Elliot Aronson is one of our most influential social psychologists and the only person in the 120-year history of the American Psychological Association to win all three of its major awards for distinguished research, distinguished teaching, and distinguished writing.  He is also a beautiful person.

In his delightful autobiography Not by Chance Alone, My Life as a Social Psychologist (Basic Books), Aronson describes a character-testing, fork-in-road moment for him that was  triggered by Leon Festinger, a prickly Professor at Standford University ( most famous for his work on Cognitive Dissonance).

Guy Lasnier, in a review of Aronson’s autobiography, tells what happened:

Aronson is walking down the hall when Festinger barks out his name. Pulling a paper from a pile of hundreds on his desk, Festinger holds it between his thumb and forefinger as if it were a piece of trash. “I believe this is yours,” he says with a mix of pity and contempt, Aronson remembers.

Aronson dreaded the red marks he expected to find. Instead there was nothing.  He steeled himself to inquire why. With that same mix of pity and contempt, Festinger told him that if he didn’t care enough about his work to give it his best effort the result was not worth his comment.

Getting that paper was a critical moment in Aronson’s life. He had a choice.  He could drop the class and accept defeat.

Instead, he spent the next 72 hours reworking the paper and handed it to his mentor. Fifteen minutes later Festinger walked into his office, sat on the edge of his desk, put his hand on his student’s shoulder and said: “Now this is worth criticizing.”

“At that moment we became colleagues,” he says. “It was an incredible gift.”  

Elliot Aronson  beautifully tells the story himself in the opening minutes of this 30-minute video interview ( from 3′ 30″  to 7′ 45″):