Michael Norton, Ph.D.

Michael Norton is the Harold M. Brierley Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He received his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Princeton University.

Dr. Norton’s research on topics ranging from the hazards of humble-bragging to the rewards of match-making and volunteering has been published in academic journals like Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and the American Economic Review, and in popular media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, and the New York Times. His TEDx talk, “How to Buy Happiness,” has been viewed over 4 million times.

His “kindness hack,” promoting altruism in the workplace, was featured in New York Times Magazine’s “32 Innovations That Will Change Your Tomorrow” in 2012, and in the same year, Wired Magazine named him one of “50 People Who Will Change the World.” In 2013, he co-authored Happy Money with Elizabeth Dunn, which was named by the Washington Post as a “Book Every Leader Should Read.” His podcast Talking Green, created in collaboration with T Brand Studios at the New York Times, which made the iTunes Top 200 (just ahead of Marc Maron and Rachel Maddow).

Dr Norton’s first solo-authored book, The Ritual Effect, drawing on the author’s original research in behavioral science and economics to offer fresh insights into the power of seemingly odd and irrational behaviors, is forthcoming from Scribner in 2023.