Daryl Van Tongeren

Daryl R. Van Tongeren is an award-winning social psychologist, currently a Professor of Psychology and the Director of the Frost Center for Social Science Research at Hope College. He has pioneered ground-breaking research in existential psychology and the psychology of religion, focusing on the role of existential meaning-making amid changes to deeply held beliefs and launching a new field of empirical inquiry on religious deidentification.

Integrating social, personality, and existential psychology, he investigates how individuals rebuild meaningful worldviews and reconstruct identity after shifts to deeply held beliefs, exploring the downstream consequences of meaning-making processes and prosociality for mental health, relationships, and social functioning. His has more than 275 academic publications, and his research has been funded by generous grants from the John Templeton Foundation.