UofL鈥檚 online psychology program is rated No. 7 in the nation according to the latest results. Two other programs made the top 50. UofL also received several honors for Best Online Programs for U.S. veterans.听

UofL鈥檚 fully 听have consistently appeared in the U.S. News and World Report rankings for more than a decade, earning recognition as some of the best-ranked education opportunities for online students.听

In 2026, the following degrees received Best Online Program honors:听听

• Undergraduate Psychology – No. 7
• Undergraduate Business – No. 24
• Graduate 成人直播 (Best Online Programs for Veterans) – No. 43
• MBA (Best Online Programs for Veterans) – No. 54
• Graduate Business – No. 82
• Bachelor’s Degree (Best Online Programs for Veterans) – No. 83
• MBA – No. 93
• Bachelor’s Degree – No. 141 听
• Graduate 成人直播 – No. 145听

Kelvin Thompson, UofL鈥檚 vice provost for online strategy and teaching innovation, highlighted the importance of quality online education in advancing lives and careers while offering the flexibility to balance life鈥檚 responsibilities.听

鈥淧roviding accessible, high-quality online higher education is crucial for American social mobility,鈥� Thompson said. 鈥淎t UofL, our students come from all听walks of life听and in all manner of circumstances, including first generation, post-traditional and under-resourced students, and recognition from organizations like U.S. News & World Report reaffirms our commitment to excellence in everything we do.鈥澨�

UofL recently introduced several new online programs, including its first fully online PhD program, the online听.听

UofL鈥檚 online programs are designed for both traditional and non-traditional students, including adult learners, working professionals,听military听and degree-completer听students, as well as anyone looking to earn a college credential through flexible, high-quality online education.听

For more information about UofL鈥檚 online programs, visit听.

In a recent study , researchers Khushboo Patel, Judith Danovitch, and Nick Noles showed 257 preschool and elementary school-aged kids pictures of different adults and asked them who would know more about science and from whom they would want to learn.

While other factors, such as the adults鈥� race, didn鈥檛 seem to play any significant role in the kids鈥� opinions, gender did 鈥� they overwhelmingly chose the adult who had the same gender as them. That is, boys thought the men would know more about science, and girls thought women would.

鈥淭his marks a significant shift in children鈥檚 thinking, where girls are starting to see women as knowledgeable about science and want to learn science from them,鈥� said Patel, a fourth year Ph.D. student in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, part of UofL鈥檚 College of Arts and Sciences. 鈥淭his may eventually help girls envision themselves as doing science, too.鈥�

Understanding the cause of that shift could help address the gender gap in STEM 鈥� or, science, technology, engineering and math. Although that gap has narrowed significantly over the past decade, as of 2021, . For reference, Patel said, past studies done around a decade ago found most kids saw men as more capable of doing science than women, regardless of their own gender.听

Representation is likely a critical factor in driving that shift, Danovitch said. Young girls and boys alike are seeing more examples of female scientists in their lives and in popular culture 鈥� think Doc McStuffins and Ada Twist Scientist.

鈥淚t used to be that STEM was seen as being just for boys,鈥� said Danovitch, a professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences. 鈥淵ou could see that in media or walking down the toy aisle. But today, girls are starting to see women as knowledgeable about science.鈥�听

For parents and educators, Patel said, this shift presents an opportunity to help girls engage in STEM if they wish to. That might mean providing examples of different kinds of people who are scientists, introducing girls to women in science careers, and avoiding even well-intentioned gendered language when talking about science.听

鈥淔or example, saying 鈥榞irls are just as good as boys at science鈥� just affirms that boys set the standard,鈥� she said. 鈥淥verall, we hope this research serves as a reminder of the importance of representation in science education. Anyone can be a scientist if they want to be.鈥�听

Gross theorized that managing one鈥檚 feelings before they are fully formed (antecedent-focused emotion regulation) offers a healthier approach than trying to manage them after they鈥檙e in full swing (response-focused emotion regulation). In testing these predictions, he examined prototypical examples of each type of emotion regulation: cognitive reappraisal, which involves interpreting a potentially emotional situation in a way that alters its impact, and expressive suppression, which involves inhibiting the behaviors that are associated with one鈥檚 feelings.

