Editing Elliot Aronson (section)

==Early life and education==
Aronson grew up in extreme poverty in [[Revere, Massachusetts]], during the [[Great Depression]]. His was the only [[Jewish]] family in the neighborhood, and it was not rare for Aronson to be bullied on the way home from Hebrew school by [[anti-Semitic]] gangs. He believes that every life's progress is based on a combination of luck, opportunity, talent, and intuition.<ref>Chibnall, John T., [https://www.proquest.com/docview/851475808 "Elliot Aronson and the life of becoming."], ''American Psychological Association'', date</ref> Although his high school grades were mediocre, his [[SAT]] scores were high enough to earn him a work-study scholarship at Brandeis University.<ref name=autobiog />

Influenced by his father, he began his college career majoring in economics.  However, he promptly changed his major to psychology after accidentally wandering into an Introductory Psychology lecture taught by [[Abraham Maslow]].<ref name="American Psychologist 1999 pg. 873-875">American Psychologist (November 1999), 54 (11), pg. 873-875</ref> After attending this lecture, he realized that there was an entire science devoted to exploring the kinds of questions that had intrigued him as a child.<ref name="American Psychologist 1999 pg. 873-875"/> His undergraduate years at Brandeis brought him closer to a number of respected psychologists, but Maslow was his primary mentor and had the biggest impact on his early academic career.<ref name="American Psychologist 1999 pg. 873-875"/>
 
Aronson earned his bachelor's degree from Brandeis in 1954. He went on to earn a master's degree from [[Wesleyan University]] in 1956, where he worked with [[David McClelland]], and a Ph.D. in psychology from  [[Stanford University]] in 1959, where his doctoral advisor and mentor was the experimental social psychologist [[Leon Festinger]].<ref name="autobiog">Aronson, E. (2010). ''Not by chance alone: My life as a social psychologist.'' New York: Basic Books.  {{ISBN|978-0-465-01833-8}}</ref><ref name=bdp />