Jonathan Haidt

Professor of Ethical Leadership, NYU Stern · 1 appearance on the record.

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Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist who studies moral reasoning and the effects of social media on development and democratic institutions. He is the author of books including The Righteous Mind, The Coddling of the American Mind, and The Anxious Generation.

39statements → 15claims → 10claims resolved → 90%fully supported → 3.79/5average certainty → 2.77/5average debate potential → ≈4.0/5argument clarity, estimated → 15said about them ↓

9 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted 5 not checkable as stated how the 15 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

2 predictions · 13 assertions · 6 opinions · 18 insights · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 15 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 10 are resolved, and 5 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Jonathan argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported

Haidt: A child would wait 700,000 years in a car before abduction

“There are about a hundred people, a hundred kids abducted a year in the United States by strangers. At present rates of abduction, you'd have to leave your kid alone in a car in a parking lot for 700,000 years before they would probably be abducted.”

Jonathan Haidt Jul 2, 2019 ▶ 51:27 #61 Jonathan Haidt: When Good Intentions Go Bad

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1

none yet certainty 2

100% certainty 3

94% certainty 4

none yet certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Jonathan Haidt on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

What they said39 What others said15 Episodes1

Everything Jonathan Haidt said on the Knowledge Project that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Opinion

Haidt: Social media puts reputations on the line dishonestly, creating hell

“Because once we had social media, all the reputations are on the line all the time, but not in a consistent or honest way. That is anything you say can and will be distorted, taken out of context, used against you, so you better watch what you say. And we're f…”

Jonathan Haidt Jul 2, 2019 ▶ 43:55 #61 Jonathan Haidt: When Good Intentions Go Bad

Prediction Not checkable as stated

Haidt Predicts Overprotective Parenting Culture Will Reverse as Mental Health Data Spreads

“And that's why I'm actually optimistic that this is going to change, because as I said, two years ago, we didn't know the suicide stats. We didn't know the terrible things that are happening. It's only in the last year or two that it's really become public kno…”

Jonathan Haidt Jul 2, 2019 ▶ 52:39 #61 Jonathan Haidt: When Good Intentions Go Bad

Opinion

Haidt: Test-Focused Childhoods Produce Youth Lacking Key Innovation Skills

“I think that we are changing the nature of childhood, and we're too focused on skills that actually Don't matter as much. And what we're creating is a generation of people who do well on tests, but may not have the, may not develop, may not have a chance to de…”

Jonathan Haidt Jul 2, 2019 ▶ 57:16 #61 Jonathan Haidt: When Good Intentions Go Bad

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Haidt: 1990s Abduction Panic Occurred While Crime Plummeted

“Just as the crime was plummeting in the nineties, we totally freaked out about child abduction, and we literally stopped letting kids out of our sight.”

Jonathan Haidt Jul 2, 2019 ▶ 7:19 #61 Jonathan Haidt: When Good Intentions Go Bad

Assertion Supported

Haidt: Girls have higher internalizing disorders while boys externalize disorders

“Girls have more of what are called internalizing disorders. That is disorders, emotional disorders where they make themselves miserable. They ruminate more than boys do. Boys have higher rates of what are known as externalizing disorders which is they make oth…”

Jonathan Haidt Jul 2, 2019 ▶ 14:20 #61 Jonathan Haidt: When Good Intentions Go Bad

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Haidt: Silicon Valley tech creators routinely ban their kids from social media

“In Silicon Valley, the norm has been, you know, we, they don't let their kids use social media and that's been going on a long time.”

Jonathan Haidt Jul 2, 2019 ▶ 20:18 #61 Jonathan Haidt: When Good Intentions Go Bad

Insight

Haidt: CBT improves thinking even for people without depression

“Just teach everyone CBT because it helps you think better, even if you're not depressed.”

Jonathan Haidt Jul 2, 2019 ▶ 27:17 #61 Jonathan Haidt: When Good Intentions Go Bad

Insight

Haidt: Surrounding ourselves with people who confirm our thoughts makes us stupid

“And if we surround ourselves with people who confirm our existing thoughts, we get stupid, quite frankly, stupid. And in this age of social media bubbles, that's a real problem.”

