Elliot Aronson

cognitive dissonance.

Emeritus professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Aronson studied under Leon Festinger and built a career extending dissonance theory through rigorous experimentation. He demonstrated that effort justification and self-concept are central to dissonance, and authored the widely used textbook 'The Social Animal'. He also created the Jigsaw Classroom, a cooperative learning method designed to reduce prejudice in desegregated schools.