Paul Bloom (psychologist)

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Paul Bloom
Paul Bloom no Fronteiras do Pensamento Florianopolis 2014 (15062511061).jpg
Bloom in 2014
Born (1963-12-24) December 24, 1963 (age 61)
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
CitizenshipCanada, US
Alma mater McGill University (BA)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (PhD)
Occupation(s)Professor of Psychology, University of Toronto
Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Cognitive Science, Yale University
AwardsStanton Prize
Lex Hixon Prize
Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize
Scientific career
Fields Psychology
Institutions University of Toronto
Yale University
University of Arizona
Thesis Semantic structure and language development  (1990)
Doctoral advisor Susan Carey
Website campuspress.yale.edu/paulbloom

Paul Bloom (born December 24, 1963) [1] is a Canadian-American psychologist. He is the Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor Emeritus of psychology and cognitive science at Yale University and Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto. His research explores how children and adults understand the physical and social world, with special focus on language, morality, religion, fiction, and art.

Contents

Early life, family and education

Bloom was born into a Jewish family in Montreal, Quebec. [2]

He attended McGill University and earned his Bachelor of Arts in psychology (with honors first class) in 1985. He attended graduate school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned a PhD in cognitive psychology in 1990, under the supervision of Susan Carey.

Career

From 1990 to 1999, he taught psychology and cognitive science at the University of Arizona. Since 1999, he has been a professor of psychology and cognitive science at Yale University.

Since 2003, Bloom has served as co-editor in chief of the scholarly journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences .

He joined the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto in 2021.

Bloom has held the Harris Visiting Professorship at the Harris Center for Developmental Studies at the University of Chicago (2002); the Nijmegen Lectureship at the Max Planck Institute at the University of Nijmegen (2006); the Templeton Lectureship at Johns Hopkins University (2007-8); and the Visiting Distinguished SAGE Fellowship at the UCSB SAGE Center for the Study of Mind (2010).

He has had regular appearances on National Public Radio and Bloggingheads.tv.

Author

Bloom is the author of seven books and editor or co-editor of three others. His research has appeared in Nature and Science , and his popular writing has appeared in The New York Times , The Guardian , The American Scientist , Slate and The Atlantic .

Bloom's views are based in rationalism. A self-declared atheist, his writings often challenge and attempt to dispel notions of the existence of deities and the afterlife. [3] His article in The Atlantic, "Is God an Accident?" [2] was included in The Best American Science Writing 2006. Bloom concludes that "the universal themes of religion are not learned." Taking cues from Charles Darwin, Bloom posits that humanity's spiritual tendencies emerged within the evolutionary process, most likely as "accidental by-products" of other traits. [3]

Honors and awards

In 2002, the Society for Philosophy and Psychology awarded Bloom the Stanton Prize for outstanding early-career contributions to interdisciplinary research in philosophy and psychology, [4] and in 2005–06, he served as the society's president. In 2006, he was made a fellow of the American Psychological Society in recognition of his "sustained outstanding contributions to the science of psychology".

In 2004, he received the Lex Hixon Prize for teaching excellence in the social sciences at Yale. In 2007, his Introduction to Psychology class was selected as an outstanding Yale course to be made available worldwide through the Open Yale Courses initiative.

In 2017, he received the $1 million 2017 Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize for his investigations into how children develop a sense of morality.

Personal life

As a rationalist and a self-declared atheist, he rejects all notions of spirits, deities, and the afterlife. [3]

Works

Books

References

  1. ↑ Bloom, Paul (2022). "Paul Bloom Curriculum Vitae" (PDF). Paul Bloom. Retrieved 2025-09-30– via paulbloom.net.
  2. 1 2 "Is God an Accident?". The Atlantic . December 2005. Retrieved 17 May 2013.
  3. 1 2 3 Rothenberg Gritz, Jennie (22 November 2005). "Wired for Creationism?". The Atlantic .
  4. ↑ "Society for Philosophy and Psychology (SPP)". socphilpsych.org. Archived from the original on 2020-07-16. Retrieved 2021-03-08.
  5. ↑ 2005, ISBN   978-0465007868
  6. ↑ Paperback reprint 2011, ISBN   978-0393340006
  7. ↑ Bloom, Paul (2010). "Why we like what we like". Observer. 23 (8). Association for Psychological Science.
  8. ↑ Paperback 2014, ISBN   978-0307886859
  9. ↑ Hardcover 2016, ISBN   978-0062339331
  10. ↑ Hardcover 2021, ISBN   978-0062910561
  11. ↑ Greenawalt, Marc (2022-12-02). "Spring 2023 Announcements: Science". Publishers Weekly . Retrieved 2022-12-14.
  12. ↑ Bloom, Paul (March 2010). "How do morals change?". Nature. 464 (7288): 490. Bibcode:2010Natur.464..490B. doi: 10.1038/464490a . PMID   20336117.
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