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Kathryn Paige Harden

@kph3k.bsky.social
5.2K followers 720 following 107 posts

Psychology & behavior genetics. Author of THE GENETIC LOTTERY (2021) and ORIGINAL SIN (2026). Speaking as an individual.

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Kathryn Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
UT Clinical Psych is hiring at the Assistant Professor level. Area of specialization is open! Please RT and send to your most talented junior colleagues: apply.interfolio.com/194045
apply.interfolio.com
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
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Kathryn Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Another good summary of our research showing that cash gifts to families facing poverty slowed their 4-year-old children's biological aging. (led by @laraffington.bsky.social) paper in Nature Human Behavior here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Kathryn Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
"Instead of needing a village to raise a child, PGT-P’s commercial logic suggests it takes only sufficient capital and the right consumer decisions to conceive a child who will not need the solidarity of the village to be healthy." www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Embryo screening and the new reproductive divide - Nature Human Behaviour
Nature Human Behaviour - Embryo screening and the new reproductive divide
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SecularAZ @secularaz.org · 17/09/2026
Join us tomorrow, 9/18, at 12p/PT for a conversation with @kph3k.bsky.social about her new book "Original Sin: On the Genetics of Vice, the Problem of Blame, and the Future of Forgiveness." Details and registration link here: secularaz.org/single-event...
secularaz.org
Original Sin: Kathryn Paige Harden - Secular AZ
Join us on September 18 at noon as we welcome Kathryn Paige Harden, PhD, to discuss her new book Original Sin: On the Genetics of Vice, the Problem of Blame, and the Future of Forgiveness.Click here t...
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Kathryn Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
A nice summary of our Nature Human Behaviour study showing that randomized cash transfers to low-income moms slow children's epigenetic aging: dailyneuron.com/cash-transfe...
dailyneuron.com
Four Years of Cash Slowed Biological Aging in Children Born Into Poverty - Daily Neuron
A $333 monthly check didn't change poor children's test scores, yet it slowed how fast their cells were aging.
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Laurel Raffington @laraffington.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Cash transfers to US mothers with low income caused small but measurable changes in children's biological aging by age four 🧬 Our new study in @nathumbehav.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41... press release > www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/press-releas...
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Kathryn Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
💫 New work! We find that randomized cash gifts to low-income moms slow children's epigenetic pace of biological aging at age 4. Led by @laraffington.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Effects of a randomized controlled trial of unconditional cash transfers on epigenetic measures of ageing and cognition in children and mothers - Nature Human Behaviour
Raffington et al. find that providing low-income mothers with cash gifts for the first four years of their children’s lives appears to change the children’s epigenetic biological ageing in ways associ...
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Michel Nivard @michelnivard.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
🚨& 🧵 Our new Nature paper is out! Across 46 cohorts and up to 1.14M people per Big Five trait, we do GWAS and ask how robust, generalizable and consequential the genetic signals underlying personality really are. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
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Association for Psychological Science @psychscience.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Save the date! Submissions will open on October 15 for the 2027 APS Annual Convention 🗓️ Check out the 2027 plenaries on social media and well-being, multi-source data in psychological science, and how the field has met its own methodological challenges: www.psychologicalscience.org/conventions/...
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Kathryn Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
thanks @nature.com for selecting ORIGINAL SIN as one of the five best science books of the summer www.nature.com/articles/d41...
