It was 麻豆视频鈥檚 sterling reputation for providing students with high-quality opportunities to participate in faculty-mentored research that prompted psychology major Cassie Morse to transfer to the college as a sophomore.
Just over a year later, the Hope junior from Columbia, Missouri, has become part of the tradition, earning a coveted Regional Research Award from the Midwestern chapter of , the International Honor Society in Psychology for excellence in collaborative student-faculty research she conducted.
She is being honored for her project 鈥淎ccountability: Correlational and Experimental Evidence that Empathy and Self-Regulation Matter,鈥� which she conducted mentored by Dr. Charlotte vanOyen Witvliet, a professor of psychology, with additional advising by Dr. Lindsey Root Luna, who is dean of social sciences as well as a member of the college鈥檚 psychology faculty. Witvliet and Root Luna have co-mentored four award-winning student teams. And long before, Witvliet mentored Lindsey Root and Amy Sato as students who won their award in 2003 for research on restorative justice and forgiveness. Morse will receive her award during the annual meeting of the , which will be held on Thursday-Saturday, April 10-12, 2025, in Chicago.
Hope students have won the highly competitive Regional Research Awards during 22 of the past 26 years. There are typically hundreds of submissions each year, with only a fraction receiving recognition. In 2022, for example, only 27 entries were honored from among more than 550 submissions.
The concept that Morse and Witvliet have been exploring is 鈥渨elcoming accountability,鈥� which entails being both responsive and responsible in relationships.
In the first portion of their two-part project, they followed up on previous research that had established an association between welcoming accountability and other traits such as empathy, self-regulation, welcoming accountability, gratitude, forgiveness, temper, happiness and flourishing.
鈥淲e replicated these connections, showing that welcoming accountability was positively correlated with all of the listed traits (except temper, with which it was negatively associated), and went beyond existing research to establish that empathy and self-regulation went above and beyond other traits to predict welcoming accountability,鈥� Morse said. 鈥淓ven expanding on this finding, empathy and self-regulation were responsible for a staggering 31% of the variance in welcoming accountability scores鈥� 鈥� with empathic perspective-taking and self-regulating impulse-control as significant predictors.
In the second portion of the study, they conducted an experiment in which participants adopted different relational perspectives. Participants were asked to think and write about their resentful vs. grateful attitudes toward others in their lives, as well as a control condition for comparison.
鈥淯ltimately, adopting a resentful perspective was found to lower levels of empathy, self-regulation and welcoming accountability, demonstrating the importance of perspective-taking for its impact on welcoming accountability in relationships 鈥� tying the correlational and experimental evidence together,鈥� Morse said.
Witvliet has been studying character disposition and practices since 1997, her first year on the Hope faculty, when she applied for and received her first research grant 鈥� from the John Templeton Foundation in response to their request for proposals on Scientific Studies on the Subject of Forgiveness. 鈥淩eceiving that grant changed the trajectory of my research and my life,鈥� she said.
She has since become internationally recognized for her studies of the emotional and physiological side effects of being forgiving or unforgiving. Morse even knew of Witvliet before meeting her. 鈥淚 had seen some of Dr. Witvliet鈥檚 research before I got here,鈥� she said.
Witvliet has published more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters about her research, and has given over 180 professional presentations in local, national and international venues. She has conducted more than 170 media interviews about forgiveness, with her research featured in venues such as Time, Newsweek, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, CNN, ABC, CBS, Michigan Radio, multiple podcasts and international newspapers. Her research is referenced in blogs and books, among the latter 鈥淭he Book of Joy,鈥� co-authored by Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama in 2016, and 鈥淭he Science of the Virtues: Why Positive Psychology Matters to the Church,鈥� by Mark McMinn in 2017.