鈥淏ringing simplicity to an age-old debate, James Gross has demonstrated that the manner in which people regulate their emotions deeply affects their lives and the lives of others,鈥� said听Grawemeyer听Psychology Award Director Brendan E. Depue. 鈥淢oreover, he and his research team have shown that reappraisal interventions 鈥� teaching people how to regulate their feelings before the feelings have 鈥榯aken over鈥� 鈥� can dramatically improve the way people interpret and handle stress. Emotion regulation exemplifies the kind of powerful idea Charles Grawemeyer had in mind when he established the Psychology Award.鈥�

Notable previous winners whose work relates to Gross鈥檚 include Aaron Beck, the father of cognitive therapy, who won the 2004 Grawemeyer; Antonio Damasio, who demonstrated the integral role emotions play in human reasoning and decision-making (2014); and James McGaugh, a neuroscientist who helped explain the way our emotions affect what we learn and remember (2015).

Gross will accept his award at a ceremony in Louisville on April 10. 听

About the Grawemeyer Awards

Each year the Grawemeyer Awards honor the power of creative ideas to improve our culture via music composition, education, religion, psychology, and world order. Business executive and family man H. Charles Grawemeyer established the awards in 1984 at the University of Louisville in collaboration with Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Academics and community members choose among nominees from around the world to ensure that each winning idea is relevant to society at large. The University of Louisville announces the winners in December and presents the awards at a ceremony the following April. Each award winner receives $100,000, which they may use, if they choose, to develop and accelerate the spread of their powerful ideas. Learn more at .

On Thursday, April 11, Masten presented her ideas to a full auditorium at the University of Louisville, which included psychology students as well as visiting high school students.

Resilience science began around 1970 as a search to explain how some children who face severe adversity seem to thrive while others do not. In recent years, resilience research has transformed practice in clinical psychology, pediatrics, psychiatry, school psychology, counseling, social work, family social science and disaster response.

鈥淎s I studied children and families dealing with war, disasters, poverty, violence and homelessness, I found a consistent set of surprisingly ordinary but powerful factors at work,鈥� she said. 鈥淩esilience didn鈥檛 depend on special qualities but on a capacity to adapt that we develop over time as we are nurtured, learn and gain experience.鈥�

Masten鈥檚 current resilience research, along with others in her field, shifts the focus to positive outcomes, strength-based, promotive and protective processes, and building capacity at multiple levels: within individuals, in religions and other cultural systems and in community and society systems.

According to Masten, a 鈥渟hort list鈥� of psychosocial factors that play a part in nurturing resilience in children include ones you might expect to see such as effective parenting and safe, effective schools and communities, but also things like purpose, sense of meaning, hope, faith and optimism, positive routines, rituals and cultural traditions, and positive view of self, identity and capabilities.

Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACES, has become a buzzword in modern social science and child development studies, and includes experiences such as physical abuse, emotional abuse, low education or parental incarceration. Masten spoke about the importance of also examining and measuring positive childhood experiences, (PCEs), such as having at least one caregiver with whom you felt safe, beliefs that gave you comfort, and at least one teacher that cared about you.

Resilience is not something that just lives in the individual, said Masten, but is embedded and interconnected more broadly in families and cultural, community and society systems.

Masten used the pandemic as an example of a turbulent time that catalyzed a 鈥渟triking mobilization of multisystem resilience, demonstrating the capacity of a system to adapt successfully to challenges.鈥�

Masten鈥檚 findings have shaped policy and practice in many fields outside psychology such as pediatrics, school counseling, social work and disaster response. People in more than 180 countries including Ukraine have taken part in her online course about the resilience of children in war and disaster.

A licensed psychologist in Minnesota since 1986, Masten holds a doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Minnesota and a bachelor鈥檚 degree from Smith College. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2021 and has received mentoring and lifetime contribution awards from the American Psychological Association.

The $100,000 Grawemeyer prizes also honor seminal ideas in , , and听. Winners visit Louisville to accept their awards and give free talks on their winning ideas.

