What motivates a suicide bomber? That question divides Sam Harris and Jonathan Haidt, two scholars who study religion from the psychological perspective. For Harris the answer is religion. “Subtract the Muslim belief in martyrdom and jihad, and the actions of suicide bombers become completely unintelligible,” he says in The End of Faith. Haidt takes a… read more »
Happy Money
All Things Shinning
The Complete Essays
Posts Tagged: Jonathan Haidt
A Nauseating Corner of Psychology: Disgust
Like many features of the human condition, the first psychological account of disgust comes from Charles Darwin, who in The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals defined it this way: “Something revolting, primarily in relation to the sense of taste, as actually perceived or vividly imagined; and secondarily to anything which causes a… read more »
Awe-Inspiring Art as a Byproduct of the Freeze Response
Imagine that you are making your way through a dense jungle. Thick vegetation makes it difficult to see more than few feet in front of you. Suddenly, you break through to a clearing and find yourself standing on the edge of a high cliff; one more step and you’re finished. This imaginary scenario comes from… read more »
Why We’re Suckers for Sorrow
One paradox of good fiction is that it centers on sadness. If fiction gives us pleasure, then why are we drawn towards what’s gravely unpleasant? Think about classics in the Western cannon. Romeo and Juliet ends with a double suicide; Anna Karenina throws herself in front of an oncoming train; in versions of Goethe’s Faust the Devil carries the protagonist… read more »
The Psychology of Elections Part III: The Irrational Voter
In Metaphysics Aristotle described man as the “rational animal.” A few millennia later the British philosopher Bertrand Russell quipped that, “all my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.” The question of human rationality continues to bother thinkers today. Evidence from the cognitive sciences gives us a new perspective: the brain… read more »