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Los Angeles Review of Books @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
"Why would he so disparage a book, I wondered, that so deserves to be read?" Mike Fortun responds to Jonathan Basile's review of Kathryn Paige Harden’s "Original Sin": lareviewofbooks.org/article/kathryn…
the cover of Original Sin
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Los Angeles Review of Books @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
"Basile’s essentializing of 'what' Harden is strikes me as wrong in more ways than one." Mike Fortun responds to Jonathan Basile's review of Kathryn Paige Harden’s "Original Sin": lareviewofbooks.org/article/kathryn…
the cover of Original Sin
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Mike Fortun @chromatinfuel.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Good science writing from thoughtful scientists is a valuable cultural good, especially in a shit time like the present for science and scientists; we can learn a lot from them if we aren’t so set on demonizing them with a fantasy/theory that geneticists can only be essentialist eugenicists. 4/fin
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Kathryn Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Wow--anthropologist @chromatinfuel.bsky.social reviews ORIGINAL SIN at length, praising its "rich, unorthodox, and literate philosophy of science" -- and calling out a previous negative review for being "performative" & "misleading"
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Kathryn Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
“Commercialized PGT risks not only flattening human variation but swelling the moral burdens of parenthood and further eroding social solidarity.” New essay on embryo selection for @bostonglobe.com : www.bostonglobe.com/2026/06/29/o...
bostonglobe.com
We’re entering the age of the ‘superbaby.’ The risks are profound. - The Boston Globe
What happens when tech startups start selling parents information on their embryos’ DNA.
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Kathryn Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
Texas students are now required to read Bible passages--and also Margaret Thatcher's eulogy for Ronald Reagan and Ayn Rand on capitalism: www.houstonchronicle.com/projects/202...
houstonchronicle.com
See the Bible verses and books Texas students will now be required to read
The State Board of Education on Friday approved a first-of-its-kind reading list, which lays out dozens of books, Bible verses and stories that every public school student in Texas will have to read.
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Marc Jolicoeur @marcjolicoeur.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
“Biology, and particularly genetics, is often used as an antidote for blame. Here is the old Pelagian wine in new genomic bottles... If something is a ‘natural event’ then perhaps it is not a contradiction of the moral demand?” @kph3k.bsky.social from Original Sin
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Maria Vaalavuo @mariavaalavuo.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
When a dear colleague @hdobewall.bsky.social attends a conference and gets you a book by @kph3k.bsky.social. 🤩 Sad to have missed the @invest-flagship.bsky.social conference and the excellent keynotes, but I have great summer reading. 😎
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Kathryn Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
OMG OMG OMG Congratulations @dingdingpeng.the100.ci !
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David DeSteno @daviddesteno.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
What can behavioral genetics tell us about the propensity for vice & violence? How do echos of religious views of sin shape our modern understanding & its implications? We're Rethinking Sin... Again on How God Works with Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social youtu.be/WB3s7J0rgUU?... @prx.org
youtu.be
Rethinking Sin... Again | How God Works
YouTube video by How God Works Podcast
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David DeSteno @daviddesteno.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
On our new episode, I talk with Paige Harden (@kph3k.bsky.social) about the behavioral genetics of sin, the virtues (if any) of punishment, and how ancient religious ideas around vice & virtue continue to shape our science, policy, and discourse. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/h...
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Shawn Adamsson @adamsson.ca · 11/05/2026
Book 72. Another super-accessible and thought-provoking read from @kph3k.bsky.social. Using personal, anecdotes, historical accounts, and stories “ripped from the headlines” to have us reexamine snap judgements, shift perspectives, and sit with uncomfortable realities. #amreading #booksky 📚
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Silvia Paracchini @silparacchini.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
I am enjoying @kph3k.bsky.social 's book beyond expectations, which really makes you stop and think. The most unexpected consequence, though, is that next on my reading list is Sant'Agostino Confessions; something I always rated as a "mattone" (= brick 🧱 in Italian to indicate a boring book)
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Kathryn Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
The @nytimes.com Book Review praises ORIGINAL SIN as "a daring, complex, sometimes confounding and ultimately powerful tapestry of a book." I'm absolutely thrilled by this review, which captures "the dialectical work" at the heart of my project.
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Kathryn Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
ORIGINAL SIN reviewed in Science (@science.org)! "... an ambitious, compact, and often moving contribution to the literature at the intersection of genetics and ethics."
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Kathryn Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
I woke up to a fantastic review of ORIGINAL SIN in @thetimes.com: "This is a serious and knotty book ... but it can be beautiful. ... Ultimately, this is a well-informed attack on an American style of justice that relies on notions of sin and punishment. ... a darkly glittering book."
