Compassionate Instinct

Dacher Keltner is the Thomas and Ruth Ann Hornaday professor of psychology and the director of the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley. He has taught social psychology for the past 18 years and is the recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award for Letters and Sciences. His research focuses on the prosocial emotions (such as love, sympathy, and gratitude), morality, and power. Other awards include the Western Psychological Association’s award for outstanding contribution to research, the Positive Psychology Prize for excellence in research, and the Ed and Carol Diener mid-career award for research excellence in social psychology. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society, and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. In 2008, the Utne Reader listed Dacher as one of the 50 visionaries changing the world. Jason Marsh is an editor of Greater Good magazine. He lives in Berkeley, CA. Jeremy Adam Smith is the senior editor of Greater Good magazine and the author of The Daddy Shift. He lives in San Francisco.

"The short, accessible essays…underscore empathy, forgiveness, gratitude, happiness, trust, and apology…A readable digest of current work in positive psychology for a general audience."