Robert Epstein

Robert Epstein (born June 19, 1953) is an American psychologist, professor, author, and journalist. He earned his Ph.D. in psychology at Harvard University in 1981, was editor in chief of Psychology Today, a visiting scholar at the University of California, San Diego, and the founder and director emeritus of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies in Concord, MA.[1]

Epstein has been a commentator for National Public Radio's Marketplace, the Voice of America, and Disney Online. His popular writings have appeared in Reader's Digest, The Washington Post, The Sunday Times (London), Good Housekeeping, Parenting, and other magazines and newspapers. An autobiographical essay documenting his long involvement with the media was published in 2006 in the academic journal Perspectives on Psychological Science.[2]

In various writings, Epstein has been a strong advocate of the view that people can deliberately learn to love each other. He studied arranged marriages and found that in many of them the partners developed greater feelings of affection for each other than did couples who had married for love.[3] In 2002 he published a study in which he said that many couples marry for other reasons than love, and develop love in their relationships over time.[4] He gave students in one of his classes at University of California, San Diego extra credit for taking part in affection building exercises.[5] At one time he used himself as an experimental subject to investigate this.[6]

Epstein collected data from over 18,000 people via the Internet for a study on sexual orientation published in 2007. He found a continuum between heterosexuality and homosexuality that is skewed by societal influences.[7] He also found that some people changed their orientation during their lives.[1]

Epstein is also a scholar in the field of psychological maturity, and once published an online maturity test. He is a strident critic of what he sees as the "artificial extension of childhood" over the past century, arguing that what society sees as the "teen brain" is often the result of Western cultural factors and infantilization, rather than a set of brain characteristics that are inherent in all humans throughout their teen years. In certain essays, he has cited studies which found that some teenagers are in some ways more developmentally mature than most adults, and advocates giving young people more adult responsibility, as well as placing them in environments in which they will not be prone to socializing simply with other teenagers.[8][9]

In 2012, Epstein publicly disputed with Google Search over a security warning placed on links to his website.[10] His website, which features mental health screening tests, was blocked for serving malware that could infect visitors to the site. Epstein emailed "Larry Page, Google's chief executive; David Drummond, Google’s legal counsel; Dr. Epstein's congressman; and journalists from The New York Times, The Washington Post, Wired, and Newsweek."[10] In it, Epstein threatened legal action if the warning concerning his website was not removed, and denied that any problems with his website existed.[10] Several weeks later, Epstein admitted his website had been hacked, but still blamed Google for tarnishing his name and not helping him find the infection.[11]

Books

Notes

  1. 1 2 "Do Gays Have a Choice?", Scientific American, March 2006
  2. ↑ "Giving psychology away: A personal journey." Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2006, 1(4), 389-400
  3. ↑ A psychologist's guide to love — planning on it, The China Post, 2009-12-31
  4. ↑ Psychology A2: the complete companion, Mike Cardwell, Cara Flanagan, Nelson Thornes, 2003, page 21
  5. ↑ You can make yourself fall in love, theory says, Washington Post, 2010-1-3
  6. ↑ "Editor as guinea pig: Putting love to a real test". Psychology Today, May/June 2002, p5
  7. ↑ Wayne Weiten, 2010, Psychology: Themes and Variations, Cengage Learning, p312
  8. ↑ Colour Me Adult, Trinidad Express, 2011-11-25
  9. ↑ Psychologist says teens won’t grow up unless treated as adults, The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle, 2007-6-15
  10. 1 2 3 Perlroth, Nicole. One Man's Fight With Google Over a Security Warning January 5, 2012.
  11. ↑ Epstein, Robert. Comment on "Readers and Experts Weigh In on a Site Owner vs. Google" January 6, 2012 for article; January 24, 2012 for Epstein's comment.

External links

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