We’ve landed in Chicago, IL!

This weekend, the BABLab team will be attending the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) Annual Convention 2026

BABLab PI Dr. Patty Van Cappellen and Post-Doctoral Associate in the BABLab Dr. Megan Edwards are both presenting at the “New Directions in Existential Psychology for the Religious and Nonreligious” symposium on Friday, February 27th! 

Patty’s talk is titled “Beyond Rainbows: Religious and Existential Dimensions of Hope”, and Megan’s talk is titled “Hope in the Dark: Hope More Strongly Predicts Meaning in Life Among Those Who Need It.”

Additionally, more of our team joins us to present!

BABLab Lab Manager Jenna Faith McClear, M.T.S., will be presenting her poster “Immediate Emotional Benefits of Religious Service Attendance: Evidence from a Natural Experiment at Easter” at the Religion and Spirituality Preconference on Thursday, February 26th, and at the main conference on Friday, February 27th.

BABLab Lab Manager Camryn Yeager, B.A., will be presenting their poster “Campus Economic Inequality May Shape Feelings of ‘Falling Behind’ and Reduced Student Well-Being” at the main conference on Saturday, February 28th.

Finally, BABLab research assistant Jennifer Hu will be presenting her poster “What Makes Us Human?: Sociality as a Key Dimension of Mind Perception” at the first poster session of the main conference on Thursday, February 26th.

We are so proud of this amazing team! Best of luck this weekend.

Are you attending SPSP? Come say hi at our sessions or posters! We’d love to connect with fellow researchers.

We’re happy to announce a new publication from our very own Dr.Patty Van Cappellen!

Wilt, J. A., Van Tongeren, D. R., Van Cappellen, P., & Exline, J. J. (in press). Spirituality beyond religion: Development of 9-item and 27-item multidimensional measures of spiritual yearning. Journal of Personality Assessment.

“In this paper, we developed a new scale to assess spiritual yearning. Spiritual yearning captures a motivational state of longing: a perceived insufficiency and desire for meaning, connection, or transcendence.”

The 9 Things Nonreligious People Yearn For

The study looked at over 1,500 nonreligious adults and found that this “yearning” isn’t just one vague feeling. It actually breaks down into nine specific categories:

1. Moral Guidance

2. Divine Relationship

3. Afterlife Beliefs

4. Communal Belonging

5. Transcendent Interconnectedness

6. Inner Peace

7. Spiritual Experiences

8. Authentic Self-Discovery

9. Meaningful Legacy

Why This Matters

Dr. Van Cappellen, alongside other researchers, created two new scales (a short 9-item version and a detailed 27-item version) to help psychologists measure these feelings.

They found that people with high “Spiritual Yearning” scores often struggle with existential questions or “spiritual struggles.”  By identifying these yearnings, we can better understand how nonreligious people find meaning, cope with stress, and navigate their inner lives.

This past January 2026, Dr. Patty Van Cappellen was featured on David DeSteno’s How God Works Podcast on an episode titled “Mattering.”