Dr. Benjamin Meagher joined Hope College in 2017. He teaches courses in introductory, social and cognitive psychology.

Areas of expertise 

Dr. Meagher specializes in environmental, social and personality psychology. His current research interests include studying how individual differences in motivation and personality influence impressions of the physical environment, whether certain types of physical settings can help people perform and cope in more effective ways, and in what way the composition of a group — particularly in terms of its virtues — impacts the success or experience of individual members when they are together.

You can read more about his research at his website. 

Education

• Ph.D., social psychology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT (2014)
• M.A., social psychology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT (2011)
• B.A., psychology, Gordon College, Wenham, MA (2007)

Honors, grants and awards

• “Collective intellectual humility: Investigating when and how intellectual humility enhances group outcomes,” grant from The Humility and Conviction in Public Life Project, 2017–2019
• “Assessing change in intellectual humility across a 5-week course,” subcontract from The John Templeton Foundation grant #58942, 2016–2017
• Jack Shand Research Award, “Physically situated religiosity: Investigating the relationship between environmental design, religious beliefs, and worship experience,” grant from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, 2017–2019
• Constant H. Jacquet Research Award, “Judgments of religious qualities and the identification of spiritual exemplars,” grant from the Religious Research Association, 2010-2011

Published work

• “Ecologizing social psychology: The physical environment as a necessary constituent of social processes,” Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2019
• “Moral representativeness and satisfaction with one’s religious community,” International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 29, 2018
• “Deciphering the religious orientation of a sacred space: Disparate impressions of worship settings by congregants and external observers,” Journal of Environmental Psychology, 55, 2018
• “Seeking the safety of sociofugal space: Environmental design preferences following social ostracism,” with K.L. Marsh, K. L., Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 68, 2017
• “There’s no place like a neurotic’s home: Neuroticism moderates the prioritization of restorative properties in home environments,” Journal of Individual Differences, 37, 2016
• “Perceiving sacred space: Religious orientation moderates impressions of religious settings,” Environment and Behavior, 48, 2016
• “Contrasting self-report and consensus ratings of intellectual humility and arrogance,” with J.C. Leman et al., Journal of Research in Personality, 58, 2015