Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: God Is Watching You
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S): Johnson, Dominic D.P.
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://dominicdpjohnson.com/
CITY: Oxford, England
STATE:
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
NATIONALITY:
http://dominicdpjohnson.com/resources/DJohnson_CV.pdf * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominic_D._P._Johnson
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2004010271
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2004010271
HEADING: Johnson, Dominic D. P., 1974-
000 00384nz a2200121n 450
001 6227982
005 20040420181637.0
008 040420n| acannaabn |n aaa
010 __ |a n 2004010271
040 __ |a DLC |b eng |c DLC
100 1_ |a Johnson, Dominic D. P., |d 1974-
670 __ |a Johnson, Dominic D. P. Overconfidence and war, 2004: |b t.p. (Dominic D.P. Johnson) data sheet (b. August 8, 1974)
953 __ |a sf07
PERSONAL
Born August 8, 1974.
EDUCATION:University of Derby, B.Sc., 1996; Oxford University, M.Sc., 1997, D.Phil., 2001; Open University, B.A., 2001; University of Geneva, D.E.A., 2002, Ph.D., 2004.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Harvard University, Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, national security fellow, 2002-03; Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation, science fellow, 2003-04; UCLA Global Fellows Program, International Institute, visiting fellow, 2004-06; Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, lecturer and Cotsen-Wilson fellow, 2004-07; Harvard University, Department of Government, visiting lecturer, 2008; University of Edinburgh, Department of Politics and International Relations, lecturer, 2007-09, reader, 2009-12; Oxford University, Department of Politics and International Relations, professor, 2012-.
AWARDS:ETH Zurich, Society in Science, Branco Weiss fellow, 2004-09. Has received scholarships, including Lord Miles Senior Science Studentship at Pembroke College, Oxford University, 1998-2000; John F. Kennedy Scholarship to Harvard University, 2000-01; and Swiss Federal Scholarship to Geneva University, 2001-02.
Was awarded Chancellor’s “Rising Star” Award, University of Edinburgh, 2011. Honor Book, New Jersey Council for the Humanities, 2005, for Overconfidence and War, and Best Book in International Studies, International Studies Association, 2006, for Failing to Win.
WRITINGS
Has contributed chapters to books, including Dispersal, edited by J. Clobert, M. Baguette, T.G. Benton, and J.M. Bullock, Oxford University Press (Oxford, England), 2001; Understanding Victory and Defeat in Contemporary War, edited by J. Angstrom and I. Duyvesteyn, Routledge (London, England), 2007; Leadership at the Crossroads: Leadership and Psychology, Volume 1, edited by C.L. Hoyt, G.R. Goethals, and D.R. Forsyth, Praeger (New York, NY), 2008; The Evolution of Religion: Studies, Theories, and Critiques, edited by J. Bulbulia, R. Sosis, C. Genet, R. Genet, E. Harris, and K. Wyman, Collins Foundation Press (Santa Margarita, CA), 2008; Foundations of Evolutionary Psychology: Ideas, Issues and Applications, edited by C. Crawford and D. Krebs, Erlbaum (New York, NY), 2008; Natural Security: A Darwinian Approach to a Dangerous World, edited by R.D. Sagarin and T. Taylor, University of California Press (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA), 2008; Games, Groups, and the Global Good, edited by S.A. Levin, Springer (Berlin, Germany), 2009; Evolutionary Psychology in the Business Sciences, edited by G. Saad, Springer (Berlin, Germany), 2011; The Handbook on the Political Economy of War, edited by C.J. Coyne and R.L. Mathers, Edward Elgar (Cheltenham, England), 2011; Religion, Intolerance and Conflict: A Scientific and Conceptual Investigation, edited by S. Clarke, R. Powell and J. Savulescu, Oxford University Press (Oxford, England), 2013; and Evolution, Games and God: The Principle of Cooperation, edited by M.A. Nowak and S. Coakley, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 2013.
Has contributed articles to journals, including Journal of Zoology, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Evolution and Human Behavior, International Security, Trends in Ecology & Evolution, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Cliodynamics: The Journal of Theoretical and Mathematical History, Human Nature, Nature, PLos ONE, Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Current Biology, Current Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, Journal of Cognition and Culture, and Religion, Brain and Behavior.
SIDELIGHTS
Dominic Johnson was born on August 8, 1974. He attended the University of Derby, where he received a B.Sc. with honors in biological imaging in 1996. Johnson then entered Oxford University, from which he earned an M.Sc. in biosciences in 1997 and a D.Phil. in evolutionary biology in 2001. Also in 2001 he obtained a B.A. in statistics and German from the Open University. He then went on to the University of Geneva, where he received a D.E.A. in political science in 2002 and a Ph.D. in political science in 2004.
