Jonathan Haidt
Author, The Happiness Hypothesis
Highlights
Jonathan Haidt (pronounced "height") is one of the world’s foremost authorities on positive psychology (the scientific study of human flourishing) and moral psychology (the study of why people care so much about right and wrong, and sometimes choose to do wrong).
To business audiences, he brings valuable lessons on leadership and workplace satisfaction—what energizes people at work, why virtue is crucial to good leadership, and how to increase people’s commitment to a cause and to each other.
He offers general audiences extraordinary insights into what makes us happy, why it’s so hard to change ourselves, and why love so rarely lasts, with specific advice on how to turn our weaknesses into strengths.
For audiences especially interested in politics, culture and public issues, he builds bridges across chasms of moralistic misunderstanding and inspires audiences to find wisdom in the ideas of their opponents, explaining the different virtues that liberals and conservatives, atheists and believers each pursue.
An Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia, Jonathan Haidt was a Research Fellow at the University of California Santa Barbara until the end of 2008. He is the author of The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding modern truth in ancient wisdom, a widely-acclaimed book about how to construct a life of virtue, happiness, fulfillment and meaning.
A superb public speaker, Jonathan Haidt has received four awards for his teaching.
You can watch Jonathan in action
here, addressing an audience on politics and morality at the New Yorker 2012 conference.
The Happiness Hypothesis
In The Happiness Hypothesis, Jonathan Haidt examines why such ancient ideas as the golden rule, the value of adversity and the benefits of virtue hold up so well and how to apply them to your life, based on the latest scientific research. (See www.happinesshypothesis.com
for summaries of the ten great truths about how the mind works.)
"Riveting... humane, witty and comforting… brilliantly synthesising ancient cultural insights with modern psychology, and even holding out some faint hope that your happiness, if not your tallness, might be marginally adjustable after all."
MM~ The Times of London
"A marvelous book... I don't think I've ever read a book that laid out the contemporary understanding of the human condition with such simple clarity and sense."
MM~ The Guardian, U.K.
"For the reader who seeks to understand happiness, my advice is: Begin with Haidt."
MM~ Martin E. P. Seligman, author of Authentic Happiness, founder of positive psychology.
The Foundations of Morality and Politics
Jonathan Haidt is currently researching the psychology of politics. He has identified five innate psychological systems that seem to be the foundations upon which all cultures build their moralities. Nearly all human moralities use two of these five foundations: concerns about harm vs care, and concerns about fairness and reciprocity. Political liberals elaborate only these two foundations, creating moral systems that celebrate individuals, autonomy, rights, and the protection of the vulnerable. But political conservatives and many religious communities rely heavily on three additional systems, systems that bind people together into cooperative and interdependent groups: ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity. Although Haidt is a moderate liberal himself, his research in India and his research for The Happiness Hypothesis showed him that there is wisdom about the causes of human flourishing to be found in all long-enduring cultural and philosophical traditions. He is currently leading an effort to help liberals and conservatives understand and respect each other, in the hope of fostering a more civil form of politics in the United States. (See www.civilpolitics.net).
Topics
Positive psychology and workplace satisfaction
Understanding and ending the culture wars
Positive psychology and self-improvement
Overcoming self-righteousness and finding wisdom
The psychology of love
Ethics
Credentials
- Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Virginia
- Former Research Fellow, UC Santa Barbara
- Author of The Happiness Hypothesis and co-editor of Flourishing: Positive psychology and the life well lived (American Psychological Association, 2003)
- Fulbright scholarship to India, 1993, to study morality and culture
- Templeton Prize in Positive Psychology, grand prize winner, 2001
- Articles on moral psychology published in the top scientific journals, including Science and Psychological Review
- Winner of three teaching awards from the University of Virginia
- Winner of the statewide "Outstanding Faculty Award" (one of 11 conferred by the Governor of Virginia, 2003)
Honors
Fulbright Program, and Council for International Exchange of Scholars. Indo-American Fellowship, 1993-1994. (Funding for 3 months of research in India.)
Templeton Prize in Positive Psychology, grand prize, 2001
State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, Outstanding Faculty Award, 2004 (Awarded by the Governor to 11 professors each year.)
Outstanding Professor Award, 1998 & 2003, UVA Dept. Of Psychology
All-University Teaching Award, 2003, University of Virginia
National Science Foundation. Graduate Fellowship, 1988-1991.
American Psychological Association. Dissertation Research Award, 1991.
Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. Dissertation Fellowship, 1991-1992.
Books
Flourishing: Positive psychology and the life well lived (editor, C.L.M. Keyes co-editor; American Psychological Association, 2003)
The happiness hypothesis: Finding modern truth in ancient wisdom (Basic Books, 12-1-06)
Who’s in charge?
We assume that we control our lives, our bodies, our actions the way we drive a car. We decide where we want to go, we point the car and there we go. But we are much more like someone riding an elephant. Our bodies, our desires, our judgment all have a will of their own. That’s why we sometimes do things we know we shouldn’t. Getting where we want to go involves a relationship with our unconscious mind not unlike the one required with a trained elephant. Jonathan Haidt offers audiences fascinating and valuable help in communicating with our inner elephant.
Links:
Audio interview:
www.cbc.ca
New Yorker Conference – Morality: 2012
www.newyorker.com