We are excited (and a bit sad) to announce that BABLab Post-Doc (and former lab manager!) Dr. Megan Edwards will be starting a new role as Assistant Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Texas A&M University this fall! She will be working specifically in the personality and social psychology area. There, she will continue her research on positive emotions and meaning in life. We in the BABLab are so proud to see how far Megan has come since she was a lab manager here, but we will miss her dearly! Congratulations Megan!

We are proud to announce a new publication by BABLab Post-Doctoral Associate, Megan Edwards!

Edwards, M. E., Rose, H., Wang, I., King, L. A. (2026). The role of hope in supporting purpose following childhood adversity. The Journal of Positive Psychology. (in press)

In this paper, Megan and her team present evidence to suggest that, for those who were subjected to adverse experiences in childhood, hope is associated with greater levels of purpose. Purpose, or the feeling that one’s life has clear goals and direction, is one of the three core components of a meaningful life, alongside coherence (being able to make sense of one’s life) and significance (feeling that life matters). The findings presented in this paper suggest that the ability to keep a hopeful outlook on life may act as a protective factor against the harm of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs).

Congratulations to Megan and her co-authors!

This past semester, students enrolled in Dr. Kunalan Manokara’s course, offered through Duke University’s Pluralism, Free Inquiry, and Belonging initiative, stepped outside the traditional classroom and into the BABLab.

Students engaged in ongoing research exploring the utility of positive emotions as a tool for promoting positive intergroup relations, making the BABLab a site of hands-on learning.

The experience ended with a final project presentation, where students shared their research findings directly with Dr. Manokara and BABLab PI Dr. Patty Van Cappellen.

Students also received an informational tour of the lab space, gaining an inside look at the infrastructure, research questions, and collaborative environment that define a successful social science research lab.

Congrats to Kunalan’s students for completing their certification in pluralism, free inquiry, and belonging at Duke!

We are proud to announce a new publication by BABLab Post-Doctoral Associate, Kunalan Manokara!

Ye*, Z., Manokara*, K., Lamba, N., Sauter, D., & Sun, R. (2026). Beliefs about others’ positive emotional expressions: how they diverge by target social class, and why it matters. Cognition and Emotion, 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2026.2626442

In this paper, Kunalan and his team (including his Master’s student, whom he shared first authorship* with!) investigated beliefs about others’ emotional expressions in relation to targets’ social class. They focused on two types of positive emotions: self-oriented (e.g. pride) and other-oriented (e.g. gratitude).

Across samples from four societies (UK, India, UAE, and the US), the authors found a strikingly consistent pattern of findings. While higher-class targets were believed as more likely to express self- oriented positive emotions (e.g., pride), lower-class targets were instead more likely thought to express other-oriented positive emotions (e.g., gratitude).

In follow-up experiments evaluating the social consequences of these emotion stereotypes, the authors demonstrated that people were less willing to associate with and work in teams with targets whose emotional expressions misaligned with their expectations (e.g., lower class people who show their pride, or higher class people who communicate their gratitude).

Taken together, these findings highlight the consistency of class-based emotion stereotypes and the behavioral intentions that stem from such beliefs.

This work was featured in the APS Presidential Roundtable 2025, where Kunalan was invited to share his findings. Congratulations!