Little is known about the Jewish Lebanese Community around the world, and only a handful still remain in the country, so it is always fascinating to explore where some of them ended up, and how their families’ migration shaped the people they are today.
Lebanese-Canadian world-renown evolutionary psychologist Gad Saad was born in 1964 in Beirut, Lebanon, to a Jewish family. His family fled to Montreal, Quebec, Canada in October 1975 during the first year of the Lebanese Civil War. His older brother David Saad was a judoka who competed in the men’s lightweight event at the 1976 Summer Olympics.
He obtained a B.Sc. in Mathematics and Computer Science as well as an M.B.A. from McGill University. He went on to earn a Ph.D. from Cornell University. Saad’s doctoral adviser was none other than the mathematical and cognitive psychologist and behavioral decision theorist Edward Russo.
Saad was hired as a Professor of Marketing at Concordia University in Montreal in 1994, a position he still occupies today. During this time, he has also held visiting professorships at Cornell University, Dartmouth College, and the University of California, Irvine. He is Associate Editor for the journal Evolutionary Psychology, and an Advisory Fellow for the Centre for Inquiry Canada.
The major breakthroughs in his research, as well as his contributions to the area of psychology, have predominantly been in exploring the manner through which hormones affect consumers and the decisions they make.
Examples of this research include how flashy products affect testosterone levels, how testosterone levels affect various forms of risk-taking, and how hormones in the menstrual cycle affect purchasing decisions.
Another interesting line of research he has explored and pioneered has involved the notions and psychology behind gift-giving, including how men and women differ in why and how they give.
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@alpha_iqSaad currently stars in his own YouTube series titled The Saad Truth in which he makes videos criticizing political correctness and tackles controversial issues, such as the ideology of multiculturalism, postmodernism, third-wave feminism, the ideology of Islam, safe-spaces, and even looks into concepts such as trigger warnings. Saad’s life story was documented by the Télévision Française de l’Ontario.