Join HxCanada for their next virtual symposia session featuring Anne Wilson discussing The Coddling of the American Mind.

The Coddling of the American Mind (Lukianoff & Haidt, 2015; 2018) has become a touchstone in debates about young adult mental health, higher education, and campus political culture. However, despite the wide circulation of its core claims, many have not been empirically tested. A decade after the original essay, we provide a systematic assessment of the proposed “Three Great Untruths”: fragility, emotional reasoning, and a dichotomous good-versus-evil worldview. We develop and validate a measure of these lay beliefs in Canadian and U.S. samples. We also test a range of antecedents (e.g., parenting styles, social media engagement) and outcomes (e.g., mental health, political intolerance, and support for trigger warnings and censorship) proposed by the authors.

Our findings reveal a mixed picture: some patterns are consistent with Lukianoff and Haidt’s claims, while other findings challenge or complicate their narrative. Taken together, this work aims to move the conversation from influential cultural diagnosis toward systematic empirical evaluation.

Anne E Wilson is a professor of Social Psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University, and a member of HxA and the Society for Open Inquiry in the Behavioral Sciences. Her research has focused on personal and social identity over time, motivated reasoning, political polarization, censorship and dissent.

When: Friday, June 12 at 9:00 AM PST (12:00 PM EST)

Where: Online via Zoom.