PSYCHOLOGY & RELIGION SERIES
Presented by Dr. Larisa Heiphetz Solomon
Associate Professor of Psychology at Columbia University
What makes someone a good person? Some answers to this question are straightforward - good people are kind, generous, and so on.
But what about curiosity? Striving to learn new things could signal socially valued characteristics - for instance, that someone is open-minded and willing to learn new things - and could therefore be seen as morally virtuous. In particular, people from religious traditions that value questioning - like Judaism - could see curiosity as morally good, especially if it concerns religious topics.
However, our culture also teaches us that "curiosity killed the cat" and that some topics may be better left unexamined. Further, some religious traditions - like Protestantism - emphasize the importance of accepting religious teachings based on faith.
Join us for a conversation about how children and adults respond to the desire to learn - a discussion that may spark, and satisfy, your own curiosity!
Register to receive the Zoom link to join us online. Barring technical issues, this talk will be posted on our Program Recording Archives.
Thank you to our program sponsors for helping bring this talk to our community!
- Rabbi George and Sue Driesen
- Bill and Naomi Halpern
Dr. Larisa Heiphetz Solomon is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Columbia University, where she studies how children and adults think about right and wrong. Her work has received numerous awards, including the 2024 Margaret Gorman Early Career Award from the American Psychological Association Division 36 (Psychology of Religion and Spirituality), the 2019 Early Career Research Contribution Award from the Society for Research in Child Development, and the 2018 Early Career Award from the International Social Cognition Network, among other honors. Her work has received support from the National Science Foundation, the John Templeton Foundation, and other funders. Dr. Solomon received her BA from The Pennsylvania State University in 2008 and her PhD from Harvard University in 2013; she then worked as a post-doctoral fellow at Boston College until joining Columbia in 2016.
Her lab is always eager to connect with families who want to participate in research; if you are interested in learning more, you are invited to fill out this contact form.
We extend a special thank you to Andrew R. Ammerman for sponsoring our Fall 2024 program lineup. He dedicates the semester’s learning in loving memory of Josephine and H. Max Ammerman and Stephen C.