The Psychology Book

244

IN CONTEXT

APPROACH

Attitude change

BEFORE

1956 Social psychologist Leon

Festinger states his theory of

cognitive dissonance, which

posits that having inconsistent

beliefs causes uncomfortable

psychological tension.

1968 The My Lai Massacre

of civilians in Vietnam takes

place, possibly because US

soldiers dehumanized victims

to reduce cognitive dissonance.

AFTER

1978 Elliot Aronson devises

the Jigsaw method of learning,

involving highly interdependent

small-group learning, to reduce

prejudice and violence at school.

1980s Psychologists argue that

dissonance experiments may

not reflect real attitude changes,

but a desire to seem consistent

and hence socially acceptable.

psychological imbalance on the

part of the perpetrator. Aronson,

however, argues that although

psychotic people certainly exist,

even people who are generally

psychologically healthy can be

driven to such extremes of human

behavior that they appear insane. It

PEOPLE WHO DO

CRAZY THINGS ARE NOT

NECESSARILY CRAZY

ELLIOT ARONSON (1932– )

...we are tempted to conclude that they

are caused by a deficiency in character

or insanity.

We must remember that people who do

crazy things are not necessarily crazy.

If we are unaware of the social circumstances

that prompted their actions...

In some situations, sane people do crazy things.

I

n his 1972 book, The Social

Animal, Elliot Aronson puts

forward “Aronson’s First Law:”

people who do crazy things are not

necessarily crazy. The “crazy things”

he refers to include acts of violence,

cruelty, or deep prejudice—acts so

extreme that they seem to reflect a