Welcome
I am a social psychologist at New York University’s Stern School of Business. My mission is to use research on moral psychology to help people understand each other and to help important social institutions work better. [En Español]
Bio
Substack: After Babel
Articles
Research on Social Media
Podcasts
Collaborative Review Docs
Books
The Coddling of the American Mind
Gen Z is suffering from rapidly rising rates of anxiety, depression, and fragility. This book explains why, and how to reverse the trends.
The Righteous Mind
This is a comprehensive yet easily readable account of human morality, which enabled us to create civilizations, but set us up for constant conflict too.
The Happiness Hypothesis
This book analyzes ten great ideas, discovered across cultures and millennia, and uses them to lay out a path to flourishing today.
All Minus One
John Stuart Mill’s three timeless arguments for the value of viewpoint diversity and freedom of speech. This book is ch. 2 of On Liberty, condensed and illustrated for a modern audience.
Areas of Research
Videos
TED Interview: Can a Divided America Heal?
On Real Time with Bill Maher, Oct 2018
Lex Fridman Podcast: The Case Against Social Media, June 2022
RSA Talk: Why a 21st Century Enlightenment Needs Walls, Nov 2018
Major Articles
Understanding Libertarian Morality: The Psychological Dispositions of Self-Identified Libertarians
in PLoS One, 2012, with Ravi Iyer, Spassena Koleva, Jesse Graham, and Peter Ditto
Recent Essays
The Dangerous Experiment on Teen Girls
Analyzes the published evidence and shows that the preponderance of it indicates that social media is causing real harm to teen girls.
Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid
How social media dissolved the mortar of society and brought us into the era of fragmentation.
Get Phones Out of Schools Now
They impede learning, stunt relationships, and lessen belonging. They should be banned.
Projects I Co-Founded
Ethical Systems
A collaboration of 26 leading researchers studying ethics in organizations
Constructive Dialogue Institute
A psychology-based educational platform designed to depolarize campuses, companies, and communities
Heterodox Academy
A collaboration among 5000 professors promoting open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement within universities
Let Grow
Making it easy, normal and legal to give kids the independence they need to grow into capable, confident, and happy adults.
Moral Foundations Theory
A collaboration among social psychologists who study the foundations of morality, in hopes of reducing conflict and polarization