Evolutionary Social Psychology

Abstract

My first course in social psychology in 1972 or 1973 was with Elliot Aronson, a premier social psychologist of his era. He mesmerized the class. The first edition of his book The Social Animal had just been published and it was our textbook for the course. My most vivid memory was learning about cognitive dissonance theory and T-groups (then popular Sensitivity Training Groups). Elliot was a big proponent of both. In front of a class of several hundred, he would hold up his book and ask: “Doesn’t it read like a novel?” The class burst into applause. Some women shouted out “We love you Elliot!” He an extraordinarily charismatic lecturer, setting a high bar that was only exceeded in my experience when I heard Phil Zimbardo give a lecture in a class I was a T.A.-ing for his wife, Christina Maslach at Berkeley. During that guest lecture, students broke into applause several times during the lecture, and thunderously at the end. With these introductions to social psychology, nothing seemed more fascinating to me than social interactions and the prospect of uncovering our underlying social psychological machinery.

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