Skip to content
Social Science
Encyclopedia
Steven Pinker

Psychology

Steven Pinker

Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology, Harvard University

Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He has previously taught at MIT and Stanford University.

He has been named one of the “World’s Top 100 Public Intellectuals” by Foreign Policy Magazine & one of the “100 Most Influential People in the World Today” by Time Magazine.

Professor Pinker is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, a Humanist of the Year award winner, and a recipient of nine honorary doctorates.

He has won numerous prizes for his teaching at Harvard University and MIT.

His research on vision, language, and social relations has won prizes from the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Institution of Great Britain, the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, the American Psychological Association, and the Association for Psychological Science.

Professor Pinker has also won numerous awards for his 12 books which include The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Better Angels of Our Nature, The Sense of Style, Enlightenment Now, and Rationality.

He was Chair of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, and writes frequently for the New York Times, the Guardian, and other publications.

Professor Pinker has conducted research on a diverse array of topics in psychology, including the role of common knowledge (where two or more people know that the others know what they know) in language and other social phenomena; historical and recent trends in violence and their explanation; the psycho-linguistics of good writing; the nature of the critical period for acquiring language; the neurobiology and genetics of language; and the nature of regular and irregular phenomena in grammar.

Born: 1954, Montreal, Canada.

Education
Post-Doctoral Fellow, MIT · PhD Experimental Psychology, Harvard University · B.A. Psychology, McGill University
Topics
Psychology · Linguistics · Philosophy · Language Development In Children · Neurobiology & Genetics of Language · Common Knowledge · History & Psychology of Violence · Visual Cognition · Psycho-Linguistics of Good Writing · Nature of Regular & Irregular Phenomena in Grammar · Human Nature · Human Progress · Enlightenment Philosophy · Liberal Democracy · War & Peace · Morality & Moral Cognition

In the Encyclopedia1

Books11

  • Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It MattersPenguin, 2021
  • Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and ProgressPenguin, 2018
  • The Sense of Style: A Writing Manual for the 21st CenturyPenguin, 2014
  • The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence Has DeclinedPenguin, 2011
  • The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human NaturePenguin, 2007
  • The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human NaturePenguin, 2002
  • Words and Rules: The Ingredients of LanguageHarperCollins, 1999
  • How the Mind WorksNorton, 1997
  • The Language InstinctHarperCollins, 1994
  • Learnability and Cognition: The Acquisition of Argument StructureMIT Press, 1989
  • Language Learnability and Language DevelopmentHarvard University Press, 1984

