Category Archives: Lab Members

BABLab Post-Doc Kunalan Manokara Chairs Positive Emotion Pre-Conference at the Society for Affective Science Annual Convention

Events, Lab Members
We are proud to share that our BABLab Postdoctoral Researcher, Kunalan Manokara, PhD, was invited to Chair the 2026 edition of the Positive Emotion Pre-Conference! This year’s event took place in Pittsburgh on the 12th of March!
Kunalan and his team put together an exciting schedule of invited talks and poster presentations, all aimed at showcasing cutting-edge research in the field of positive emotions. It was a day of insightful exchanges between scholars of all career stages, capped off with awards for emerging affective scientists working in this area.
Congratulations to Kunalan for successfully organizing his first pre-conference!

Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) 2026 Recap!

Events, Lab Members, Student Opportunities

Earlier this year, BABLab staff attended the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) Annual Convention 2026! We were so grateful to attend and present our research at the conference.

Here are some highlights from our team: 

BABLab PI Dr. Patty Van Cappellen and Post-Doctoral Associate in the
Dr. Megan Edwards of BABLab both presented at the “New Directions in Existential Psychology for the Religious and Nonreligious” symposium.

Dr. Van Capellen’s talk was titled ” Beyond Rainbows: Religious and Existential Dimensions of Hope.”
And Dr. Edwards’ talk was titled “Hope in the Dark: Hope More Strongly Predicts Meaning in Life Among Those Who Need It”

 

BABLab Lab Manager Jenna Faith McClear, M.T.S. & BABLab Lab Manager Camryn Yeager, B.A., both presented posters at the SPSP Main conference!

Camryn’s poster was titled “Campus Economic Inequality May Shape Feelings of ‘Falling Behind’ and Reduced Student Well-Being.”

Jenna’s Poster was titled “Immediate Emotional Benefits of Religious Service Attendance: Evidence From a Natural Experiment at Easter.”

Additionally, BABLab research assistant Jennifer Hu also presented her poster “What Makes Us Human?: Sociality as a Key Dimension of Mind Perception” at the first poster session of the main conference.

Finally, we were glad to catch up with all of the past BABLab alumni at the BABLab reunion dinner!

We had such an amazing time at SPSP ’26!

Megan and Patty Write Featured Article on International Society for the Study of Existential Psychology (ISSEP)’s website!

Lab Members, Media

We are beyond thrilled to share that an article written by our BABLab P.I. Patty Van Cappellen, PhD, and Postdoctoral Researcher Megan E. Edwards, has been featured on the International Society for the Study of Existential Psychology (ISSEP) website (read the article here!)

The article is titled “Where There is Hope There is Meaning” and expands on the idea that hope is a meaning-making emotion with great existential significance, as it helps us to persevere or take action during times in which we are suffering.

To demonstrate this, Megan and Patty highlight the history of the study of hope and highlight findings from both qualitative and quantitative studies of hope.

Congratulations, Megan and Patty, on this achievement!

Lab Manager Jenna Faith McClear, M.T.S., accepted to Baylor for Ph.D. program

Jobs, Lab Members

We are so happy to announce that our lab manager, Jenna Faith McClear, M.T.S., has accepted her offer to work in Sarah Schnitker’s lab at Baylor University toward her Ph.D. in social and personality psychology.

She is excited to continue her interdisciplinary work in psychology, theology, and joy & human flourishing throughout her time there.

We will miss her, but we are incredibly proud and grateful for all the work she has contributed in her nearly 2 years as lab manager here. Jenna, we wish you the best of luck on your journey. Your Duke family will always be here, rooting for you!

BABLab at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) Annual Convention 2026

Events, Lab Members

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.

New Publication In Press: Studying Gratitude in Everyday Prayer

Lab Members, Publications

We are excited to announce that Using Everyday Prayer to Test Functions of Gratitude in the Context of Religion (Van Cappellen, Bernal, & Algoe) has been accepted for publication in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin!

This study introduces a novel method for capturing the content of daily, naturalistic prayer: participants audio-recorded their prayers over two weeks, producing more than 1,100 spoken prayers that were later transcribed and analyzed. To quantify expressions of gratitude within these prayers, the team combined dictionary-based linguistic analysis (using LIWC) with AI-assisted text coding (GPT-4), allowing for both precise word-level measurement and deeper, context-sensitive interpretation of gratitude language. The study found that expressions of gratitude to God were common in daily prayers and that on days when individuals expressed more gratitude than usual, they also reported feeling closer to God and experiencing more positive spontaneous thoughts about prayer.

We’re proud that the Interdisciplinary Behavioral Research Center (IBRC) helped make this project possible by supporting participant recruitment. Check out the pre print of this paper here!

“What is Hope” Event Recap!

Events, Grants, Lab Members

From November 9-11, the BABLab hosted “What Is Hope?”, a two-day event bringing together over 15 visiting scholars from around the world to explore interdisciplinary perspectives on hope.

Participants contributed insights from psychology, philosophy, theology, and related fields, using the talks and collaborative sessions to begin shaping a shared framework and working model of hope for future psychological research. The gathering sparked rich conversations, new collaborations, and exciting directions for advancing the science of hope. We are excited to keep building upon this work for a stronger understanding of hope in our future research!

A Summer of Growth and Global Connections at BABLab

Events, Grants, Lab Members

We had an eventful and international summer here at the BABLab!

To kick things off, we welcomed our new co-lab manager, Camryn Yeager, who will be working on the Hope and Spiritual Yearning projects. We are glad to have Camryn on the team!

Our postdoc, Megan Edwards, PhD, along with two of our students (Fr. Mannes Matou, OP and Chris-Ann Bennett), traveled to Tanzania to meet with religious leaders and collect data for the Hope Project. We are excited to continue partnering with them and expanding our cross-cultural understanding of hope.

 

This year, Patty participated in the University of Birmingham’s Psychology Cross-Training Program, where she mentored two theologians (Aizaiah Young and Man Hei Yip). In August, Patty supported these scholars as they presented the data they collected under her mentorship.

 

 

Also in August, Patty and lab manager Jenna joined Co-PI Ward Davis, PhD in the UK to present on Virtual Worship at the International Association for the Psychology of Religion. Patty, Ward, and Jenna gave a symposium with discussants Sam Ashton, PhD and Victor Counted, PhD.

Catching up with friends and colleagues Jordan LaBouff, Daryl Van Tongeren, and Kathy Johnson at IAPR!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After such a full and exciting summer, we are excited to be back in the lab this fall and look forward to continuing our projects!

Happy LDOC!

Lab Members

Congratulations for reaching the end of the school year!! Cheers to all of our collaborators, students, and friends. We wish everyone a fun and relaxing summer ahead ⋆｡°✩

Duke Chapel tower climb with Hope Bass Connections & Science of Happiness course students.

Stay tuned for more BABLab research on hope, compassion, and virtual worship in the year to come!

‘What is Hope?’ Bass Connections Showcase!

Events, Lab Members

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!