The Happiness Hypothesis - Cross Level Coherence

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There's an idea that I tried to explain in a happiness hypothesis about cross level coherence. Whenever a system can be analyzed at multiple levels, a special kind of coherence occurs when the levels mesh and mutually interlock. And so you see this in personality. You might have sort of stories about yourself that fit with your lower level personality traits. But if my story isn't consistent with my lower level traits, then I'm incoherent. All of this is nested within my understanding of society and American history or some larger theory of politics. When things match the socio-cultural level down to the individual psychological level down to even the neurological level, you're much less likely to break. So

Today, Nate is joined by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. Professor Haidt is one of the leaders in the understanding of human biases and predispositions, and how they affect cooperation, communication, and change-making. Human psychology and behavior is at the root of the larger predicament that humanity faces. Is it possible to use a better understanding of our own psychology to change our behavior and the behavior of future generations? Is social media hijacking the vulnerabilities of our social-psychological nature? How can we redesign systems technologies and systems to bring out the better sides of our natures, instead of amplifying the worst?

About Jonathan Haidt:

Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist at New York University’s Stern School of Business. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992. Haidt’s research examines the intuitive foundations of morality, and how morality varies across cultural and political divisions. Haidt is the author of The Happiness Hypothesis (2006) and of The New York Times bestsellers The Righteous Mind (2012) and The Coddling of the American Mind (2018, with Greg Lukianoff). In 2019 he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Since 2018 he has been studying the contributions of social media to the decline of teen mental health and the rise of political dysfunction. He is currently writing two books: Kids In Space: Why teen mental health is collapsing, and Life After Babel: Adapting to a world we can no longer share.

For Show Notes and More visit: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/59-jonathan-haidt

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