His career began at Harvard University’s Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, where he was national security fellow from 2002 to 2003. He then took a year’s science fellowship at Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation. He was a visiting fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Global Fellows Program, International Institute, from 2004 to 2006. Also in 2004, he became lecturer and Cotsen-Wilson fellow at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. In 2008 he worked as visiting lecturer at Harvard University in the Department of Government. He had already taken a position at University of Edinburgh (in 2007) in the Department of Politics and International Relations, where he was lecturer until 2009 and then reader until 2012. That year, he became Alistair Buchan Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford, in the Department of Politics and International Relations.
Johnson has contributed chapters to several books on topics such as evolutionary religion and psychology, political economy, and religion, intolerance, and conflict. He has also written articles for a variety of journals, including Evolution and Human Behavior, International Security, Human Nature, Nature, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, and Journal of Cognition and Culture. His current work focuses on evolutionary dynamics, evolutionary psychology, and religion in human conflict and cooperation.
Overconfidence and War
With his background in evolutionary biology and political science, Johnson has taken an interdisciplinary approach to the study of international relations, especially the topics of conflict and cooperation. His first book, Overconfidence and War: The Havoc and Glory of Positive Illusions, examines the human susceptibility to have too much confidence in our capacities and control over events and how that overly optimistic view affects our actions in war. To bolster his arguments, he presents four case studies: World War I, the Munich crisis, the Cuban missile crisis, and the Vietnam War.
Lawrence D. Freedman, writing in Foreign Affairs, called his an “interesting vantage point” from which to consider “familiar episodes in international history.” Thomas A. Karel, critiquing the book for Library Journal, commented that Johnson “cogently examines the psychological, more than the political, reasons behind why nations go to war.” He noted that Overconfidence and War is a “timely and important book” that “should be required reading.” While voicing reservations about the long quotes and “dense charts,” a critic in Publishers Weekly observed that Johnson “is meticulous in backing up his assertions.”
Failing to Win
In his next book, Failing to Win: Perceptions of Victory and Defeat in International Politics, written with Dominic Tierney, Johnson looks at public misunderstandings about the nature of conflicts and how they can lead to misconstruing the outcomes.
A reviewer for Popmatters remarked that the authors “draw on historical, psychological and political research to claim that what we took from that crisis [the Cuban missile crisis] doesn’t fit the actual score of achieved aims and material gains.” According to the critic, the authors “highlight patterns worth noting.” One truism is that for a leader to continue to hold office, he must be seen to have won. “Another is that if Americans think a war is a lost cause, it becomes one.”
God Is Watching You
Johnson’s latest book is God Is Watching You: How the Fear of God Makes Us Human. In this book he studies the human belief in punishment as it affects human cooperation. Johnson posits that whether it is fear of divine punishment or simply fear of retribution (payback), the fear is universal. He investigates the evolutionary underpinnings of this belief throughout history and across cultures.
A reviewer in the Economist explains the premise. Our brains are predisposed to see “agents (spirits, gods and the like) in natural phenomena and random happenings.” A belief in the supernatural is an evolutionary adaptation. Historically, this has helped humans survive in the face of predation. Humans also tend to hold to a belief in justice, that we suffer the effects of what we have done. And in this context, “since cheating is now costlier, belief in an invisible monitor helps people avoid those costs, and so survive with their reputations intact, and pass on their genes.” The critic ends by pointing out that Johnson’s “subject is the mind, not the deity” and that he establishes “how resilient religious thinking has proved to be in the face of science.” Lorraine Courtney, reviewing the book for the Irish Times, calls this an “insightful and provocative book.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Foreign Affairs, March-April, 2005, Lawrence D. Freedman, review of Overconfidence and War: The Havoc and Glory of Positive Illusions, p. 154.
Library Journal, November 1, 2004, Thomas A. Karel, review of Overconfidence and War, p. 109.
Publishers Weekly, July 12, 2004, review of Overconfidence and War, p. 52.
ONLINE
Dominic Johnson Home Page, http://dominicdpjohnson.com (May 1, 2017).
Economist Online, http://www.economist.com/ (January 23, 2016), “In the Hands of an Angry God.”
Irish Times, http://www.irishtimes.com/ (April 15, 2016), Lorraine Courtney, review of God Is Watching You: How the Fear of God Makes Us Human.
