Authors Like Jonathan Haidt

Daniel Kahneman

Israeli-American · b. 1934 · Psychologist

Kahneman was born in Tel Aviv in 1934 and, with Amos Tversky from 1969, mapped the shortcuts and biases in human judgement, including prospect theory (1979). He shared the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Vernon L. Smith. Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011) explains the work for general readers; Noise (2021) was written with Olivier Sibony and Cass Sunstein. He died in March 2024.

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Joshua Greene

American · Psychologist and philosopher

Greene trained as a philosopher, with a PhD from Princeton in 2002, and moved into experimental and brain-imaging research on moral dilemmas such as the trolley problem. He is a professor of psychology at Harvard. Moral Tribes (2013) argues that morality evolved to help people cooperate within groups but not between them, and proposes a utilitarian “deep pragmatism” as common ground.

Paul Bloom

Canadian-American · b. 1963 · Psychologist

Bloom was born in Montreal in 1963, taught for many years at Yale and joined the University of Toronto in 2021. Just Babies (2013) draws on experiments with infants to ask how much of our moral sense is there from the start. Against Empathy (2016) argues that empathy is a poor moral guide and that reasoned compassion works better; Psych (2023) is an introduction to psychology as a whole.

Steven Pinker

Canadian-American · b. 1954 · Psychologist

Pinker was born in Montreal in 1954 and has been a professor of psychology at Harvard since 2003. How the Mind Works (1997) and The Blank Slate (2002) were both Pulitzer Prize finalists. The Better Angels of Our Nature (2011) argues that violence has declined over human history; Enlightenment Now (2018) and Rationality (2021) defend reason and science, and When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows (2025) is about common knowledge.

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Robert Sapolsky

American · b. 1957 · Neuroscientist

Sapolsky is a neuroendocrinologist and primatologist at Stanford who spent about twenty-five summers studying a troop of wild baboons in Kenya. He received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1987. Behave (2017) traces an action back through the brain, hormones, childhood, culture and evolution; Determined (2023) argues that free will does not exist.

Greg Lukianoff

American · Lawyer and writer

Lukianoff is a lawyer and president and CEO of FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. He co-wrote The Coddling of the American Mind (2018) with Haidt, growing it out of their 2015 Atlantic essay. He followed it with The Canceling of the American Mind (2023), with Rikki Schlott, and The War on Words (2025), with Nadine Strossen.

Jean Twenge

American · b. 1971 · Psychologist

Twenge is a professor of psychology at San Diego State University who studies generational differences in large surveys. Generation Me (2006) was about millennials; iGen (2017) argued that teenagers who grew up with smartphones were less happy and more anxious. Generations (2023) compares six American generations, and 10 Rules for Raising Kids in a High-Tech World (2025) is a guide for parents.

Sherry Turkle

American · b. 1948 · Sociologist

Turkle was born in New York in 1948 and is a professor of the social studies of science and technology at MIT, trained in sociology and psychology. She has written about people and computers since The Second Self (1984) and Life on the Screen (1995). Alone Together (2011) and Reclaiming Conversation (2015) follow families, students and workers living with phones.

Cal Newport

American · b. 1982 · Computer scientist

Newport is a professor of computer science at Georgetown University who writes about attention and work. Deep Work (2016) argues for long periods of undistracted concentration; Digital Minimalism (2019) proposes a thirty-day break from optional technology. A World Without Email (2021) and Slow Productivity (2024) followed.

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Robert D. Putnam

American · b. 1941 · Political scientist

Putnam, born in Rochester, New York, in 1941, is a political scientist at Harvard's Kennedy School. His 1995 essay “Bowling Alone” became the 2000 book, which tracked the decline of clubs, churches and civic groups in America. Our Kids (2015) is about the growing opportunity gap between children; The Upswing (2020) traces a century of American community rising and falling. He received the National Humanities Medal in 2013.