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Steven Pinker
Psychology & Personal Growth
Steven Pinker is a cognitive psychologist and Harvard professor whose nonfiction explores language, human nature, violence, and reason.
Biography
Steven Pinker is a Canadian cognitive psychologist, psycholinguist, and popular science author. He holds the Johnstone Family professorship of psychology at Harvard University. His research focuses on visual cognition and developmental linguistics, and he advocates evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind.
Pinker has written technical books proposing a general theory of language acquisition. His work with Alan Prince examines how children apply default language rules while learning irregular forms individually. His books for general readers include The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, and The Blank Slate, which explore language and human nature through an evolutionary perspective.
His writing also addresses broader historical and philosophical questions. The Better Angels of Our Nature examines declining violence, while Enlightenment Now discusses improvements in the human condition through reason, science, and humanism. Rationality considers the nature and importance of reason.
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Books by Steven Pinker
The better angels of our nature
The Better Angels of Our Nature argues that violence in human societies has generally declined over time. Combining psychology and history, it examines motives that encourage or restrain violence and the changing circumstances that have supported this decline.