I am Benjamin Meagher, currently a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Hope College. I earned my Ph.D. and M.A. at the University of Connecticut and my B.A. from Gordon College. Prior to coming to Hope College, I was a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Baylor University and taught in the Psychology Department at Franklin & Marshall College.

I conduct research in Environmental, Social, and Personality psychology. These distinct sub-disciplines, focusing respectively on the physical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal world, intercept in a variety of interesting ways. For example, I have been investigating how individual differences in belief, motivation, and personality lead to different impressions of the same physical environment, whether being in a particular type of physical environment can help people perform, cope, or self-regulate in more effective ways, and in what way the composition or diversity of a group or community–in terms of personality, attitudes, or virtues–impacts the success or experience of individual members when they are together.

To learn more about the research projects that I am currently working on, or to find papers that I have published, please follow the links in the top menu.

News About My Research

• Read my recent blog post for the Humility and Conviction in Public Life Project summarizing the work my lab is doing to understand how intellectual humility is manifested behaviorally: “When is intellectual humility revealed to others?”
• Read my interview with Dr. Eleanor Reeds about the challenges of communicating research to the public: “A Cautionary Tale in the Age of Click Bait”. Below are links to selected media coverage of the research on intellectual humility that I discuss with Dr. Reeds:
• The Huffington Post
• Inside Higher Ed
• Independent
• Daily Mail
• City A.M.
• I was interviewed by New Yorker writer Dawn Chan discussing my research on virtual environments: “The Virtual-Reality App That Turns Your Office Into a Vacation Paradise”
• I was awarded a research grant by the Humility and Conviction in Public Life Project to study the effects of intellectual humility on group performance and outcomes. Here is a press release about this research initiative: “10 Projects, 1 Audacious Goal: Find Solutions to Help Cultivate Healthier Debate and Dialogue in America”