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Shawn Adamsson @adamsson.ca · 26/04/2026
Starting @kph3k.bsky.social’s latest and am loving that we’re in an age where serious thinkers talk openly about their experiences with psychedelics and the insights they gleaned from them.
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Kathryn Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social · 18/04/2026
“ERFZONDE” now out in Dutch translation! I’m particularly excited about this edition because of the outsized role that Dutch scientists have played & still play in the genomics revolution. To all my Netherlands BG colleagues, this is a love letter to your work www.debezigebij.nl/boek/erfzonde/
debezigebij.nl
Erfzonde - Kathryn Paige Harden - De Bezige Bij
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Kathryn Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
'Behavioural genetics makes people uncomfortable because it gets at the fundamental tension of being human, “which is that we are both caused creatures and experience ourselves to be subjective agents” '. New interview in @theobserveruk.bsky.social observer.co.uk/culture/inte...
observer.co.uk
The woman who thinks violence is in our genes | The Observer
A tendency to aggression and antisocial behaviour is encoded in certain people’s DNA, argues Kathryn Paige Harden – and it could have profound implications for crime and punishment
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Kathryn Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
I talked with @nautil.us about LSD, MAHA, eugenics, essentialism, Christ on the cross, and all the things I don't know: nautil.us/the-bad-seed...
nautil.us
The Bad Seed and the Problem of Blame
The Bad Seed and the Problem of Blame: A conversation with behavioral geneticist Kathryn Paige Harden about the heritability of vice
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Kathryn Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
I woke up to a fantastic review of ORIGINAL SIN in @thetimes.com: "This is a serious and knotty book ... but it can be beautiful. ... Ultimately, this is a well-informed attack on an American style of justice that relies on notions of sin and punishment. ... a darkly glittering book."
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Jennifer Doleac @jenniferdoleac.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
My dear friend Paige Harden and I both have new books out, and both are about crime & punishment — but from different (though still evidence-based) perspectives.
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Big Biology | A Science Podcast @bigbiology.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
Episode 147 "The Genetics of Vice" is out ✨ In this episode, we talk with Kathryn Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social, a Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, where she leads the Developmental Behavior Genetics lab and teaches Introduction to Psychology.
bigbiology.substack.com
The Genetics of Vice (Ep 147)
What role do genes play in complex human behaviors?
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Kathryn Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
ORiGINAL SIN reviewed in @theguardian.com: “Harden is exceptionally skilled at interweaving the personal and the scientific. She writes about her own life experiences … with rare, dangerous honesty” www.theguardian.com/books/2026/a...
theguardian.com
Original Sin by Kathryn Paige Harden review – are criminals born or made?
A psychologist delves into the genetics of bad behaviour in a book littered with fascinating scientific findings
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Kathryn Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social · 28/03/2026
"...Much of Harden’s prose is dazzling on the sentence level, in the vein of neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi’s posthumously published 'When Breath Becomes Air.'" A wonderful review of ORIGINAL SIN in @undark.org: undark.org/2026/03/27/b...
undark.org
Book Review: How Genetics Shapes Our Ideas About Vice and Blame
Kathryn Paige Harden's "Original Sin" explores the genetic roots of sin and guilt, and our attitudes toward punishment.
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Andrea Howard @drandreahoward.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Original Sin by @kph3k.bsky.social , an evidence-based yet personal account from a scientist’s perspective. Daisy liked it too because of the bit about her family dog 🐕
A German shepherd dog, a very good girl, holding a copy of Original Sin while resting on the side.
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Kathryn Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
The @nytimes.com Book Review praises ORIGINAL SIN as "a daring, complex, sometimes confounding and ultimately powerful tapestry of a book." I'm absolutely thrilled by this review, which captures "the dialectical work" at the heart of my project.
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Kathryn Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
ORIGINAL SIN reviewed in Science (@science.org)! "... an ambitious, compact, and often moving contribution to the literature at the intersection of genetics and ethics."
