Professor Somerville is a recipient of the prestigious Troland Research Award “for her pioneering research on how brain and psychological development are intertwined during adolescence.”

Congratulations to Professor Steven Pinker on:

• The publication of his book Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters
• The launching of a 12-[art BBC radio and podcast series Think with Pinker
• Receipt of the 2021 Distinguished Service Award from Humanists International
• Being named in the #2...

Our most negative societal prejudices can fade, but what sparks that change, and what does it mean when those views haven’t budged in years? Tessa Charlesworth, a postdoc in the Department of Psychology, has dedicated her research in recent years to these questions, and some of her newest analysis has turned up a troubling trend involving implicit biases toward disabilities.

Charlesworth, Ph.D. ’21, who works in the lab...

At a time when belief in science appears to be waning, conspiracy theories seem to be on the rise, and many Americans cannot agree on basic facts, Steven Pinker argues for a return to rational thought and public discourse in his latest book, “Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters.” Pinker, Harvard’s Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology, and author of “The Better Angels of Our Nature,” and “Enlightenment Now,” thinks “we will always need to push back against our own irrationality,”...