Section: Staff Profiles
Dominic Johnson
- Name
- Dr Dominic Johnson
- Title
- Reader
- Organisation
- Politics and International Relations, School of Social and Political Science
University of Edinburgh - Address
- 4.27 Chrystal Macmillan Building 15a George Square Edinburgh UK EH8 9LD
- Telephone
- +44 (0)131 650 3937
- dominic.johnson@ed.ac.uk
- URL
- http://www.pol.ed.ac.uk/staff_profiles/johnson_dominic
Website
Office Hours
Wednesday 16:00 - 18:00
Qualifications
- PhD, MA, Political Science (Geneva University)
- DPhil, MSc, Biology (Oxford University)
Biography
Dominic has held fellowships in the Society of Fellows at Princeton University (2004-07), the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University (2003-04), and the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University (2002-03). Dominic is currently a Branco Weiss Society in Science Fellow (2004-09), a program based at ETH Zurich supporting a small number of interdisciplinary researchers around the globe who work on the intersection between science and society.
Research
Drawing on his background in both biology and politics, Dominic aims to improve our understanding of global conflict and cooperation via new scientific knowledge about human nature. Human nature was long the domain of philosophers. Today, however, human nature is also a science. New research from evolutionary biology, psychology, neurobiology, and experimental economics have uncovered systematic human predispositions that allow us to better predict human behaviour, and force us to rethink assumptions lying at the heart of international relations theory. These insights are of no small importance. The key security challenges of the 21st century are as much about psychological biases, ethnic hatred, religious beliefs, and individual tyrants as about anything else. The minds and motivations behind contemporary security threats are ultimately the key to predicting and avoiding them. Dominic’s long-term research agenda is to identify ways to promote cooperation and conflict resolution in international politics by channeling, rather than defying, our evolutionary legacy of psychological biases, cognitive constraints, and propensities for conflict and cooperation. His most recent research revolves around the role of evolutionary dynamics, evolutionary psychology and religion in human cooperation and conflict.
Publications (citation metrics)
Books
- Johnson, DDP & Tierney DR (2006) Failing to Win: Perceptions of Victory and Defeat in International Politics. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
- Johnson, DDP (2004) Overconfidence and War: The Havoc and Glory of Positive Illusions. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Recent Articles (see all publications here)
- McDermott, R, Tingley, D, Cowden, J, Frazzetto, G. & Johnson, DDP (2009) Monoamine oxidase A gene (MAOA) predicts behavioral aggression following provocation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) 106(7): 2118-2123.
- Johnson, DDP & Madin, J (2008) Population models and counter-insurgency strategies. In: Natural Security: A Darwinian Approach to a Dangerous World, edited by R. Sagarin and T. Taylor. University of California Press: Berkeley, CA.
- Johnson, DDP & Tierney, D (2007) In the eye of the beholder: victory and defeat in U.S. military operations, pp. 46-76, In: Understanding Victory and Defeat in Contemporary War, edited by J. Angstrom and I. Duyvesteyn. London: Routledge.
- Johnson, DDP, McDermott, R, Barrett, ES, Cowden, J, Wrangham, R, McIntyre, MH & Rosen, SP (2006) Overconfidence in wargames: experimental evidence on expectations, aggression, gender and testosterone. Proceedings of the Royal Society (B) 273 (1600): 2513-2520.
- Johnson, DDP (2005) God's punishment and public goods: A test of the supernatural punishment hypothesis in 186 world cultures. Human Nature 16 (4): 410-446.
- Johnson, DDP & Tierney, DR (2004) Essence of Victory: winning and losing international crises. Security Studies 13 (2): 350-381.
Current Research and Teaching
International Relations Research Group
New project on the Evolution of Religion
Dominic teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on international security, and has previously taught courses on political psychology, cooperation, and religion.
This page was published on 18 January 2010