Happy (almost) end of the Spring semester!
Over the course of the year, our What is Hope? Bass Connections 24-25 Project Team has reviewed hope literature, recruited community populations, conducted semi-structured interviews, and analyzed stories of hope. Last week, the team presented a poster at the 2025 Fortin Foundation Bass Connections Showcase on some of our preliminary findings from this work investigating the lived experiences of hope!
As the Spring semester wraps up, we are proud to have two of our BABLab undergraduate RAs — Abby and Rohan — presenting their posters at the 2025 Duke URS Undergraduate Research Symposium!
Abby Li, presenting her poster on virtual worship and flourishing.
Rohan Gupta, presenting his poster on perceptions of compassion between Christians and Buddhists.
BABLab Team at Duke URS 2025!
April showers bring May flowers! We are celebrating more good news in the midst of this rainy weather. Last month, our two BABLab post-doctoral fellows Dr. Kunalan Manokara and Dr. Megan Edwards attended and presented at the 2025 SAS Annual Conference in Portland!
Dr. Kunalan Manokara presenting his research on Empathy (left) and Emotion Stereotypes (right) at the Annual Conference.
Dr. Megan Edwards presenting her research on Awe (left) at the Positive Emotions Preconference, which was Co-Organized by Dr. Kunalan Manokara this year (right).
Happy Spring! With new blossoms emerging at the turn of the season, we’d like to celebrate our BABLab members in this season of growth.
Last month, BABLab attended the 2025 SPSP Annual Convention in Denver, featuring: data blitz talk by post-doctoral fellow Dr. Megan Edwards, and an array of poster presentations by lab managers Jenna Faith McClear, Cheryl Tan, and senior undergraduate RA Rohan Gupta!
Dr. Megan Edwards at the Existential Psychology Pre-Conference
Cheryl Tan, Rohan Gupta at the Emotion Pre-Conference
Jenna Faith McClear at the Religion & Spirituality Pre-Conference
The BABLab Team at SPSP 2025!
The root of human connection is driven by gratitude and compassion. How can religious and spiritual practices influence well-being?
Check out this article by Dr. Van Cappellen and Dr. Manokara, published online by Psychology Today here: How Spiritual Practices Can Affect Well-Being!
Happy New Year & Happy Lunar New Year! We are welcoming the Spring 2025 semester with exciting new publications on emotion from our BABLab members.
Dr. Megan Edwards, BABLab post-doctoral fellow, recently celebrated two publications on hope and awe, currently in-press at Emotion and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin respectively.
Cheryl Tan, BABLab co-lab manager, celebrated a paper on joy last summer, currently published online at The Journal of Positive Psychology.
We look forward to sharing more of the work that our BABLab members have been working hard on!
Congratulations to Dr. Van Cappellen for being awarded with grant funding from the Templeton Religion Trust! Dr. Van Cappellen serves as Principal Investigator, with BABLab post-doctoral fellow Dr. Kunalan Manokara as Co-Investigator, on this grant ($259,986) titled “The Science of Empathy: A Scoping Review”, a two-year project from November 2024 to 2026.
This project will evaluate the current state of the field on empathy research, guided by the following five strands:
Why empathy? Empathy is widely recognized by practitioners as essential for fostering peaceful relationships as it promotes interpersonal cooperation and intergroup peace. In an increasingly polarized world where division is exacerbated by ideological differences, cultivating empathy for different perspectives is crucial. This scoping review serves to organize conceptualizations of empathy, as well as related constructs such as compassion and love, in order to: integrate and evaluate new knowledge and robustness; identify gaps in the field; and suggest new lines of empirical research.
Happy Fall! BABLab enjoyed one of the first cool days of the season with a rooftop lunch — blue skies and a lovely breeze! A great start to the semester with our new BABLab team members, Megan Edwards and Jenna McClear, and a visit from collaborator Ward Davis (Wheaton College).
We’re happy to announce a new publication from the lab on the embodiment of prayer postures in three world religions!
Van Cappellen, P., Edwards, M.E., Kamble, S.V., Yildiz, M., Ladd, K.L. (2024). Kneel, stand, prostrate: The psychology of prayer postures in three world religions. PLoS ONE, 19(8): e0306924. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0306924
Background:
Most people practice a religion, often multiple times daily. Among the most visible aspects of these practices are body postures, which according to embodiment theories, likely shape the psychological experience of religion.
Objective:
In a preregistered study, we test this idea among Christians, Muslims, and Hindus in the United States, Turkey, and India (N = 2,458).
Method:
In a repeated-measures experimental design, participants imagined praying in various typical postures, then reported their affective experiences, perceived relationship with deity, and prayer content for each posture.
Results & Conclusion:
Compared to downward and constrictive postures, expansive and upward postures led to more positive emotions, dominance, and praise-focused prayers, yet fewer introspective or intercessory prayers. Interestingly, these effects varied based on religious context (e.g., many Hindus found upward and expansive postures offensive, causing no positive affect). We further explored whether these effects varied based on posture familiarity, religiosity, interoceptive sensibility, and personality traits. This research provides unique data on embodied processes shaping affect and cognition in religious practices.
With Fall soon approaching, we’d like to welcome two new members to the BABLab team! Our ranks are joined by two post-doctoral fellows, Megan Edwards and Kunalan Manokara. Together, we’re excited to continue the lab’s work on empathy, as well as begin new projects on hope and virtual worship!
