Nancy Etcoff (born 1955) is a psychologist and researcher at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

. Etcoff has maintained a private practice in psychology, and taught classes about the mind, brain, behavior, and aesthetics at Harvard Medical School. Etcoff is best known for her 1999 book ''Survival of the Prettiest: the Science of Beauty'' arguing for a biological basis for beauty linked to evolutionary psychology.

Education

Etcoff earned her B.A from

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

. She initially studied comparative literature before switching her major to psychology. She received an M.Ed. from

and earned her Ph.D. in

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...

. After this, she completed her

postdoctoral fellowship A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral research position is to pu ...

in brain and cognitive sciences at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

Work and research

Etcoff is an Associate Professor of

Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is consi ...

and works as a psychologist at the

Massachusetts General Hospital Massachusetts General Hospital (Mass General or MGH) is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School located in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is the third oldest general hospital in the United Stat ...

. Etcoff serves as the director of the Psychiatric Neuroimaging Laboratories Program in Aesthetics and Well-Being, and is on the advisory board of the Peabody Essex Museum.

Psychology of beauty and happiness

Etcoff teaches seminars in neuroaesthetics. In her 1999 book ''Survival of the Prettiest: the Science of Beauty'', she rejects the notion of beauty as a cultural construct, an invention of the fashion industry, or a backlash against feminism. Instead Etcoff argues that human beauty perception is a biological artefact derived from evolutionary genetic pressure. This book was the basis of a one-hour

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel (known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery) is an American cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav. , Discovery Channe ...

episode. Etcoff has made many appearances in mainstream US media on the subject of beauty including the ''New York Times'' and ''Good Morning America.'' Etcoff has given a TED talk "Happiness and Its Surprises", and appeared on NPR's TED Radio Hour. Etcoff's definitions of human happiness have been reported by ''Harvard Medical Magazine.'' On 20 June 2022, she published a paper with Fedor Galkin, Kirill Kochetov, Michelle Killer and Alex Zhavoronkov on using

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

, self-organizing maps (SOMs), to optimise future well-being.

Scientific publications

In 2017, Etcoff was co-author of ''Zen and the Art of Living Mindfully: The Health-Enhancing Potential of Zen Aesthetics.'' She has 15 earlier publications, primarily on facial expressions and facial attractiveness, listed at Medline.

Personal life

Etcoff was born in 1955. Etcoff was married to the cognitive psychologist

Steven Pinker Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychologist, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind. P ...

from 1980 to 1992.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Etcoff, Nancy Living people Harvard Medical School faculty Boston University alumni Brown University alumni Harvard Graduate School of Education alumni American women psychologists American psychologists 1955 births American women academics 21st-century American women