Search for people, departments, or email addresses.

« Back To Search Results

  Elliot Aronson

Elliot Aronson

Professor Emeritus

831-459-5084

 

Social Sciences Division

Psychology Department

Professor Emeritus

Faculty

Emeriti

Social Sciences 2

By appointment

Psychology Faculty Services

Aronson grew up during the great depression, in an impoverished family living in the slums of Revere Massachusetts. Although he was an indifferent high school student, his astronomical SAT scores (a surprise to his teachers and himself) earned him a scholarship to Brandeis University. At Brandeis he became a protégé of the humanistic psychologist, Abraham Maslow, who encouraged him to go to graduate school. After graduating in 1954, he married Vera Aronson. Together they raised four children. In 1959 he received his Ph.D. in psychology from Stanford under the mentorship of Leon Festinger. Before joining the UCSC faculty, he taught at Harvard, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Texas. After retiring in 1994, he taught, occasionally, for several years at Stanford as a Distinguished Visiting Professor, until, in 2001, his encroaching blindness made that impossible. In spite of being blind, he continues to write, having published three books in the past ten years.

In his career, he has written or edited 22 books, has served as president of the Western Psychological Association and President of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. He is the only person in the 120 year history of the American Psychological Association to have won all three of its major academic awards: For Distinguished Research, Distinguished Teaching, and Distinguished Writing. He lives with his wife, Vera, near downtown Santa Cruz.

Social influence, conformity, prejudice reduction, energy conservation, experimental methodology.

Teaching awards from UCSC, University of Texas, APA, CASE.

Research Awards from APA, AAAS, SESP, SPSP.

William James Lifetime Achievement Award from APS.

Guggenheim fellowship.

Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences

  • The Social Animal
  • The jigsaw Classroom
  • Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me)
  • Nobody Left to Hate
  • Handbook of Social Psychology
  • Not By Chance Alone

If you have the proper permissions, you can edit this entry

This campus directory is the property of the University of California at Santa Cruz. To protect the privacy of individuals listed herein, in accordance with the State of California Information Practices Act, this directory may not be used, rented, distributed, or sold for commercial purposes. For more details, please see the university guidelines for assuring privacy of personal information in mailing lists and telephone directories. If you have any questions please contact the ITS Support Center.