Selected publications48

  1. 2019Mehr, S. et al. (2019) Universality and diversity in human song. Science, 366, 970.
  2. 2018Chair, Usage Panel, American Heritage Dictionary, 2008-2018.
  3. 2018Thomas, K. A., DeScioli, P. & Pinker, S. (2018) Common knowledge, coordination, and the logic of self-conscious emotions. Evolution and Human Behavior, 39(2), 179-190.
  4. 2018Hartshorne, J. K., Tenenbaum, J. B., & Pinker, S., (2018) A critical period for second language acquisition: Evidence from 2/3 million English speakers. Cognition, 77 (2018): 263-277.
  5. 2018De Freitas, J., DeScioli, P., Thomas, K. A., & Pinker, S. (2018) Maimonides’ Ladder: States of mutual knowledge and the perception of charitability. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 148(1), 158-173.
  6. 2017De Freitas, J., DeScioli, P, Nemirow, J., Massenkoff, M, & Pinker, S. (2017) Kill or die: Moral judgment alters linguistic coding of causality. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 43(8), 1173-1182.
  7. 2016Thomas, K. A., De Freitas, J., DeScioli, P., & Pinker, S. (2016) Recursive mentalizing and common knowledge in the bystander effect. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 145, 621-629.
  8. 2014van der Lely, H. K., & Pinker, S. (2014) The biological basis of language: Insight from developmental grammatical impairments. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 18, 586-595.
  9. 2014Reed, L., I., DeScioli, P. & Pinker, S. (2014) The commitment function of angry facial expressions. Psychological Science, 25, 1511-1517.
  10. 2014Thomas, K. A., DeScioli, P., Haque, O. S., & Pinker, S. (2014) The psychology of coordination and common knowledge. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 107, 657-676.
  11. 2014Rietveld, et al. (2014) Common genetic variants associated with cognitive performance identified using the proxy-phenotype method. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
  12. 2014Ronen, S., Gonçalves, B., Hu, K. Z., Vespignani, A., Pinker, S., & Hidalgo, C. A. (2014) Links that speak: The global language network and its association with global fame. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(52) E5616-E5622.
  13. 2013Pinker, S. (2013) The decline of war and conceptions of human nature. International Studies Review, 15, 5-10.
  14. 2013Chabris, C., Lee, J. J., Benjamin, D. J., Beauchamp, J. P, Glaeser, E. L, Bosrt, G., Pinker, S., & Laibson, D. I. (2013) Why is it hard to find genes that are associated with social science traits? Theoretical and empirical considerations. American Journal of Public Health, 152-166.
  15. 2011Michel, J.-B., Shen, Y. K., Aiden, A. P., Veres, A., Gray, M. K., The_Google_Books_Team, Pickett, J. P., Hoiberg, D., Clancy, D. ,Norvig, P., Orwant, J., Pinker, S., Nowak, M., & Lieberman-Aiden, E. (2011). Quantitative analysis of culture using millions of digitized books. Science, 331, 176- 182.
  16. 2011Pinker, S. (2011) Taming the devil within us. Nature, Oct. 20, 309–311.
  17. 2011Pinker, S. (2011). Indirect speech, politeness, deniability, and relationship negotiation. Journal of Pragmatics, 43, 2866-2868.
  18. 2010Huang, Y.-T. & Pinker, S. (2010) Lexical semantics and irregular inflection. Language and Cognitive Processes, 25, 1-51.
  19. 2010Lee, J. J., & Pinker, S. (2010) Rationales for indirect speech: The theory of the strategic speaker. Psychological Review, 117, 785–807.
  20. 2010Pinker, S. (2010) The cognitive niche: Coevolution of intelligence, sociality, and language. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA, 107, 8893-899.
  21. 2009Sahin, N. T., Pinker, S., Cash, S. S., Schomer, D., & Halgren, E. (2009) Sequential processing of lexical, grammatical, and articulatory information within Broca’s area. Science, 326, 445-449.
  22. 2008Pinker, S., Nowak, M., A. & Lee, J. J. (2008). The logic of indirect speech. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA, 105(3), 833-838.
  23. 2007Berent, I., Pinker, S., & Ghavami, G. (2007) The dislike of regular plurals in compounds: Phonological familiarity or morphological constraint? The Mental Lexicon, 2, 129-181.
  24. 2007Pinker, S. (2007) The evolutionary social psychology of off-record indirect speech acts. Intercultural Pragmatics, 4(4), 437-461.
  25. 2006Executive Associate Editor, Cognition: International Journal of Cognitive Science, 1985-2006.
  26. 2006Sahin, N., Pinker, & Halgren, E. (2006) Abstract grammatical processing of nouns and verbs in Broca's Area: Evidence from fMRI. Cortex, 42, 540-562.
  27. 2005Berent, I., Pinker, S., & Shimron, J. (2002) The nature of regularity and irregularity: Evidence from Hebrew nominal inflection. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 31(5), 459-502 Pinker, S. & Jackendoff, R. (2005) What’s special about the human language faculty? Cognition, 95, 201-236.
  28. 2005Berent, I., Pinker, S., Tzelgov, J., Bibi, U., & Goldfarb, L. (2005) Computation of semantic number from morphological information. Journal of Memory and Language, 53, 342-358.
  29. 2002Jury, Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Excellence in the Literature of Diversity, 2002- .
  30. 2002Pinker, S. & Ullman, M. (2002) The past and future of the past tense. Trends in Cognitive Science, 6, 456-463.
  31. 1999Berent, I., Pinker, S., & Shimron, J. (1999) Default nominal inflection in Hebrew: Evidence for mental variables. Cognition 72, 1-44.
  32. 1997Ullman, M., Corkin, S., Coppola, M., Hickok, G., Growdon, J. H., Koroshetz, W. J., & Pinker, S. (1997) A neural dissociation within language: Evidence that the mental dictionary is part of declarative memory, and that grammatical rules are processed by the procedural system. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 9, 289-299.
  33. 1995Marcus, G. F., Brinkmann, U., Clahsen, H., Wiese, R., & Pinker, S. (1995) German inflection: The exception that proves the rule. Cognitive Psychology, 29, 189-256.
  34. 1994Cave, K. R., Pinker, S., Giorgi, L., Thomas, C., Heller, L., Wolfe, J. M., & Lin, H. (1994) The representation of location in visual images. Cognitive Psychology, 26, 1-32.
  35. 1994Pinker, S. (1994) How could a child use verb syntax to learn verb semantics? Lingua, 92, 377-410.
  36. 1993Prasada, S. & Pinker, S. (1993) Generalizations of regular and irregular morphology. Language and Cognitive Processes, 8, 1-56.
  37. 1992Marcus, G., Pinker, S., Ullman, M., Hollander, M., Rosen, T. J. & Xu, F. (1992) Overregularization in language acquisition. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 57 (4, Serial No. 228).
  38. 1991Gropen, J., Pinker, S, Hollander, M., & Goldberg, R. (1991) Syntax and semantics in the acquisition of locative verbs. Journal of Child Language, 18, 115-151.
  39. 1991Pinker, S. (1991) Rules of language. Science, 253, 530-535.
  40. 1991Gropen, J., Pinker, S, Hollander, J., & Goldberg, R. (1991) Affectedness and direct objects: The role of lexical semantics in the acquisition of verb argument structure. Cognition, 41, 153-195.
  41. 1990Pinker, S. & Bloom, P. (1990) Natural language and natural selection. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 13, 707-784.
  42. 1990Tarr, M. J. & Pinker, S. (1990) When does human object recognition use a viewer-centered reference frame? Psychological Science, 1, 253-256.
  43. 1989Tarr, M. J. & Pinker, S. (1989) Mental rotation and orientation-dependence in shape recognition. Cognitive Psychology, 21, 233-282.
  44. 1988Pinker, S. & Prince, A. (1988) On language and connectionism: Analysis of a parallel distributed processing model of language acquisition. Cognition, 28, 73-193.
  45. 1985Downing, C. J. & Pinker, S. (1985). The spatial structure of visual attention. In M. Posner and O. Marin (Eds.), Attention and Performance XI: Mechanisms of attention and visual search. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
  46. 1984Pinker, S. (1984). Visual cognition: an introduction. Cognition, 18, 1-63.
  47. 1980Pinker, S. (1980). Mental imagery and the third dimension. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 109, 254-371.
  48. 1979Pinker, S. (1979). Formal models of language learning. Cognition, 7, 217-283.

