Nancy Etcoff (born 1955) is an American psychologist and researcher atHarvard University. Etcoff has maintained a private practice in psychology, and taught classes about the mind, brain, behavior, and aesthetics at Harvard Medical School. Etcoff is best known for her 1999 bookSurvival of the Prettiest: the Science of Beauty arguing for a biological basis for beauty linked to evolutionary psychology.

Etcoff earned her B.A fromBrown University. She initially studied comparative literature before switching her major to psychology.^[1] She received an M.Ed. fromHarvard University and earned her Ph.D. inpsychology atBoston University. After this, she completed herpostdoctoral fellowship in brain andcognitive sciences at theMassachusetts Institute of Technology.

Etcoff is an associate professor ofHarvard Medical School and works as a psychologist at theMassachusetts General Hospital.^[2] Etcoff serves as the director of the Psychiatric Neuroimaging Laboratories Program in Aesthetics and Well-Being, and is on the advisory board of the Peabody Essex Museum.^[3]

Etcoff teaches seminars in neuroaesthetics.^[1] In her 1999 bookSurvival of the Prettiest: the Science of Beauty,^[4] she rejects the notion of beauty as a cultural construct, an invention of the fashion industry, or a backlash against feminism. Instead Etcoff argues that human beauty perception is a biological artefact derived from evolutionary genetic pressure. This book was the basis of a one-hourDiscovery Channel episode.^[5] Etcoff has made many appearances in mainstream US media on the subject of beauty including theNew York Times andGood Morning America.^{[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][5]} Etcoff has given a TED talk "Happiness and Its Surprises",^[20] and appeared on NPR's TED Radio Hour.^[21][22] Etcoff's definitions of human happiness have been reported byHarvard Medical Magazine.^[23]

In 2017, Etcoff was co-author ofZen and the Art of Living Mindfully: The Health-Enhancing Potential of Zen Aesthetics.^[24] She has 15 earlier publications, primarily on facial expressions and facial attractiveness, listed at Medline.^[25]

Etcoff was born in 1955.^[26] Etcoff was married to the cognitive psychologistSteven Pinker from 1980 to 1992.^[27]

• Living people
• Harvard Medical School faculty
• Boston University alumni
• Brown University alumni
• Harvard Graduate School of Education alumni
• American women psychologists
• 21st-century American psychologists
• 1955 births
• American women academics
• 21st-century American women writers
• 20th-century American psychologists
• 20th-century American women scientists
• 21st-century American women scientists

• Articles with short description
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