Elliot Aronson

Elliot Aronson is an eminent American psychologist, best known for his Jigsaw Classroom experiments, cognitive dissonance research, and bestselling Social Psychology textbooks. He is the only person in the 120-year history of the American Psychological Association to have won all three of its major awards: For distinguished research, distinguished teaching, and distinguished writing.

Education
He earned his Bachelor's degree from Brandeis University in 1954 (where he worked with Abraham Maslow), his Master's degree from Wesleyan University in 1956 (where he worked with David McClelland), and his Doctor of Philosophy degree from Stanford University in 1959. His doctoral advisor and mentor was Leon Festinger.

Professional history
He has taught at Harvard University, the University of Minnesota, the University of Texas, and the University of California, Santa Cruz. Dr. Aronson is the recipient of many honors. He was chosen by his peers as one of the 100 most influential psychologists of the twentieth century, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he won the prestigious William James award from the Association for Psychological Science for his lifetime achievements, and he is the only psychologist to have won all three of the American Psychological Association's top awards — for writing, teaching, and research.

Research topics
One of Aronson's key areas of interest and research has been the theory of cognitive dissonance. Aronson is credited with refining the theory, which posits that when attitudes and behaviors are inconsistent with one another that psychological discomfort results. This discomfort motivates the person experiencing it to either change their behavior or attitude so that consonance is restored. He conducted a controlled experiment showing that people who underwent a tougher initiation have more favorable evalutation of the group they have joined.

Aronson is also famous for the Jigsaw Classroom experiment conducted in 1971. The experiment was aimed at identifying methods of reducing prejudice in the newly desegregated Austin school system. Classrooms using traditional individual competitive learning techniques were compared to those requiring cooperative learning in race-integrated groups. The cooperative learning groups were referred to as Jigsaw Groups and required that students rely on one another to succeed on exams. The results showed that compared to traditional classrooms, Jigsaw classroom students had lower levels of prejudicial attitudes and negative stereotyping. Group participants demonstrated higher self-confidence, lower absenteeism, and higher academic achievement than students in the competitive classrooms.

Aronson has authored some twenty-three books including the influential textbook The Social Animal (ISBN 0-7167-5715-X), (currently in its tenth edition), "Nobody Left to Hate," and "Age of Propaganda." Most recently, he wrote a popular trade book (with Carol Tavris), Mistakes were made (but not by ME): Why we justify foolish beliefs, bad decisions, and hurtful acts (ISBN 978-0-15-101098-1). He also co-edited the 2nd and 3rd editions of the monumental "Handbook of Social Psychology" (with Gardner Lindzey).