Jordan Peterson is a Canadian clinical
psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology at the
University of Toronto. His main areas of study are the psychology of
religious and ideological belief, and the assessment and improvement of
personality and performance.
From 1993 to 1997,
Peterson lived in Arlington, Massachusetts, while teaching and
conducting research at Harvard University as an assistant and an
associate professor in the psychology department. During his time at
Harvard, he studied aggression arising from drug and alcohol abuse, and
supervised a number of unconventional thesis proposals. Afterwards, he
returned to Canada and took up a post as a professor at the University
of Toronto.
In 1999, Routledge published Peterson's
Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief. The book, which took
Peterson 13 years to complete, describes a comprehensive theory for how
we construct meaning, represented by the mythical process of the
exploratory hero, and provides an interpretation of religious and
mythical models of reality presented in a way that is compatible with
modern scientific understanding of how the brain works. It synthesizes
ideas drawn from narratives in mythology, religion, literature and
philosophy, as well as research from neuropsychology, in "the classic,
old-fashioned tradition of social science."
Peterson's
primary goal was to examine why individuals, not simply groups, engage
in social conflict, and to model the path individuals take that results
in atrocities like the Gulag, the Auschwitz concentration camp and the
Rwandan genocide. Peterson considers himself a pragmatist, and uses
science and neuropsychology to examine and learn from the belief systems
of the past and vice versa, but his theory is primarily
phenomenological. In the book, he explores the origins of evil, and also
posits that an analysis of the world's religious ideas might allow us
to describe our essential morality and eventually develop a universal
system of morality.
Harvey Shepard, writing in the
Religion column of the Montreal Gazette, stated: "To me, the book
reflects its author's profound moral sense and vast erudition in areas
ranging from clinical psychology to scripture and a good deal of
personal soul searching. ... Peterson's vision is both fully informed by
current scientific and pragmatic methods, and in important ways deeply
conservative and traditional."
In 2004, a 13-part TV
series based on his book Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief
aired on TVOntario. He has also appeared on that network on shows such
as Big Ideas, and as a frequent guest and essayist on The Agenda with
Steve Paikin since 2008.
In 2013, Peterson began
recording his lectures ("Personality and Its Transformations", "Maps of
Meaning: The Architecture of Belief") and uploading them to YouTube. His
YouTube channel has gathered more than 600,000 subscribers and his
videos have received more than 35 million views as of January 2018. He
has also appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience, The Gavin McInnes Show,
Steven Crowder's Louder with Crowder, Dave Rubin's The Rubin Report,
Stefan Molyneux's Freedomain Radio, h3h3Productions's H3 Podcast, Sam
Harris's Waking Up podcast, Gad Saad's The Saad Truth series and other
online shows. In December 2016, Peterson started his own podcast, The
Jordan B. Peterson Podcast, which has 37 episodes as of January 10,
2018, including academic guests such as Camille Paglia, Martin Daly, and
James W. Pennebaker, while on his channel he has also interviewed
Stephen Hicks, Richard J. Haier, and Jonathan Haidt among others. In
January 2017, he hired a production team to film his psychology lectures
at the University of Toronto.
Peterson with his
colleagues Robert O. Pihl, Daniel Higgins, and Michaela Schippers
produced a writing therapy program with series of online writing
exercises, titled the Self Authoring Suite. It includes the Past
Authoring Program, a guided autobiography; two Present Authoring
Programs, which allow the participant to analyze their personality
faults and virtues in terms of the Big Five personality model; and the
Future Authoring Program, which guides participants through the process
of planning their desired futures. The latter program was used with
McGill University undergraduates on academic probation to improve their
grades, as well since 2011 at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus
University. The Self Authoring Programs were developed partially from
research by James W. Pennebaker at the University of Texas at Austin and
Gary Latham at the Rotman School of Management of the University of
Toronto. Pennebaker demonstrated that writing about traumatic or
uncertain events and situations improved mental and physical health,
while Latham demonstrated that personal planning exercises help make
people more productive. According to Peterson, more than 10,000 students
have used the program as of January 2017, with drop-out rates
decreasing by 25% and GPAs rising by 20%.
In May 2017
he started new project, titled "The psychological significance of the
Biblical stories", a series of live theatre lectures in which he
analyzes archetypal narratives in Genesis as patterns of behaviour vital
for both personal, social and cultural stability.
His
upcoming book "12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos" will be
released on January 23rd, 2018. It was released in the UK on January
16th. Dr. Peterson is currently on tour throughout North America, Europe
and Australia.
Link
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01FPGY5T0/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_d_asin_title_o00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Twitter @jordanbpeterson
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