Positions & affiliations7

  • Harvard University
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
  • Stanford University
  • Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology, Harvard University (2003 - )
  • Asst., Assoc., Peter de Florez Professor, Dept. of Brain & Cognitive Sciences, MIT (1982 - 2003)
  • Asst. Professor, Dept. of Psychology, Stanford University (1981 - 1982)
  • Asst. Professor, Dept. of Psychology, Harvard University (1980 - 1981)

Honours & awards24

  • National Academy of Sciences; Linguistic Society of America; The American Academy of Political and Social Science; American Academy of Arts and Sciences; American Psychological Association; Association for Psychological Science; American Association for the Advancement of Science.
  • McGill University, 1999; Tel Aviv University, 2003; University of Surrey, 2003; University of Newcastle, 2005; Albion College, 2007; University of Tromsø, 2008; Mt. Allison University, 2012; Simon Fraser University, 2014; University of Reading, 2017; University of Bucaramanga, 2021.
  • Humanist of the Year, Humanists International, 2021
  • Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy, 2019
  • Global Leadership Award, Global Canada, 2019
  • Carl Sagan Award for Increasing the Public Appreciation of Science, Council of Scientific Society Presidents, 2018
  • Human Roots Award, Monrepos Archaeological Research Center, Germany, 2018
  • Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism, Harvard Humanist Hub, 2018
  • Carl Sagan Award, Carnegie-Mellon Humanism Initiative, 2016
  • William James Award for Lifetime Achievement, Association for Psychological Science, 2016.
  • Ramon y Cajal Award, International Neuropsychiatric Association, 2013
  • Cundill Recognition of Excellence Prize in History, 2012 (for The Better Angels of Our Nature)
  • George A. Miller Prize, Cognitive Neuroscience Society, 2010.
  • Honorary President, Canadian Psychological Association, 2008.
  • Humanist of the Year, American Humanist Association, 2006.
  • Henry Dale Prize, The Royal Institution of Great Britain, 2004.
  • Finalist, Pulitzer Prize, 2003 (The Blank Slate), 1998 (How the Mind Works)
  • William James Book Prize, American Psychological Association, 2003, 1999, 1995.
  • Public Interest Award, Linguistics Society of America, 1997.
  • School of Science Teaching Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Education, MIT, 2001.
  • Troland Research Award, National Academy of Sciences, April 1993.
  • Graduate Student Council Teaching Award, MIT, 1986.
  • Boyd R. McCandless Young Scientist Award, American Psychological Association, 1986.
  • Distinguished Early Career Contribution, American Psychological Association, 1984.