Jonathan Haidt Quotes

Quotes about:

Conflict Culture Diversity Emotions Feelings Giving Goals

Suppose you read about a pill that you could take once a day to reduce anxiety and increase your contentment. Would you take it? Suppose further that the pill has a great variety of side effects, all of them good: increased self-esteem, empathy, and trust; it even improves memory. Suppose, finally, that the pill is all natural and costs nothing. Now would you take it? The pill exists. It is meditation.

Jonathan Haidt

Success, Trust, Sympathy

Jonathan Haidt (2006). “The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom”, p.35, Basic Books

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Happiness doesn't come from getting what you want. It doesn't come from within, either. Happiness comes from *between*--from finding the right relationship between yourself and others, between yourself and your work, and between yourself and something larger than yourself.

Jonathan Haidt

Getting What You Want, Want, What You Want

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The human mind is a story processor, not a logic processor.

Jonathan Haidt

Mind, Stories, Logic

Jonathan Haidt (2012). “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion”, p.281, Vintage

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You can’t make a dog happy by forcibly wagging its tail. And you can’t change people’s minds by utterly refuting their arguments.

Jonathan Haidt

Dog, People, Mind

Jonathan Haidt (2012). “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion”, p.48, Vintage

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The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion.

Jonathan Haidt

People, Mind, Religion And Politics

"The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion". Book by Jonathan Haidt, 2012.

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Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second.

Jonathan Haidt

Intuition, Firsts, Strategic

Jonathan Haidt (2012). “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion”, p.70, Vintage

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Human rationality depends critically on sophisticated emotionality. It is only because our emotional brain works so well that our reasoning can work at all.

Jonathan Haidt

Emotional, Brain, Sophisticated

Jonathan Haidt (2006). “The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom”, p.13, Basic Books

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Morality binds and blinds. It binds us into ideological teams that fight each other as though the fate of the world depended on our side winning each battle. It blinds us to the fact that each team is composed of good people who have something important to say.

Jonathan Haidt

Team, Fighting, Fate

Jonathan Haidt (2016). “Can't We All Disagree More Constructively?: from The Righteous Mind”, p.46, Vintage

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The most powerful force ever known on this planet is human cooperation - a force for construction and destruction.

Jonathan Haidt

Motivation, Powerful, Inspiration

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But the most important lesson I have learned in my twenty years or research on morality is that nearly all people are morally motivated. Selfishness is a powerful force, particularly in the decisions of individuals, but whenever groups of people come together to make a sustained effort to change the world, you can bet that they are pursuing a vision of virtue, justice, or sacredness.

Jonathan Haidt

Powerful, Selfish, Years

Jonathan Haidt (2006). “The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom”, p.242, Basic Books

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Love and work are crucial for human happiness because, when done well, they draw us out of ourselves and into connection with people and projects beyond ourselves. Happiness comes from getting these connections right.

Jonathan Haidt

People, Connections, Done

Jonathan Haidt (2006). “The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom”, p.223, Basic Books

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If you have high IQ, you're really good at finding post-hoc arguments to support your feelings of truthiness.

Jonathan Haidt

Support, Feelings, Argument

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Empathy is an antidote to righteousness, although it's very difficult to empathize across a moral divide

Jonathan Haidt

Empathy, Moral, Righteousness

Jonathan Haidt (2012). “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion”, p.49, Vintage

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Anyone who values truth should stop worshipping reason.

Jonathan Haidt

Reason, Should, Values

Jonathan Haidt (2012). “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion”, p.89, Vintage

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Understanding the simple fact that morality differs around the world, and even within societies, is the first step toward understanding your righteous mind.

Jonathan Haidt

Simple, Understanding, Mind

Jonathan Haidt (2012). “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion”, p.4, Vintage

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Human thinking depends on metaphor. We understand new and complex things in relation to the things we already know... once you pick a metaphor it will guide your thinking.

Jonathan Haidt

Thinking, Metaphor, Guides

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Sacredness binds people together, and then blinds them to the arbitrariness of the practice.

Jonathan Haidt

Practice, People, Together

Jonathan Haidt (2012). “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion”, p.257, Vintage

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Scandal is great entertainment because it allows people to feel contempt, a moral emotion that gives feelings of moral superiority while asking nothing in return. With contempt you don't need to right the wrong (as with anger) or flee the scene (as with fear or disgust). And the best of all, contempt is made to share. Stories about the moral failings of others are among the most common kinds of gossip, they are a stable of talk radio, and they offer a ready way for people to show that they share a common moral orientation.

Jonathan Haidt

Gossip, People, Giving

Jonathan Haidt (2006). “The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom”, p.60, Basic Books

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While it is useful to rebut charges and get your arguments out in circulation, you have to understand that arguments and evidence have little impact on people as long as their feelings tilt them against you.

Jonathan Haidt

Impact, Long, People

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When you hear someone criticize a policy on the other side, thats fine. But when you start hearing motive-mongering and demonization, stand up to it just as you would if it were something that was racist or sexist. If we avoid the demonization, disagreements can be positive.

Jonathan Haidt

Being Positive, Racist, Hearing

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We are like a rider on top of a gigantic elephant. We can steer the elephant, and if he's not busy, he'll go where we want, but if he has other desires, he'll often go where he wants. How can one control the elephant? In part, this comes with maturity. In part, this comes with the development of your frontal cortex, so the frontal areas of the brain are especially involved in self-control, in suppressing your initial instinct to act. This is why teenagers are so impulsive. So it's terrible to allow the death penalty for teenagers, because they really don't have working brains yet.

Jonathan Haidt

Teenager, Maturity, Brain

Source: bigthink.com

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In accounts of men in battle, there is an incredible adrenaline rush from group-versus-group conflict. The fervor and passion of partisans is clearly rewarding; and if it's rewarding, it involves dopamine; and if it involves dopamine, then it is potentially addictive.

Jonathan Haidt

Passion, Men, Battle

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Liberals and conservatives are opponents in the most literal sense, each using the myth of pure evil to demonize the other side and unite there own.

Jonathan Haidt

Evil, Politics, Opponents

Jonathan Haidt (2006). “The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom”, p.242, Basic Books

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[W]hen a group of people make something sacred, the members of the cult lose the ability to think clearly about it. Morality binds and blinds.

Jonathan Haidt

Thinking, People, Groups

Jonathan Haidt (2012). “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion”, p.28, Vintage

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Religious experiences are real and common, whether or not God exists, and these experiences often make people whole and at peace.

Jonathan Haidt

Religious, Real, People

Jonathan Haidt (2006). “The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom”, p.204, Basic Books

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Latest quotes from interviews

"I think that we Americans, in particular, tend to think too directly about problems. If there's a problem we want to basically go in with a screwdriver or else drop bombs on it. A better way to solve problems is to think indirectly and try to change the environment. So I think you can gain much better self-control not so much by working on yourself as by looking at the situations you're in and the people you hang around, and changing your environment."

- Jonathan Haidt,

bigthink.com, added Jul 23, 2017

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Jonathan Haidt

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Born: October 19, 1963
Occupation: Psychologist
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