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Kathryn Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
Tonight (3/19)! Free and in-person at Harvard Book Store. Come talk about the science of sin & punishment with me and Rebecca Saxe (MIT). (It’s such a novel topic my phone tried to auto-correct “sin” to “sun” at least 5 times while writing this message.)
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Kathryn Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
I had the opportunity to talk about my new book, Original Sin, with Dax Shepard and Monica Padman for their Armchair Expert podcast. They were dream conversation partners who engaged with the science, the philosophy, and the lived experience of addiction. Full conversation here: youtu.be/FUgexgsSBuU
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Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · 18/03/2026
Just finished @kph3k.bsky.social’s “Original Sin” about genetic (and environmental) influences on behaviors that we morally condemn, and their implications for how we think about blame and justice. Greatly enjoyed reading this one!>
Book cover of Kathryn Paige Harden’s “Original Sin: On the Generics of vice, the problem of blame, and the future of forgiveness”
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Kathryn Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
next week! I will be in conversation with Rebecca Saxe from MIT about ideas from my new book, ORIGINAL SIN. In-person and free at Harvard Book Store.
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Kathryn Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
It's publication day for ORIGINAL SIN! On Substack, I wrote about my pub day jitters, and what my 3-year-old has to teach me about making art: kathrynpaigeharden.substack.com/p/i-have-alr...
kathrynpaigeharden.substack.com
"I Have Already Settled It for Myself"
Publication day notes on what we can learn from a preschooler about making art
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martinlabusf.bsky.social @martinlabusf.bsky.social · 01/03/2026
Prepping for our next interview on @bigbiology.bsky.social…great read on a great Florida day, @kph3k.bsky.social !
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Kathryn Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
ORIGINAL SIN comes out on Tuesday! If you’re in the US & want a signed copy, order from Black Pearl Books in the next week. Just be sure to note that you want it signed (& any instructions about the inscription) in the order notes at checkout. shop.blackpearlbookstore.com/item/ymASTSS...
shop.blackpearlbookstore.com
Original Sin by Kathryn Paige Harden | Black Pearl Books
A daring and intimate exploration of how genetics complicates our ideas about blame, punishment, and moral responsibility, from acclaimed psychologist and author of The Genetic Lottery Kathryn Paige H...
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AGBT @agbt.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
GENETICS: @kph3k.bsky.social from @universityoftexas.bsky.social highlighted a major gap in psychiatric genetics: conduct disorder is common, serious, and moderately heritable, yet has been dramatically understudied. #AGBTGM26
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Kathryn Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
I had fun talking with the "Love Factually" boys about Fatal Attraction, the 1987 movie in which every main character commits some act of violence. Whose violence is the audience rooting for? Whose violence did they want to see punished? And what can that teach us? podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/f...
podcasts.apple.com
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Kathryn Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
Boston-area folks: I will be presenting on ORIGINAL SIN at Harvard Book Store on March 19. Come say hi & ask me questions! www.harvard.com/event/kathry...
harvard.com
Kathryn Paige Harden at Harvard Book Store | Harvard Book Store
presenting Original Sin: On the Genetics of Vice, the Problem of Blame, and the Future of Forgiveness
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Camille Michèle Williams @cognitivecamz.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
4/ With such a large and diverse sample, we identified many genes associated with externalizing: Across 1,294 genomic loci and 647 fine-mapped SNPs, we pinpointed 961 effector genes, including known biology (e.g., CADM2, BDNF) and novel discoveries (e.g., SLC17A6, NRN1)!
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Camille Michèle Williams @cognitivecamz.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
Our multi-ancestry GWAS of EXTernalizing conditions (ADHD, substance use...) in ~4M people reveals neurodevelopmental risk, drug-repurposing targets, and yields one of the strongest psychiatric polygenic indices yet! 🧬🎉 doi.org/10.64898/202...
doi.org
Genomic insights into substance use and disinhibitory disorders
Externalizing spectrum disorders- spanning attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, conduct disorder, substance use disorders, and other disorders characterized by disinhibition - frequently co-occur...
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