Jonathan Haidt Jul 2, 2019 ▶ 40:02 #61 Jonathan Haidt: When Good Intentions Go Bad

Insight

Haidt: Fear of reputational damage is a primary driver of moral behavior

“And I was referring back to the story of the Ring of Gyges from Plato's Republic, in which Plato asks, if a man had the mythical Ring of Gyges, in which if you turn the stone, the, you know, the gem inwards on your hand, it makes you invisible. He asks what ma…”

Jonathan Haidt Jul 2, 2019 ▶ 43:10 #61 Jonathan Haidt: When Good Intentions Go Bad

Insight

Haidt: Learning from experience is 10 to 100 times more effective than instruction

“And learning from feedback from experience is 10 or a hundred times more effective than telling kids a fact.”

Jonathan Haidt Jul 2, 2019 ▶ 54:00 #61 Jonathan Haidt: When Good Intentions Go Bad

Insight

Haidt: Bureaucracy and metrics strangle judgment and rob society of wisdom

“Teachers, doctors used to have much more leeway to exercise common sense, and then they could learn from feedback and they could develop skills of judgment. But the kind of the bureaucratizing mindset, the increasing use of metrics has led us to in a sense, st…”

Jonathan Haidt Jul 2, 2019 ▶ 58:20 #61 Jonathan Haidt: When Good Intentions Go Bad

Insight

Haidt: Morality universally emerges whenever humans interact and judge behaviors against norms

“When you have humans interacting, they almost immediately develop norms about behavior, and then they judge each other based on those norms. So that's morality.”

Jonathan Haidt Jul 2, 2019 ▶ 1:05:23 #61 Jonathan Haidt: When Good Intentions Go Bad

Insight

Haidt: Moralizing an issue requires anchoring it to moral foundations

“You can make something a moral issue, but it's not gonna really stick or work unless it's at least related to one of the moral foundations.”

Jonathan Haidt Jul 2, 2019 ▶ 1:09:42 #61 Jonathan Haidt: When Good Intentions Go Bad

Insight

Haidt: Cultural evolution can be guided by deliberate human intervention

“In biological evolution, there's no guide, but in cultural evolution, there can be political movements that can be more or less skillful. So yeah, I think that human intervention does happen in cultural evolution.”

Jonathan Haidt Jul 2, 2019 ▶ 1:13:02 #61 Jonathan Haidt: When Good Intentions Go Bad

Assertion Supported

Haidt: Girls' rates of depression and anxiety diverge and rise at puberty

“Rates of depression and anxiety before puberty are fairly similar. But at puberty there's a big divergence and depression and anxiety generally go up for girls.”

Jonathan Haidt Jul 2, 2019 ▶ 14:06 #61 Jonathan Haidt: When Good Intentions Go Bad

The other half of the tape: Jonathan Haidt's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 13 times in 7 episodes on the Knowledge Project. 2 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Neil Pasricha 4 Rory Sutherland 3 Annie Duke 2 Todd Simkin 1 Michaeleen Doucleff 1 Emily Nagoski 1 Dacher Keltner 1

Statements about Jonathan Haidt, by other people (2)

Insight

Simkin: Call-out culture incentivizes finger-pointing regardless of expertise

“The big problem with call out culture is that we're rewarding people just for the call out. That it doesn't matter what their other behavior it is. It doesn't matter what other positions they have, what knowledge they have, what expertise they have. They just …”

Todd Simkin Sep 7, 2021 ▶ 17:55 #119 Todd Simkin: Making Better Decisions

Opinion

Nagoski: Haidt's Purity Foundation explains our moral discomfort around discussing sex

“The Purity Sanctity Foundation isn't just at work in sexuality, but I think it is the most powerful explanation for why we have moral reactions to just a conversation about genitals.”

Emily Nagoski Sep 17, 2019 ▶ 8:16 #66 Dr. Emily Nagoski: Pleasure is the Measure