Homo Prospectus

Roy F. Baumeister received his PhD in experimental social psychology in 1978 from Princeton. He has had a productive career with over 700 scientific publications, including 43 books. Scientific influence is measured by counting how often a researcher's work is cited in other scientific publications, and by that method, Baumeister is one of the most influential psychologists alive today. A 2022 comparison of 8.5 million scientists in the world, across all fields, ranked him #128, thus in the top 1% of the top 1% of all scientists. His book WILLPOWER: REDISCOVERING THE GREATEST HUMAN STRENGTH, co-authored with science journalist John Tierney, was a New York Times and Amazon bestseller. Much of his career has been spent tackling grand philosophical problems with social science data, such as in his books EVIL: INSIDE HUMAN VIOLENCE AND CRUELTY, MEANINGS OF LIFE, THE CULTURAL ANIMAL and THE SCIENCE OF FREE WILL. Over the years, he has held affiliations with diverse universities and institutes, including several in the U.S. (i.e., Harvard; Stanford; Florida State University; Case Western Reserve University; University of Virginia; University of Texas at Austin; University of California, Berkley; University of California, Santa Barbara) and several in other countries (i.e., University of Queensland, Australia; University of Bamberg, Germany; Jacobs University Bremen, Germany; Max-Planck-Institute, Germany; Free University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands; King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia). In 2023, he received the Distinguished Scientist award from the Society for Experimental Social Psychology, and in 2014, he received the William James Fellow award from the Association for Psychological Science. He now lives in the mountains where he likes to take hikes with his small dog and ski in the winter. He also composes music on the piano.