10 thinkers, books, and ideas connected to this field.
American social scientist, Harvard Business School professor, and former president of the American Enterprise Institute who studies the science of happiness, arguing that meaning, relationships, and transcendence — not achievement — are the sources of lasting wellbeing.
American political scientist — AEI scholar — author of Losing Ground, The Bell Curve, Coming Apart, and Human Diversity — the most controversial and influential conservative social scientist of his generation.
American Ivy League research university founded in 1754 as King's College, home of the Columbia Journalism School and a major center of social science, law, and medicine in the United States.
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz's 2017 book arguing that Google search data reveals what people actually think — as opposed to what they tell pollsters — uncovering hidden truths about racism, sexuality, anxiety, and social behavior.
French mathematician and Enlightenment philosopher — who invented the Condorcet method of voting and the Condorcet paradox — predicted the French Revolution's going wrong in his Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind — died in prison during the Terror.
Arthur Brooks's podcast in which he applies social science research on happiness, purpose, and human flourishing to listener questions — operationalizing his academic framework for general audiences.
Malcolm Gladwell's 2008 argument — that extraordinary success depends on hidden advantages (birth dates, cultural legacies, 10,000 hours of practice) rather than individual merit — the best-selling popular examination of the social context of success.
Malcolm Gladwell's podcast that re-examines overlooked or misunderstood events and ideas from the past through a social science lens.
American data scientist and former Google economist who pioneered the use of aggregate search data as a window into genuine human behavior — revealing that what people search in private diverges dramatically from what they report in surveys.
David Brooks's 2011 synthesis of social science research — told through the fictional lives of Harold and Erica — arguing that unconscious processes, relationships, and social context are more important than individual rationality in determining human success.