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.”

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!

We’re excited to share that Dr. Patty Van Cappellen’s course, “The Science of Happiness,” was recently featured in Duke Mag. The article highlights how the class blends psychological research and practical exercises to help students explore what truly contributes to well-being. Through lectures, discussions, and evidence-based activities, students learn how scientific insights can be applied to cultivate meaning, gratitude, and joy in their daily lives. The feature also underscores Dr. Van Cappellen’s commitment to helping students connect rigorous academic research with personal growth. Read more about the class and its impact in the full article on Duke Mag’s website.

We’re thrilled to celebrate Dr. Patty Van Cappellen for receiving the Virginia Sexton Mentoring Award from the Society for the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality (APA Division 36)! This award honors her outstanding dedication to mentoring and supporting others in the field of psychology of religion.

Congratulations, Patty, on this well-deserved recognition!

 Read the full announcement on the SSRI website ›

This fall, Patty taught again her new course titled The Science of Happiness, offering students an opportunity to examine the psychological foundations of well-being and positive emotion. The course explores research on happiness, meaning, and human flourishing, encouraging students to consider how these insights can inform both personal and community life. This course is part of the Transformative Ideas initiative at Duke.

In keeping with the theme of well-being, Patty recently held class outdoors, where students engaged in discussion surrounded by sunshine and fresh air. The outdoor session reflected the course’s emphasis on integrating academic learning with personal application in day-to-day life.

Through The Science of Happiness, Patty aims to help students connect empirical research with lived experience—fostering reflection, engagement, and a deeper understanding of what happiness means in their own lives.

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.

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!

We are sad/thrilled that Cheryl is off to grad school in social psych working with Dr. Libby at Ohio State University! Stay tuned for reunion pictures at SPSP!