Popmatters, http://www.popmatters.com/ (March 21, 2017), “‘Failing to Win:’ In World Politics, When Is a Loss a Win?”
University of Oxford, Department of Politics and International Relations Web site, https://www.politics.ox.ac.uk/ (May 1, 2017), author faculty profile.
Dominic Johnson received a D.Phil. from Oxford University in evolutionary biology, and a Ph.D. from Geneva University in political science. Drawing on both disciplines, he is interested in how new research on evolution, biology and human nature is challenging theories of international relations, conflict, and cooperation. His new book, God is Watching You: How the Fear of God Makes Us Human (Oxford University Press, 2015), examines the role of religion in the evolution of cooperation, and how cross-culturally ubiquitous and ancient beliefs in supernatural punishment have helped to overcome major challenges of human society. He has published two previous books. Overconfidence and War: The Havoc and Glory of Positive Illusions (Harvard University Press, 2004) argues that common psychological biases to maintain overly positive images of our capabilities, our control over events, and the future, play a key role in the causes of war. Failing to Win: Perceptions of Victory and Defeat in International Politics (Harvard University Press, 2006), with Dominic Tierney, examines how and why popular misperceptions commonly create undeserved victories or defeats in international wars and crises. His current work focuses on the role of evolutionary dynamics, evolutionary psychology, and religion in human conflict and cooperation.
My work draws on insights from the life sciences to improve our understanding of the behaviour of
human beings, groups, organizations, and states. New findings in evolution, biology, genetics,
psychology and neuroscience challenge many traditional assumptions about human nature and,
thereby, force us to rethink a wide variety of theories in social science. Testing the novel hypotheses
that are emerging from this work requires interdisciplinary approaches, including translating scientific
theories to applications in social science, laboratory experiments, quantitative analysis, simulations,
modelling, and case studies. My current work focuses on the role of cognitive psychology,
evolutionary dynamics, and religion in human cooperation and conflict behaviour.
Dominic D. P. Johnson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (June 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
Dominic Johnson
Residence Oxford, England
Nationality United Kingdom
Fields Evolution, Politics
Institutions University of Oxford
Alma mater University of Derby (B.Sc.)
University of Oxford (M.Sc., D.Phil.)
Open University (B.A.)
University of Geneva (D.E.A., Ph.D.)
Website
dominicdpjohnson.com
Dominic D. P. Johnson is an Alistair Buchan Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford.[1]
Contents [hide]
1 Education
2 Career
3 Work
4 Awards and recognition
5 Bibliography
5.1 Books
5.2 Selected articles
6 References
7 External links
Education[edit]
He received a D. Phil. in biology from the University of Oxford in 2001 and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Geneva in 2004. Drawing on both disciplines, he researches and writes on the role of human biology and evolution in understanding the behaviour of individuals, groups, organizations, and states.
Career[edit]
Johnson held several post-doctoral fellowships in the United States prior to being hired at Edinburgh. He was a National Security Fellow at the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University 2002-2003, a Science Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University 2003-2004, a visiting Fellow in the Global Fellows Program of the International Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles 2004-2006, and a Fellow in the Society of Fellows at Princeton University, 2004–2007, where he was also a lecturer at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He was also a Society in Science Branco Weiss Fellow from 2004-2009.
Work[edit]
In addition to over forty articles published in academic journals and edited books, he is the author of three books. "Overconfidence and War: The Havoc and Glory of Positive Illusions" (Harvard University Press, 2004),[2] argues that the widespread human tendency to maintain overly positive images of ourselves, of our control over events, and of the future (positive illusions), play a key role in the causes of war. "Failing to Win: Perceptions of Victory and Defeat in International Politics" (Harvard University Press, 2006), with Dominic Tierney, explores how common psychological biases generate powerful misconceptions about the success and failure of political events, altering the lessons that people learn from history. "Failing to Win" won the 2006 Best Book Award from the International Studies Association.
Overconfidence and War: The Havoc and Glory of Positive
Illusions
Lawrence D. Freedman
Foreign Affairs.
