Congratulations to Dr. Van Cappellen for being awarded with grant funding from the John Templeton Foundation! Dr. Van Cappellen serves as Principal Investigator on this grant ($259,979) titled “What is Hope? Bridging the Gap Between Lived Experience, Practice, and Research”, a three-year project beginning in September 2024 to March 2027.

Hope is an important human experience and a valuable resource for practitioners working with people facing adversity. Pioneering work by Snyder (1994, 2002) focuses on goal pursuit motives of hope; this project aims to further expand the psychological study of hope by engaging with lived experiences of practitioners and community members, including people of faith. To do so, “stories of hope” will be collected from people of varied religious and cultural backgrounds. In addition, an interdisciplinary scientific meeting (psychology, theology, nursing and medicine, other practitioners) will be held to co-construct an expanded definition of hope that is both phenomenologically-grounded and scientifically precise. This project will build foundational basis and provide the impetus for a renewed study of hope in psychology, one that sits more closely at the interface of healthcare, spiritual care, and lived experiences.