Jonathan Haidt

The bestselling author of The Righteous Mind draws on philosophical wisdom and scientific research to show how the meaningful life is closer than you think The Happiness Hypothesis is a book about ten Great Ideas. Each chapter is an attempt to savor one idea that has been discovered by several of the world's civilizations--to question it in light of what we now know from scientific research, and to extract from it the lessons that still apply to our modern lives and illuminate the causes of human flourishing. Award-winning psychologist Jonathan Haidt, the author of The Righteous Mind, shows how a deeper understanding of the world's philosophical wisdom and its enduring maxims--like "do unto others as you would have others do unto you," or "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger"--can enrich and even transform our lives.

Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom

The Happiness Hypothesis

How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness

The Anxious Generation

THE INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Coddling of the American Mind, an essential investigation into the collapse of youth mental health—and a plan for a healthier, freer childhood. “Erudite, engaging, combative, crusading.” —New York Times Book Review “Words that chill the parental heart… thanks to Mr. Haidt, we can glimpse the true horror of what happened not only in the U.S. but also elsewhere in the English-speaking world… lucid, memorable… galvanizing.” —Wall Street Journal "[An] important new book...The shift in kids’ energy and attention from the physical world to the virtual one, Haidt shows, has been catastrophic, especially for girls." —Michelle Goldberg, The New York Times After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on many measures. Why? In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the “play-based childhood” began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood” in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhood” has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies. Most important, Haidt issues a clear call to action. He diagnoses the “collective action problems” that trap us, and then proposes four simple rules that might set us free. He describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood. Haidt has spent his career speaking truth backed by data in the most difficult landscapes—communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the public health emergency faced by Gen Z. We cannot afford to ignore his findings about protecting our children—and ourselves—from the psychological damage of a phone-based life.

Anxious Generation

Greg Lukianoff

'Excellent, their advice is sound . . . liberal parents, in particular, should read it' Financial Times The New York Times bestseller What doesn't kill you makes you weaker Always trust your feelings Life is a battle between good people and evil people These three Great Untruths contradict basic psychological principles about well-being, as well as ancient wisdom from many cultures. And yet they have become increasingly woven into education, culminating in a stifling culture of "safetyism" that began on American college campuses and is spreading throughout academic institutions in the English-speaking world. In this book, free speech campaigner Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt investigate six trends that caused the spread of these untruths, from the decline of unsupervised play to the corporatization of universities and the rise of new ideas about identity and justice. Lukianoff and Haidt argue that well-intended but misguided attempts to protect young people can hamper their development, with devastating consequences for them, for the educational system and for democracy itself.

How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure

The Coddling of the American Mind

Something is going wrong on many college campuses in the last few years. Rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide are rising. Speakers are shouted down. Students and professors say they are walking on eggshells and afraid to speak honestly. How did this happen? First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt show how the new problems on campus have their origins in three terrible ideas that have become increasingly woven into American childhood and education: what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; always trust your feelings; and life is a battle between good people and evil people. These three Great Untruths are incompatible with basic psychological principles, as well as ancient wisdom from many cultures. They interfere with healthy development. Anyone who embraces these untruths—and the resulting culture of safetyism—is less likely to become an autonomous adult able to navigate the bumpy road of life. Lukianoff and Haidt investigate the many social trends that have intersected to produce these untruths. They situate the conflicts on campus in the context of America’s rapidly rising political polarization, including a rise in hate crimes and off-campus provocation. They explore changes in childhood including the rise of fearful parenting, the decline of unsupervised play, and the new world of social media that has engulfed teenagers in the last decade. This is a book for anyone who is confused by what is happening on college campuses today, or has children, or is concerned about the growing inability of Americans to live, work, and cooperate across party lines.

