081: Jonathan Haidt: The Coddling of the American Mind

I met Jonathan at the World Science Festival and recorded a podcast interview of him that changed my approach to leadership—in principle and in practice. I seek more opposing views. I listen more. I look to learn their intent and the beliefs and values motivating that intent. I challenge myself more.

As he colorfully said to me:

We are going through an extraordinary time in which social media and other recent changes are turning us all into self-righteous jerks.

Our combined jerkitude threatens to destroy society.

We all have to turn it down, be more humble. We don't know the truth. We don't have privileged access to the truth and we have to give each other the benefit of the doubt.

The links Jonathan mentioned:

• Resources on environmental action based on The Righteous Mind
• Feinberg & Willer (2012). The Moral Roots of Environmental Attitudes. Psychological Science. Shows that messages that speak to conservatives’ morals narrow partisan gap on environment. See essay summarizing the research here.
• Kidwell, Farmer, & Hardesty (2013), Getting Liberals and Conservatives to Go Green: Political Ideology and Congruent Appeals. Journal of Consumer Research. Shows that messages framed using the right moral foundations can appeal to conservatives or liberals, on recycling.
• Day, Fiske et al. (2014). Shifting Liberal and Conservative Attitudes Using Moral Foundations Theory. PSPB.
• Wolsko, Ariceaga, & Seiden (2016). Red, white, and blue enough to be green: Effects of moral framing on climate change attitudes and conservation behaviors. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. From the abstract: “While liberals did not generally differ across conditions, conservatives shifted substantially in the pro-environmental direction after exposure to a binding moral frame, in which protecting the natural environment was portrayed as a matter of obeying authority, defending the purity of nature, and demonstrating one’s patriotism to the United States.”
• John Stuart Mill's On Liberty (edited and illustrated by Jonathan and collaborators) at Heterodox Academy
• YourMorals.org, where you can explore your morality

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