Jonathan Haidt at a Glance

Full Name: Jonathan David Haidt

How to Pronounce: JON-uh-thun HYTE

Born: October 19, 1963

Nationality: United States

Education:

• Yale University (BA, Philosophy)
• University of Pennsylvania (MA, PhD, Psychology)

Genres:

• Nonfiction
• Psychology
• Sociology

Biography & Background

Jonathan Haidt Biography

Jonathan Haidt is an American social psychologist who has written several works for popular audiences. Raised in Scarsdale, New York, Haidt studied philosophy as an undergraduate at Yale. This choice anticipated his later career in moral psychology; his doctoral research focused on the ethics of disgust, and his 2006 work The Happiness Hypothesis contextualizes the ideas of various philosophical and religious figures—Plato, the Buddha, etc.—in light of modern psychology. Haidt is also a pioneering figure in moral foundations theory, which considers the evolutionary underpinnings of human moral instincts, often with a focus on seeking to explain individual and group differences in ethical reasoning or behavior. This was the subject of Haidt’s 2012 work The Righteous Mind, which applies moral foundations theory to political and religious divisions in US society.

Haidt, a self-described centrist, believes that both the right and left have become intransigent and emotionally driven (Kelly, Jemima. “Jonathan Haidt: