Social Psychologist, NYU Professor
Jonathan Haidt is an American social psychologist and the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at NYU Stern School of Business. He developed Moral Foundations Theory and wrote the bestsellers 'The Happiness Hypothesis,' 'The Righteous Mind,' 'The Coddling of the American Mind,' and 'The Anxious Generation.'
by Jonathan Haidt
Haidt argues that moral judgements are driven by intuition, not reason. We are fundamentally groupish, and understanding our innate moral foundations explains why good people disagree politically.
by Jonathan Haidt
Haidt argues that ancient wisdom and modern psychology converge on the same truths about human flourishing. Happiness comes from getting the right relationship between yourself, others, and your work.
by Jonathan Haidt
Haidt argues overprotective parenting is producing a generation unable to handle adversity. Three 'great untruths' - fragility, emotional reasoning, us-vs-them - are weakening young minds.
by Jonathan Haidt
Haidt argues that the convergence of overprotective parenting and the rise of smartphone-based childhood has produced an unprecedented mental health crisis among adolescents beginning around 2012. He documents how the shift from a play-based childhood to a phone-based childhood disrupts social development through mechanisms including sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation, addiction, and corrosive social comparison.
The books Jonathan Haidt references, cites, and recommends most frequently.
by Daniel Kahneman
Kahneman reveals that our minds run on two systems: fast intuition and slow deliberation. Most errors in judgement come from trusting System 1 when the situation demands System 2's careful analysis.
by Richard Dawkins
Dawkins reframes evolution from the organism's perspective to the gene's. Bodies are survival machines built by genes competing to replicate - a view that transformed modern biology.
by Ernest Becker
Becker argues that the terror of death drives much of human behaviour, from heroism to war. Culture, religion, and self-esteem are elaborate defences against the awareness of our mortality.
by David Brooks
Brooks argues that character is built not through rational planning but through deep emotional and social bonds. The unconscious mind drives our most important decisions and relationships.
by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Csikszentmihalyi identifies the state of total absorption where time vanishes and performance peaks. Flow is not random, it arises from clear goals, immediate feedback, and matched challenge.
by Viktor Frankl
Frankl survived Auschwitz and concluded that meaning, not pleasure or power, sustains us through suffering. His logotherapy argues we can find purpose in any circumstance.
by Aristotle
Aristotle argues that the good life is not about pleasure or wealth but about cultivating virtue through habit and practice. The foundational text of Western ethics.
by Plato
Plato's foundational dialogue asks what justice truly means, arguing that a well-ordered society mirrors a well-ordered soul. Still the starting point for political philosophy.
by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Taleb argues that some systems don't just resist shocks - they actually grow stronger from disorder. The goal isn't resilience or robustness but antifragility: designing your life and institutions to benefit from volatility.
by Johann Hari
Hari investigates twelve systemic forces he argues are collectively dismantling human attention, from engagement-optimized social media and ultra-processed diets to sleep deprivation and chronic stress. He rejects the individual-willpower framing of the attention crisis, arguing that focus has been stolen by design and that recovering it requires collective political response.
by Adam Alter
Alter examines how technology exploits the same hooks as gambling, variable rewards, social approval, escalating goals. Behavioural addiction is a designed feature, not a personal failing.
by Cal Newport
Newport argues that compulsive phone use erodes focus, solitude, and meaningful connection. He offers a practical philosophy for reclaiming attention in a noisy digital world.
Who Jonathan draws from, and who draws from Jonathan — aggregated across every book in this collection. Counts show the number of citation links, not the depth of each one.