Gad Saad

Saad was born in 1964 in Beirut, Lebanon, to a family of both Lebanese Jewish and Syrian Jewish descent.^[4] His family fled in October 1975 to Montreal, Canada to escape the Lebanese Civil War.^[5] His elder brother, David, is a judoka who competed at the 1976 Summer Olympics.^[6] His nephew Ariel Helwani is a mixed martial arts journalist.^[7]

Saad obtained a bachelor's degree in mathematics and computer science, an MBA in marketing from McGill University, and a master's degree in management and a doctorate in marketing from Cornell.^[8]

Saad is an atheist who describes himself as culturally Jewish.^[9]

Saad has been a professor of marketing at Concordia University since 1994.

From 2008 until 2018, he held the Concordia University Research Chair in Evolutionary Behavioural Sciences and Darwinian Consumption. He has also held visiting professorships at Cornell University, Dartmouth College, University of California, Irvine and Northwood University (currently). He was an associate editor for the journal Evolutionary Psychology from 2012 to 2015.^[10] He is an advisory fellow for the Centre for Inquiry Canada.^[11] Saad wrote a blog for Psychology Today titled Homo Consumericus from 2008 until 2020,^[12] and contributed to The Wall Street Journal in 2011.^[13]

Saad has long publicly argued against political correctness and social justice, which he believes limits academia.^[14] In 2017, he provided testimony to the Canadian Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs arguing against Bill C-16 which added gender expression and gender identity as protected grounds to the Canadian Human Rights Act.^[15] More recently he has argued against "wokeism", especially with regards to transgender people.^[16][17] Saad coined the phrase suicidal empathy, which he defines as a form of empathy that has the potential to cause destruction to the party exhibiting it.^[18][19]

Saad hosts a YouTube show titled The Saad Truth.^[14] His channel has received more than 40 million views.^{[20][better source needed]}

In 2016, Saad appeared on Sam Harris's Making Sense podcast (then titled Waking Up) in an episode titled "The Frontiers of Political Correctness".^{[21][better source needed]} In an interview with Israel Hayom, Gad Saad said Islam "cannot coexist peacefully" in Western countries and predicted that, as a result of Muslim immigration, "Europe will descend into massive violence".^[17]

During fall 2025, Saad became a visiting scholar at the University of Mississippi's Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom.^[22][23]

Saad has researched how hormones affect and are affected by consumer behavior, such as how conspicuous consumption affects testosterone levels,^[24][25] how testosterone levels affect risk-taking,^[26][27][28] and how hormones in the menstrual cycle affect buying decisions.^[29][30] He has also researched how men and women differ in gift giving behaviors.^{[31][32][33][34]}

Gad Saad said he analyzed Islamic canonical texts (Qur'an and Hadith) and said that the "hatred of Jews (9.3%) is higher in them than in Hitler's 'Mein Kampf'".^[35]

Books

• Saad, G. (2007). The Evolutionary Bases of Consumption. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. ISBN 9780805851502. Book review^[36]
• Saad, G. (ed.) (2011). Evolutionary Psychology in the Business Sciences. Springer: Heidelberg, Germany. ISBN 9783540927839. Book review^[37][38]
• Saad, G. (2011). The Consuming Instinct: What Juicy Burgers, Ferraris, Pornography, and Gift Giving Reveal About Human Nature. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. ISBN 9781616144296. Book review^[39]
• Saad, G. (2020). The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing. ISBN 9781621579595.
• Saad, G. (2023). The Saad Truth About Happiness: 8 Secrets for Leading the Good Life. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing. ISBN 9781684515288.