In The Righteous Mind, psychologist Jonathan Haidt answers some of the most compelling questions about human relationships: Why can it sometimes feel as though half the population is living in a different moral universe? Why do ideas such as 'fairness' and 'freedom' mean such different things to different people? Why is it so hard to see things from another viewpoint? Why do we come to blows over politics and religion? Jonathan Haidt reveals that we often find it hard to get along because our minds are hardwired to be moralistic, judgemental and self-righteous. He explores how morality evolved to enable us to form communities, and how moral values are not just about justice and equality - for some people authority, sanctity or loyalty matter more. Morality binds and blinds, but, using his own research, Haidt proves it is possible to liberate ourselves from the disputes that divide good people. 'A landmark contribution to humanity's understanding of itself' The New York Times 'A truly seminal book' David Goodhart, Prospect 'A tour de force - brave, brilliant, and eloquent. It will challenge the way you think about liberals and conservatives, atheism and religion, good and evil' Paul Bloom, author of How Pleasure Works 'Compelling . . . a fluid combination of erudition and entertainment' Ian Birrell, Observer 'Lucid and thought-provoking ... deserves to be widely read' Jenni Russell, Sunday Times

Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion

The Righteous Mind

En unos tiempos como los actuales, de enorme polarización política, resulta inevitable hacernos una pregunta: ¿por qué no podemos llevarnos bien? Seamos de derechas o de izquierdas, demasiadas veces tenemos la sensación de que nuestro adversario, además de oponerse a nosotros, no entiende en absoluto nuestras posturas y ni siquiera lo intenta. Eso hace que las divisiones sociales se estén consolidando, el debate público se convierta en un griterío y que en su mayoría los ciudadanos crean que sólo ellos están en lo cierto. Muchas personas, guiadas por razones morales que en realidad no son fruto de la razón, sino de un tribalismo parcialmente innato, son incapaces de entender que tanto los progresistas como los conservadores o los liberales, los creyentes y los ateos, tienen parte de razón; el conicto moral les impide verlo. Recurriendo a las investigaciones más recientes en campos como la neurociencia, la genética, la psicología social o los procesos evolutivos, La mente de los justos explica por qué los ciudadanos de las sociedades modernas viven divididos por distintas visiones morales de la realidad que, en última instancia, se traducen en tribus políticas aparentemente insalvables. Y es, también, una receta racional y moderada para intentar superar ese enfrentamiento y aprender a cooperar.

Por qué la política y la religión dividen a la gente sensata

La mente de los justos

Le bonheur est-il à portée de main ? Quel est le secret pour y accéder ? La recette du bonheur est-elle la même pour tout le monde ? Peut-on se fier aux lois universelles et aux conseils des anciens pour le trouver ? Depuis la nuit des temps, la quête du bonheur a passionné un grand nombre de penseurs et de philosophes. D’innombrables conseils et recettes pour l'atteindre ont été prodigués, qui circulent toujours aujourd’hui dans la sagesse populaire. Mais que peut-on réellement en retirer ? Fasciné depuis toujours par cette question, Jonathan Haidt a identifié plusieurs idées et réflexions universelles sur le bonheur. Les passant au crible des connaissances scientifiques d’aujourd’hui, il en tire des leçons qui s’appliquent à la vie de tous les jours. Dans un mélange d’humour et de pédagogie, d’anecdotes anodines et d’études psychologiques, l’auteur nous conduit dans une exploration du bonheur, entre passé et présent. Sans nous guider pas à pas vers un bonheur idéalisé et impossible, cet ouvrage nous incite à équilibrer les contraires et à aller chercher le bonheur qui se trouve en nous, en nos relations, dans l’adversité et dans les petites choses du quotidien. Des règles d’or pour trouver la paix intérieure et façonner un bonheur à votre image ! À PROPOS DE L'AUTEUR Jonathan Haidt est Professeur de psychologie à l’Université de New York. Il a été l’un des premiers chercheurs à attirer l’attention du monde scientifique sur l’importance des émotions dans tout ce qui touche à la moralité. Il est notamment l’auteur de The Righteous Mind (2012), best-seller du New York Times. À PROPOS DU PREFACIER Artiste-photographe madrilène, Pedro Correa a grandi entre l’Espagne, la France et la Belgique. Depuis 2012, date à laquelle il quitte son poste de cadre supérieur dans une grande multinationale, il se consacre entièrement à son art. En 2019, il prononce un discours prônant la notion de bonheur plutôt que celle de la réussite lors de la remise des diplômes aux ingénieurs civils de l’Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgique). Ce discours devient rapidement viral sur les réseaux sociaux. Il est à présent conférencier et auteur de Matins Clairs (L’iconoclaste, 2020).

Jonathan Haidt

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