depression Anxiety Prevention Applied Video Games
Author: Marlou Poppelaars
Upload date: 06-09-2020
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Preregistration: The Effect of Expectations on Experienced Fun, Mood, State-Anxiety and In-Game Play Behaviours while playing MindLight
Wols, A., Hollenstein, T., Lichtwarck-Aschoff, A., & Granic, I. (2019). https://osf.io/6gmwv
Author: Aniek Wols
Upload date: 07-05-2019
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Mental Health Outcomes of an Applied Game for Children with Elevated Anxiety Symptoms: A Randomized Controlled Non-inferiority Trial
Schoneveld, E.A., Wols, A., Lichtwarck-Aschoff, A., Otten, R., & Granic I. (2020). Journal of Child and Family Studies. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-020-01728-y
Author: Aniek Wols
Upload date: 06-24-2020
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The Effect of Expectations on Experiences and Engagement with an Applied Game for Mental Health
Wols, A., Hollenstein, T., Lichtwarck-Aschoff, A., & Granic (2021). Games for Health, 10(4), 207-219.
Author: Aniek Wols
Upload date: 08-09-2021
Worked together with
Professor and Chair of the Developmental Psychopathology department in the Behavioural Science Institute; writer; voracious podcast consumer; mother of two upstanding little gamers
Director of GEMH Lab
Assistant Professor at the Developmental Psychopathology Department, mainly interested in general processes and principles of clinical change; mother of two wild boys.
Assistant Professor
Assistant prof. and data geek at the GEMH lab, dynamical modelling, personalisation, wants to put the I back into AI, news junkie, cat lover.
Assistant Professor
I am interested in how and why applied games for mental health work, with a specific focus on the influence of one's mindset, motivation and expectations.
PhD-Candidate
User Research Analyst at Ubisoft Montréal. My favorite games tell emotionally rich stories and challenge me to think differently
User Research Analyst
Rutger Engels
CEO at Trimbos Institute / Professor Developmental Psychopathology Utrecht University
Marloes Kleinjan
Program Head Epidemiology & Research support at Trimbos Institute / Professor Youth Mental Health Promotion Utrecht University