Elliot Aronson quotes

Elliot Aronson is a renowned psychologist known for his groundbreaking work in social psychology. With over 50 years of experience, Aronson has published numerous books and articles on topics such as cognitive dissonance, social influence, and self-justification. He has received prestigious awards for his contributions to the field, including the American Psychological Association's Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award. As a leading expert in his field, Aronson's research continues to shape our understanding of human behavior. Explore his work and insights to gain a deeper understanding of social psychology.

Most people enjoy stability and change in their lives, perhaps in different proportion at different ages; many people will change their minds in response to new situations and experiences, as was the case in the acceptance of gay marriage; and until relatively recently in American society, the majority of members of both political parties were willing to compromise and seek common ground in passing legislation. Still, such differences in basic orientation help explain the frustrating fact that liberals and conservatives so rarely succeed in hearing one another, let alone in changing one another’s minds.

- Elliot Aronson

If Sam gets a statement different from his own opinion, if his self-esteem is high, he has to decide when he will be more right: if he changes his position, or if he continues to stick to the original. In this way, you may experience conflict if you do not agree with a communicator who is highly credible. If, on the other hand, Sam has a low self-esteem, he’s pretty much not going through a conflict situation - since he doesn’t hold himself too high, he feels he has a better chance of being right if he accepts the communicator’s claims.

- Elliot Aronson

Anyone who is awake nowadays knows that Republicans and Democrats seem to disagree on most issues — and neither side seems able to be persuaded by the other. Why? After analyzing the data from 44 years of studies and more than 22,000 people in the United States and Europe, John Jost and his associates have concluded that these disagreements are not simply philosophic disputes about how, say, to end poverty or fix schools; they reflect different ways of thinking, different levels of tolerance for uncertainty, and core personality traits, which is why conservatives and liberals are usually not persuaded by the same kinds of arguments. As a result of such evidence, some evolutionary psychologists maintain that ideological belief systems may have evolved in human societies to be organized along a left–right dimension, consisting of two core sets of attitudes: (1) whether a person advocates social change or supports the system as it is, and (2) whether a person thinks inequality is a result of human policies and can be overcome or is inevitable and should be accepted as part of the natural order.

- Elliot Aronson