An Indiana University South Bend professor will be leading a project to research the psychological and physiological aspects of labyrinths.
Chancellor’s Professor Kevin L. Ladd and Professor Daniel N. McIntosh from the University of Denver received a collaborative three-year, $500,000 grant from the Templeton World Charities Foundation to support the effort.
Labyrinths are ancient and global designs that appear in various shapes and sizes and can be made of materials from flowers to rocks to paint or strings of holiday lights. With a single path leading inward, then back out of the design, taking time to walk or even trace a labyrinth with a finger is a type of reflective pilgrimage that involves both the mind and body.
For more than a decade, students in Ladd’s experimental research methodology classes have explored the creative and applied aspects of labyrinths with regard to emotional and other forms of well-being.
Interest in their potential usefulness has experienced a revival. In geriatric care, physical healing, rehabilitation, prison, and educational institutional settings, caregivers have sought creative ways to promote personal and social well-being and growth in the face of the global pandemic and its aftermath.
The aim of this larger-scale project is to better understand how walking inside or finger-tracing labyrinth shapes may serve as relatively simple activities that can promote mental health, along with personal growth.
Classical labyrinth designs “Beyond the specific technical outcomes of the project, our students will work closely with people from very different backgrounds. Discovering how well-being is defined and fostered in those unique contexts will provide real-world, directly applicable experiences to influence our students’ capacity to support their local and global communities,” Ladd said.
Research teams of undergraduate and graduate students will conduct studies in university communities, geriatric facilities, and rehabilitation contexts, with practitioner-partners in multiple countries beyond the US, including Vietnam and Indonesia.
“We hope to discover how labyrinths might work as low-cost, high-impact interventions to help people literally find a pathway for growth” said McIntosh, who has used labyrinths as learning tools in several psychology courses.
Ladd and McIntosh will offer consultations regarding how to create labyrinth installations for each participating campus. If successful, this will create opportunities for on-going global research partnerships as well as support local educational activities.
“It’s fantastic when a grant of this type can simultaneously provide new knowledge, broad educational experiences, and deeply applicable results that can change people’s lives,” Ladd said.
Ladd, a social psychologist, earned his Ph.D. at the University of Denver in 2000 and has been on the IU South Bend faculty since 2001. Much of his research and writing has pertained to the psychological ramifications of prayer, ritual, and spiritual transformation.
Ladd’s research efforts have attracted several million dollars of external funding to the South Bend campus, supporting dozens of student research assistant salaries and providing hands-on experience in preparation for their graduate work.