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Ann Masten, a professor in the University of Minnesota鈥檚 Institute of Child Development, earned the prize for showing that our capacity to overcome potentially harmful experiences comes from ordinary but powerful adaptive processes inside us and from our supportive connections with others.

Resilience science began around 1970 as a search to explain how some children who face severe adversity seem to thrive while others do not.

鈥淎s I studied children and families dealing with war, disasters, poverty, violence and homelessness, I found a consistent set of surprisingly ordinary but powerful factors at work,鈥� she said. 鈥淩esilience didn鈥檛 depend on special qualities but on a capacity to adapt that we develop over time as we are nurtured, learn and gain experience.鈥�

Supportive relationships, a sense of belonging, self-control, problem-solving skills, optimism, motivation and a sense of purpose all play a part in creating the 鈥渙rdinary magic鈥� that makes us resilient, she found.

鈥淗er work is inspiring because it reveals that the human capacity to overcome adversity does not rely on rare ingredients,鈥� said Nicholaus Noles, psychology award director. 鈥淭he seeds of resilience, of success, are within all of us, and we need only time and the right kind of relationships and experiences to overcome the obstacles we face.鈥�

Masten鈥檚 findings have shaped policy and practice in many fields outside psychology such as pediatrics, school counseling, social work and disaster response. People in more than 180 countries including Ukraine have taken part in her online course about the resilience of children in war and disaster.

A licensed psychologist in Minnesota since 1986, holds a doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Minnesota and a bachelor鈥檚 degree from Smith College. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2021 and has received mentoring and lifetime contribution awards from the American Psychological Association.

Recipients of next year鈥檚 are being named this week pending formal trustee approval. The annual, $100,000 prizes also honor seminal ideas in music, world order, education and religion. Winners will visit Louisville in the spring to accept their awards and give free talks on their winning ideas.

Maybe not, according to David Dunning and Justin Kruger, two social psychologists who today were named cowinners of the 2023 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Psychology for identifying a cognitive bias that causes people to overrate their own competence.

Their idea 鈥淯nskilled and Unaware of It,鈥� also known as the , shows that people tend to have overly flattering opinions of their ability to perform tasks compared to what objective evidence shows.

鈥淚ronically, people who are the least skilled are often the most confident because they can鈥檛 judge their own skills accurately, and those who are the most skilled often fail to see how much their skill surpasses others,鈥� they said.

For example, in a recent study of whether vaccines and autism are linked, participants who knew the least about autism were most likely to claim they knew as much as doctors and scientists. Studies with gun owners, emergency responders, chess players, budget officials, debate teams and wine tasters have produced similar results.

Dunning and Kruger first described the effect in a 1999 paper inspired by a news story about a bank robber who spread lemon juice over his face thinking it would make him invisible to security cameras. Since then, their finding has been cited in more than 8,500 scholarly publications and mentioned regularly in popular media discussions of issues ranging from national politics to education policy.

鈥淭he Dunning-Kruger effect has always been an important finding, but the idea is likely to have even more impact in the years ahead as information and misinformation become more available to us and our society struggles with when and how to trust experts in a variety of domains,鈥� said Nicholaus Noles, psychology award director.

, a University of Michigan psychology professor who previously worked at Cornell University, has a doctorate from Stanford University. , a senior research scholar at New York University鈥檚 Stern School of Business who previously worked at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, has a doctorate from Cornell.

Recipients of next year鈥檚 are being named this week pending formal approval by trustees. The annual, $100,000 prizes also honor seminal ideas in music, world order, education and religion. Winners will visit Louisville in the spring to accept their awards and give free talks on their winning ideas.

