Gregory Berns
American Neuroeconomist, neuroscientist, psychiatrist, psychologist and writer
Gregory Scott Berns (born June 1964) is an American neuroeconomist, neuroscientist, professor of psychiatry, and psychologist. He lives with his family in Atlanta, Georgia, US.
Berns holds the Distinguished Chair of Neuroeconomics in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta where he is a professor of both psychiatry and economics. He is the director of the Center for Neuropolicy; the author of the books Satisfaction: The Science of Finding True Fulfillment, Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently, How Dogs Love Us: A Neuroscientist and His Adopted Dog Decode the Canine Brain; and has made numerous media appearances.
Life and career
Education
Berns graduated with an A.B. in physics from Princeton University in 1986 after completing a senior thesis titled "The measurement of force distributions in the foot during running." In 1990 he went on to study for a Ph.D. in Biomechanical engineering, and then for an M.D. Medicine in 1994, both at the University of California.
After graduating, Berns was a Research Assistant / Postdoctoral Fellow at Salk Institute for Biological Studies from 1990 to 1994; had a General Psychiatry and Medicine Internship at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic from 1994 to 1995, followed by an Adult Psychiatry Residency there from 1995 to 1998.
Authorship
To date, Berns has written three books. In his first book Satisfaction: the science of finding true fulfillment, published in 2005, Berns challenges the theory that people are driven to pursue pleasure and avoid pain (see pleasure principle, for example). He argues instead that true satisfaction comes from novel experiences which are undergone in the process of achieving an aim, rather than the achievement itself, and this involves an active striving rather than a "passive feeling of happiness."
Berns' second book Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently continues the theme developed in Satisfaction and the exploration of the neurological bases of human creativity. It describes and investigates iconoclasts: innovative and creative people who break with the established, traditional way of thinking or of doing things; 'break' cultural icons, and manage to do what others say cannot be done. The work profiles a number of famous 'free-thinkers' such as Warren Buffett; Dale Chihuly; the Dixie Chicks; Richard Feynman; Henry Ford; Steve Jobs; Martin Luther King Jr.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5606814. VIAF identifies the subject as 143826680. The Library of Congress control number is n2005005537. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1964, 1986, 1990 and 1994.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gregory Berns” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.