84.2 (March-April 2005): p154.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Council on Foreign Relations, Inc.
http://www.foreignaffairs.org
Full Text:
Overconfidence and War: The Havoc and Glory of Positive Illusions
By Dominic D. P. Johnson
: Harvard University Press, 2004, 288 pp., $26.95
If states could know the outcome of wars in advance, they would in many cases, even when they are likely to win, be inclined to find less harmful
ways of pursuing their interests. Accordingly, Johnson argues, they must tend to harbor positive illusions about their prospects. He explores the
various psychological and political sources of overconfidence, reflected in tendencies to overestimate one's own side and underestimate the
enemy, and tests them in four case studies. In two, World War I and Vietnam, such illusions encouraged war, and in another two, Munich and the
Cuban missile crisis, checks on illusions encouraged a settlement. He adds a postscript on Iraq, which certainly provides support for his
underlying thesis, although there was no shortage of questioning of the Bush administration's optimism. The focus on overconfidence provides an
interesting vantage point from which to view some familiar episodes in international history, although Johnson attempts to extract more in terms
of international relations theory from the basic insight than it really warrants. What constitutes an illusion can be very hard to pin down, and, as
Johnson notes, illusions can also cause bold or resolute behavior that leads to a convergence with reality.
Freedman, Lawrence D.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
3/15/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1489587386904 2/4
Freedman, Lawrence D. "Overconfidence and War: The Havoc and Glory of Positive Illusions." Foreign Affairs, Mar.-Apr. 2005, p. 154. General
OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA136560998&it=r&asid=9dedccee9182b566e82591a3708504e0. Accessed 15 Mar.
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A136560998
---
3/15/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1489587386904 3/4
Johnson, Dominic D.P. Overconfidence and War: the Havoc
and Glory of Positive Illusions
Thomas A. Karel
Library Journal.
129.18 (Nov. 1, 2004): p109.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
JOHNSON, DOMINIC D.P. Overconfidence and War: The Havoc and Glory of Positive Illusions. Harvard Univ. Nov, 2004, c.384p. index, ISSN
0-674-01576-2. $26.95. POL SCI Drawing on scholarly articles, interviews, and testimony, and reports from the U.S. Army War College,
Johnson (Princeton Univ. Soc. of Fellows) cogently examines the psychological, more than the political, reasons behind wiry nations go to wan
By citing many examples from history, including World War I and Vietnam, he illustrates how overconfidence and false assumptions have led
countries to military defeats. Conversely, Johnson explores two events that prevented (or delayed) the outbreak of war: the Munich crisis of 1938
and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. In a chapter titled "Looking for Illusions," he presents a theoretical look at the use of positive illusions in
wartime and concludes that such illusions are "most likely to produce war in non-democracies with a closed debate." The final chapter assesses
the current war in Iraq, describing both Iraqi and American overconfidence, how the U.S. war plan undermined the later occupation of Iraq, and
how prewar assumptions led to continuing postwar problems. This timely and important book should be required reading both before and after
the presidential election.--Thomas A. Karel, Franklin & Marshall Coll. Lib., Lancaster, PA
Karel, Thomas A.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Karel, Thomas A. "Johnson, Dominic D.P. Overconfidence and War: the Havoc and Glory of Positive Illusions." Library Journal, 1 Nov. 2004, p.
109. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA125305487&it=r&asid=0ee93098832365ebd374ac48c636f5d2. Accessed 15 Mar.
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A125305487
---
3/15/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1489587386904 4/4
Overconfidence and War: the Havoc and Glory of Positive
Illusions
Publishers Weekly.
251.28 (July 12, 2004): p52.
COPYRIGHT 2004 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
OVERCONFIDENCE AND WAR: the Havoc and Glory of Positive Illusions DOMINIC JOHNSON. Harvard Univ., $26.95 (284p) ISBN 0-674-
01576-2
"Does a human tendency toward overconfidence lead us into wars when a more realistic assessment might keep the peace?" Johnson, a fellow at
Princeton's Society of Fellows, poses that question in this debut, and his answer, stretched out over eight densely written chapters, is (ranch more
often than not): yes. Johnson hones in on different nations' decisions at what he posits as turning points in 20th-century history: WWI and the
Vietnam War, which became shooting wars, and the Munich Crisis of 1938 and the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, which did not. Johnson ties the
trait of overconfidence to humankind's evolutionary past, maintaining that it is "an integral part of the human psyche." He finds the Iraq war, to
which he devotes his last chapter, a consequence of that overconfidence. Johnson is meticulous in backing up his assertions, but (despite the
trade-like subtitle) the book reads like an academic treatise; be prepared for arguments made solely for other experts, long stretches of quotation
and dense charts. (Oct.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Overconfidence and War: the Havoc and Glory of Positive Illusions." Publishers Weekly, 12 July 2004, p. 52. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA119511270&it=r&asid=71618aa172dedeefd005f75146d256a3. Accessed 15 Mar.
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A119511270