University of Louisville brain sciences researchers Daniel DeCaro and Marci DeCaro, who explore how people learn and make decisions, have published new research that reveals important factors that lead people who initially prefer personal choice to yield that authority to others. They found that people are more likely to yield decisions to others when they believe the others are more qualified to make choices that will prevent severe losses and increase economic benefit.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a fundamental aspect of human nature and society that we give up a little bit of our freedom of choice and authority in exchange for things we need for survival,鈥� said Daniel DeCaro, associate professor in UofL鈥檚 . 鈥淲hen you’re trying to weigh options, those options differ in terms of levels of freedom of choice and economic outcomes and security. This study helps us understand the actual trade-offs that might be happening in people’s minds and the mindset they get into when they’re making this kind of Faustian bargain.鈥�

A Faustian bargain is when a person exchanges something of supreme moral value for a material benefit. The concept is based on the medieval legend of Faust, who traded his soul to the devil in return for knowledge and power. Daniel DeCaro is interested in understanding instances when an individual trades freedom of choice for economic benefit.

To understand at what point people are willing to make this exchange, the researchers developed a unique series of card selection tasks in which individuals can choose to make their own decisions or yield decisions to an individual they believe will choose more successfully. They recruited 77 young adults to participate in the study, which offered the opportunity for financial gain if they made correct choices. The participants could choose between two 鈥渕anagers鈥� to work with them on the tasks: One manager allowed them to choose responses for themselves and the other instructed them in their choices.

When the card tasks were easy and the participants were successful, they were more likely to choose the choice-friendly manager and make selections for themselves. When the tasks were more difficult and their gains changed to losses, their preference shifted to the manager who chose better selections for them, even though the manager was coercive.

DeCaro said it is important for people to recognize this tradeoff when they are making important life or moral decisions such as employment, government leadership and public policy.

鈥淚t鈥檚 helpful for people to recognize when they’re in this type of situation and put a name on it so they can step back and think a little more carefully,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou’re explicitly trading off some sort of freedom for some economic exchange and it鈥檚 important to stop and decide if it is appropriate.鈥�

DeCaro originally became interested in decision science as an undergraduate student around the time of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

鈥淚 noticed this instantaneous reaction where a society that values individual choice was very quick to be willing to give up some civil liberties to the government in the Patriot Act that called for increased surveillance. That is a fundamental Faustian bargain on steroids,鈥� he said. 鈥淪cholars are saying that we probably weren’t as careful as we should have been, because once you strike these Faustian bargains and they get codified in law and social norms, it becomes the new status quo. And then it’s very hard to change it.鈥�

The study, , was published in the journal PLOS ONE. In addition to Daniel DeCaro, authors include Marci DeCaro, associate professor, and Rachel Appel of UofL and Jared Hotaling of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

In designing the research, the investigators collaborated with Hotaling to develop an innovative cognitive model that combines two established concepts. Economic theory would predict that people always choose economic gain over loss. On the other hand, procedural justice theory says people most value freedom and always will prefer to choose for themselves. Neither theory accurately predicts how people make decisions in life, particularly in cases where the two values (freedom, economics) are pitted against one another, such as when exercising personal freedom carries the risk of economic loss. The cognitive model takes both concepts into account and tests the factors that lead a person to change their initial preference for freedom. They find that economic losses capture attention, causing individuals to focus on economic survival more than their own freedom.

In future research, the team plans to test how responses differ in different groups based on important factors that are known to affect attitudes toward personal and cultural authority and economic survivability, such as race, socioeconomic class and gender. They also plan to include individuals from different cultural backgrounds who would have different starting points in their preference for choice.

To better understand the psychological factors underlying this commitment to individual prevention measures, a team of psychology researchers led by Michael Cunningham at the University of Louisville surveyed several groups of people about their attitudes and responses. The studies, published in in April, revealed associations between individuals鈥� response to prevention measures and their belief in the credibility of science, control and coping mechanisms and political orientation.

Cunningham and colleagues at UofL, York College in Pennsylvania and FifthTheory, a digital assessment and survey solutions company in Chicago, conducted a series of three online surveys to delve deeper into the psychological determinants of COVID-19 prevention behaviors.

The first study of the series surveyed students, faculty and staff at two higher education institutions in the U.S. The researchers compared respondents鈥� assessments on the a measure of acceptance of responsibility and adherence to prevention measures, with additional questions to determine respondents鈥� belief in the credibility of science, political orientation and beliefs about the virus and the degree to which preventing an infection was within an individual鈥檚 control.

