October 7, 1994 Contact: Jennifer McNulty (408/459-2495)

UCSC PSYCHOLOGIST ELLIOT ARONSON RECEIVES DISTINGUISHED CAREER AWARD

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SANTA CRUZ, CA--One of the world's leading social psychologists, Elliot Aronson is dedicated to improving people's lives. His work exploring the science of how people think and behave has contributed greatly to the field of social psychology, and his distinguished career is marked by groundbreaking findings on how to reduce prejudice in public schools, how to use peer pressure to encourage energy conservation, and how to convince teenagers to use condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS.

These contributions are among the reasons Aronson, a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, will receive the Distinguished Career Award from the Society for Experimental Social Psychology. The society, made up of about 400 social psychologists, is the premier organization of social psychologists, and the award represents the recognition of Aronson's closest peers. Aronson will receive the honor on Saturday, October 15, during the group's annual meeting.

Aronson, 62, is well-known for his research as well as his teaching and writing, says colleague and coauthor Anthony Pratkanis, an associate professor of psychology at UCSC who will introduce Aronson.

"Elliot's research examines some of society's biggest problems--prejudice, propaganda, aggression--and it gives us a hopeful vision of humankind by showing us how we can change," says Pratkanis. "Elliot's message is that the social environment matters and that social relationships matter. He has shown us how to reduce aggression and prejudice and the influence of propaganda."

Aronson has had a profound influence on the field of social psychology, in part through his textbook The Social Animal--a classic that has trained a generation of social psychologists. "Elliot has defined the minds and hearts of social psychologists," says Pratkanis. "All textbooks speak to the mind, but The Social Animal speaks to the heart as well as the mind. It tells us what we should know and why we should know it."

Aronson's early contributions include major research in the 1960s on the theory of cognitive dissonance, which first revealed how attitudes are sometimes altered to conform to actions. The theory postulates that if an individual's beliefs are inconsistent with his or her actions, he or she will experience discomfort and will find a way to resolve the conflict. For instance, a fraternity member may rationalize the severity of an initiation ritual he is forced to endure by forming a powerful allegiance to the group--an example of adjusting one's belief to justify an action after the fact. Cognitive dissonance transformed social psychology, displacing reward theory as the dominant explanation of human behavior.

Aronson's career is marked by dozens of intriguing experiments, such as the "Forbidden Toy" experiment of the mid 1960s in which Aronson explained why young children given a severe warning not to play with an attractive toy went ahead and played with it, while other children who had received a much milder warning ignored the toy. Aronson's theory of "insufficient justification" explained that the children given the mild threat concluded that the toy must not be that attractive after all, whereas the children facing the stern warning received the message that the toy is so attractive that it warranted the risk of harsh punishment.

A decade later, Aronson further developed the theory of cognitive dissonance when he recognized that individuals are particularly motivated to resolve conflict if it reflects poorly on one's morality, honesty, or abilities. This finding figures prominently in Aronson's current work, which hinges on the role of hypocrisy in transforming behavior. For example, in his work encouraging teens to use condoms, research subjects play the role of advising others to use condoms to protect themselves from AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. During the experiment, those individuals are asked if they use condoms, and the tension experienced by those who do not is enough to motivate them to take the precaution.

In his revolutionary work on classroom prejudice, known as the "Jigsaw Classroom," Aronson developed a strategy to overcome the racial, gender, and socioeconomic divisions that occur in American classrooms. Social psychologists recognize that such divisions-- even when they're self-imposed--fuel stereotypes and conflict, so Aronson's technique requires students to interact as equals. In one experiment to test his "equal status contact hypothesis," Aronson established integrated teams and asked each team to write a biography of Abraham Lincoln. To build cooperation, each team member was given a different packet of information about Lincoln's life, and each team was instructed that to get an "A," all elements had to appear in the biography. The experiment fostered mutual dependence and encouraged the students to rely on each other.

Aronson's contributions have been recognized throughout his career. Most recently, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1992. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1981. In 1980, he became the first person to have both his teaching and research honored by the American Psychological Association. The American Association for the Advancement of Science recognized his research in 1970, and The Social Animal has been widely lauded, receiving the coveted National Media Award in 1973. It remains among the most popular texts in social psychology.

Aronson received his B.A. from Brandeis University in 1954, his M.A. from Wesleyan University in 1956, and his Ph.D. in psychology from Stanford University in 1959. He began teaching at Harvard University in 1959 and moved in 1962 to the University of Minnesota. He joined the University of Texas in 1965 and came to UCSC in 1974.

(This release is also available on UC NewsWire, the University of California's electronic news service. To access by modem, dial 1- 209-244-6971.)

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