Kennon Sheldon

It’s become fashionable to argue that free will is a fiction: that we humans are in the thrall of animal urges and unconscious biases and only think that we are choosing freely. In Freely Determined, research psychologist Kennon Sheldon argues that this perception is not only wrong but also dangerous. Shermer and Sheldon discuss: definitions of free will, determinism, compatibilism, libertarian free will • dualism • reductionism, materialism, predetermination, and epiphenomenalism • Christian List’s three capacities for free will • AI, Star Trek’s Data, sentience and consciousness, ChatGPT, GPT-4 • how what people believe about free will and determinism influences their behaviors • the case for hard determinism • brain injuries, tumors, addictions, and other “determiners” of behavior • emergence • symbolic self • System 1 vs. System 2 thinking •  Experiencing Self vs. Remembered Self •  subjective well-being and happiness. Kennon M. Sheldon is professor of psychology at the University of Missouri. He is one of the founding researchers of positive psychology, a fellow of the American Psychological Association, and a recipient of the Templeton Foundation Positive Psychology Prize. He lives in Columbia, Missouri. He is the author of numerous scientific papers and scholarly books, including Stability of Happiness: Theories and Evidence on Whether Happiness Can Change; Designing the Future of Positive Psychology: Taking Stock and Moving Forward; Current Directions in Psychological Science; and Self-Determination Theory in the Clinic. His new book integrates all this research into a popular trade book Freely Determined: What the New Psychology of the Self Teaches Us About How to Live.

“The happiest person is the person doing good stuff for good reasons.” — Kennon Sheldon Dr. Kennon Sheldon is a psychologist at the University of Missouri who studies motivation, goals, and well-being, from both a self-determination theory and a positive psychology perspective. He has authored or co-authored multiple books, including “Optimal human being: An integrated multi-level perspective”. Dr. Sheldon has been cited more than 30,000 times, and in 2010, he was named one of the 20 most cited social psychologists. In this wide-ranging episode we discuss: How Ken went from aspiring musician to leading research on goals Whether the pursuit of happiness is worth it Is happiness in your genes? The link between goals and happiness The what and why of motivated goal pursuit The basic needs of self-determination theory Deprivation vs. growth needs Self-concordance theory The link between values and happiness How much can we use science as a guide to values? Are there some ways of being more conducive to happiness than others? How to get in touch with your OVP (organismic valuing process) Marrying positive psychology and humanistic psychology The relationship between personal goals and personal projects How to know when to change your goals The good life: well-being or well-doing? Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-psychology-podcast/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.