It showed that those who attributed COVID-19 safety to personal effort rather than inherent ability or outside forces, who had a progressive political orientation and who believed in the credibility of science were more likely to embrace COVID-19 prevention actions such as wearing masks, social distancing and vaccination.

The study began before the COVID-19 vaccine was available, but once the Pfizer vaccine received Emergency Use Authorization from the Food and Drug Administration in December 2020, the team added questions to the survey about willingness to take the vaccine. This gave them insight into attitudes both before and after respondents were confident a vaccine would be a reality.

鈥淭he attitudes about the pandemic may differ depending on what you think the solutions are going to be, so issues of sensitization and denial and repression may come in to play slightly differently when you think there is a solution versus when you don鈥檛,鈥� Cunningham said. 鈥淲e were thinking a vaccine would come but we didn鈥檛 all know when it was going to hit, so when it did in December of 2020, that changed the equation quite a bit.鈥�

After the vaccine received authorization, responses to the survey shifted slightly, showing that individuals had become less committed to personal carefulness and health-consciousness to avoid the illness and less likely to believe that becoming ill from the virus was due to fate or luck.

The second study in the series addressed work-related attitudes related to the pandemic. The researchers surveyed adults across the U.S. and found that an intention to be vaccinated corresponded to a willingness to work, less emotional distress and greater focus on customer experience.

The third study documented the personal attributes and motives of individuals who volunteered to help administer vaccines in Kentucky. Nearly 60% of those individuals were motivated by a desire to help others, whereas almost 40% said they volunteered so they could receive the vaccine themselves. Compared to the general population, the survey found the volunteers more likely to be older, to have higher levels of education, to believe in the credibility of science, vote liberal and attribute COVID-19 protection to personal effort.

The results of these studies led the researchers to propose a COVID-19 mindset hierarchy model that ranks individuals in terms of their response to pandemic. The model goes from the most basic level 1, acceptance vs. denial of COVID-19, to the most mature level 5, in which individuals become involved in community-based eradication efforts. The knowledge base incorporated in the model is useful in shaping health safety messaging going forward, not only with COVID, but with monkeypox and other plagues that have not yet emerged.

Cunningham and his team are planning additional research to further understand the psychological impact of the pandemic and related losses, to validate the COVID-19 mindset hierarchy and to examine the relation of COVID behaviors to more general health care related topics, such as support for a single-payer system.

, a Duke University psychologist and King鈥檚 College, London, social development professor, discovered two types of antisocial behavior in juveniles. One persists from early childhood to adulthood, is relatively rare and seen mostly in males, while the other occurs only in adolescence and is seen in both males and females.

Although both types appear to be the same on psychological tests and in illegal behaviors, Moffitt found they are distinctly different, an insight that has changed the way the courts prosecute juveniles.

Before Moffitt鈥檚 initial research paper in 1993, most psychologists thought antisocial behavior in young people was a result of poor parenting or social stressors such as poverty and essentially unchangeable. However, her real-world studies of teenagers showed the behavior is often simply part of normal adolescent development.

Her research has generated hundreds of empirical tests in the social, biological and health sciences over the past 25 years that have borne out her findings.

鈥淪he and her colleagues studied the life trajectories of people with both types of antisocial behavior and built models to identify and rehabilitate them,鈥� award judges said. 鈥淗er work has become a cornerstone of how courts decide to sentence juvenile offenders.鈥�

In the 2020 book 鈥淭he Origins of You: How Childhood Shapes Later Life,鈥� Moffitt and three other psychologists shared their research on 4,000 children through adulthood. The team found that although genetics and environment affect how young people develop, neither factor alone determines their behavior as adults.

Moffitt, a licensed clinical psychologist, was elected to the National Academy of Medicine and has received both early career contribution and distinguished career awards from the American Psychological Association.

Recipients of next year鈥檚 are being named this week pending formal approval by university trustees. The annual, $100,000 prizes also honor seminal ideas in music, world order, education and religion. Winners will visit Louisville in April to accept their awards and give free talks on their winning ideas.