Building on her decades of research on relational virtues, Witvliet began studying welcoming accountability in 2017, with support from the Templeton Religion Trust, as part of a team of philosophers and criminologists, a psychiatrist and theologian from Baylor University, Harvard and St. Andrews in Scotland. 鈥淲e developed the constructs and measures for welcoming accountability to other people and transcendent accountability (welcoming accountability to God or one鈥檚 transcendent guide for living). Simultaneously, we developed theoretically-grounded neuroscience investigations, plus experiments to test mindsets that enhance vs. detract from empathy, self-regulation, and welcoming accountability,鈥� she said. 鈥淭his is where Cassie鈥檚 research comes in.鈥�
All of Witvliet鈥檚 research at Hope has been conducted collaboratively with Hope students, who have consistently been coauthors on her publications. That鈥檚 because the Department of Psychology considers participation in mentored, collaborative research a crucial part of students鈥� education (as is true of departments in all of the college鈥檚 four academic divisions 鈥� arts, humanities, natural and applied sciences, and social sciences).
鈥淢y colleagues and I prioritize student formation as we conduct research on questions that advance needed knowledge,鈥� said Witvliet, whose student researchers 鈥� as teams or individually 鈥� have received Psi Chi Regional Research Awards 16 times. 鈥淲e invest deeply in our students to cultivate them as people who grasp our 鈥榳hy鈥� in conducting research, alongside the 鈥榟ow鈥� of asking research questions and addressing them ethically, learning what research designs can best test hypotheses, and developing skills to execute protocols, data analyses, interpretation, write-up and graphical representation 鈥� all to learn with wonder and to communicate our discoveries with a range of audiences.鈥�
At Hope, she noted, the 鈥渉ow鈥� involves more than technical or procedural expertise. 鈥淲e aim to conduct our research with character, competence, and caring for the humans involved in and impacted by our work,鈥� Witvliet said.
Morse noted that she appreciates the department鈥檚 combination of classroom instruction and research experience, and emphasis on both the 鈥渨hy鈥� and 鈥渉ow鈥� of scholarship and service as a professional. She plans to continue to be involved in research at Hope, and as a senior next year she鈥檒l be applying to Ph.D. programs in clinical psychology. In addition to her major of psychology, she is pursuing an interdisciplinary academic minor in peace and justice, and she is interested restorative justice as a more constructive model for both offenders and survivors than traditional incarceration. With her goals and plans in mind, she noted that she appreciates the role that Hope is playing in helping her achieve them.
鈥淚 am just endlessly grateful to Dr. Witvliet and the 麻豆视频 psychology department and faculty,鈥� she said.
鈥淚 have been so thankful and humbled by the opportunities that have been given to me to continue my education in the classroom and have a hands-on chance to learn from research through a focused mentorship,鈥� Morse said. 鈥淚 feel very blessed and beyond appreciative of the growth and learning that has been available to me here.鈥�
To Learn More 麻豆视频鈥�
鈥he research project 鈥淎ccountability: Correlational and Experimental Evidence that Empathy and Self-Regulation Matter鈥�:
Morse鈥檚 research with Witvliet will be among the more than 200 research projects by students from academic programs throughout the college 鈥� including 18 from the Department of Psychology 鈥� that are being presented during the college鈥檚 A. Paul and Carol C. Schaap Celebration of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity, which will be held on Friday, April 11, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the Richard and Helen DeVos Fieldhouse. The public is invited to the Hope event, and admission is free.
The Hope celebration features poster displays outlining the students鈥� research, with the students on-hand to speak with visitors. Morse鈥檚 poster will be there in any case, but, ironically, whether or not she will be present will depend on when the Hope participants in the MPA conference are able to return to campus from Chicago that afternoon.
鈥ccountability as a relational and responsible virtue:
Please visit the site
鈥ollaborative research at Hope, including opportunities to get involved:
Please visit the college at /research/index.html
鈥he Department of Psychology at Hope:
Please visit the department at /academics/psychology/
鈥si Chi, the International Honor Society in Psychology:
Psi Chi is an international organization of professionals, scientists, faculty, students, and alumni whose mission is to recognize and promote excellence in the science and application of psychology. Founded in 1929, the society has chartered more than 1,150 chapters at colleges and universities across the United States as well as abroad, and more than three quarters of a million lifetime members. The honor society鈥檚 chapters are grouped within six regions: Eastern, Midwestern, Rocky Mountain, Southeastern, Southwestern and Western. The Midwestern Region includes Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Ontario, Canada. Hope鈥檚 chapter was chartered in 1965.