Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker is a Canadian-American cognitive psychologist, linguist, and author whose research examines language and whose books address human nature, violence, and human progress.

Noam Chomsky: Noam Chomsky is an American linguist and political thinker known for theories of grammar and language acquisition. Pinker adopts aspects of Chomsky’s account of innate language while disputing its limits and implications.
Cognitive psychology: Cognitive psychology studies mental processes such as perception, memory, language, reasoning, and decision-making. It is the broad research field in which Pinker studies the mind.
Words and Rules: Words and Rules is Steven Pinker’s 1999 book on how language combines stored words with productive grammatical rules. It develops Pinker’s research on regular and irregular forms in language.
Linguistic relativity: Linguistic relativity is the hypothesis that the language people speak influences how they perceive or think about the world. Pinker challenges strong versions of the claim that language determines thought.
Nature versus nurture: Nature versus nurture is the debate over how inherited biology and experience shape human traits and behavior. Pinker’s arguments helped renew public debate about biological influences on human nature.
Jerome Bruner: Jerome Bruner was an American psychologist whose work shaped cognitive psychology and research on learning and development. Bruner’s influence helped orient Pinker toward mental representations and cognitive explanation.
Generative grammar: Generative grammar describes the rules and mental structures that allow speakers to produce and understand sentences. Pinker’s early language research develops within debates about the mental grammar underlying speech.
The Better Angels of Our Nature: The Better Angels of Our Nature is Steven Pinker’s 2011 book arguing that violence has declined over long periods. Its historical argument made Pinker’s claims about violence and progress widely debated.
Behaviorism: Behaviorism is a psychological approach that explains behavior through observable actions and learning, rather than inferred mental states. Pinker rejects behaviorist accounts that treat language as learned imitation and reinforcement alone.
Human progress: Human progress is the idea that living conditions, capabilities, or welfare improve over time. Pinker argues that long-term data show gains in health, safety, and material well-being.

Linked from 5 pages