Current projects
AI-mediated spirituality
This project employs mixed-methods to explore how people are using generative artificial intelligence tools for spiritual purposes (e.g. knowledge, guidance, practice). I am currently analysing pilot quantitative data in advance of planned series of cross-sectional studies and a longitudinal study.
This open access archive will host study materials when available.
Everyday biohacking - behaviours, motivations, attitudes
This project investigates the nature and prevalence of everyday biohacking activities, underlying motivations and associated attitudes (including toward spirituality and AI). Biohacking is defined broadly to include DIYbio, technofuturism, health and wellness optimisation, and spiritual augmentation (this article describes each of these strands). The mixed-methods research includes hybrid ethnography, semi-structured interviews with biohackers, and a large quantitative prevalence study (N = 2000) involving participants in Australia, Japan, UK, and US. The project will contribute to a fuller understanding of both contemporary biohacking movements and the nature of meaning-making and spirituality beyond traditional religious contexts.
This project is partly funded by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation with co-investigator Stephen Bullivant (this news article introduces some of the project’s questions and objectives). The cross-cultural quantitative study was funded by an internal University of Notre Dame Australia “Big Ideas” grant (“Building Research Capacity in AI, Emerging Technologies and Society”).
This open access archive will host study materials when available.
The psychology of awe (in conversation with perspectives from religious studies and theology)
With colleagues Valerie Van Mulukom and Mari van Emmerik, I am co-investigator of a cross-disciplinary project investigating the role of awe in nonreligious spiritual yearning and meaning-making. We conceptualise awe as one possible “bridging concept” between the religious and the nonreligious: awe experiences and awe-seeking might well be indicative not only of spiritual yearning, but also integral to the meaning-making process itself for the nonreligious. Drawing on researchers from religious studies, theology, and psychology, the project thus promises new insights into awe and wonder as potential avenues for meaningful spirituality outside traditional religion.
This research is funded by the John Templeton Foundation.
This open access archive will host study materials when available.
Completed projects
Longtermism, afterlife beliefs and future moral concern (2023-2025)
In an era of polycrisis, the philosophy of longtermism posits that positively influencing the long-term future is a key moral priority. This study investigates psychological factors predicting moral concern for future generations, focusing on the established constructs of intergenerational concern and impartial intergenerational beneficence and, as a novel contribution, the role of afterlife beliefs. This quantitative study (N = 1,100) compared longtermist beliefs with various beliefs about the afterlife against moral concern for present and future entities.
This project was generously supported by a cross-training fellowship awarded through the University of St Thomas, Minnesota. Valerie Van Mulukom contributed to the data analysis and write up.
Study materials can be viewed at this open access archive.
Biocultural evolution and theological anthropology (2022-2024)
With colleagues Michael Burdett, Nathan Lyons and Megan Loumagne-Ulishney, I engaged the latest research on niche construction, gene-culture coevolution, and cultural evolution (including, but not limited to, work done under the banner of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis) to show the mutually constitutive interplay of biological and cultural processes in hominid evolution. Our main focus was how scientific insights in these areas might either challenge or extend theological understandings of the human, particularly in relation to aesthetics, morality and purpose. This project was supported by the John Templeton Foundation. For more information see this special issue of The Heythrop Journal and this episode of the BioLogos podcast.