“THE SOCIAL ANIMAL” by Elliot Aronson

In 2021, I read Elliot Aronson’s book “The Social Animal” for the first time. I remember being impressed by the concepts, which were, at the same time, familiar to me from the American articles I had read over time.

In June 2024, after I finished my first year at the Psychology college, I managed to internalize most of Elliot Aronson’s concepts. That being said, I am trying to look at a new situation in my life from many perspectives before I start making judgments.

This is why I try not to be a cognitive miser =“the idea that people look for ways to conserve cognitive energy; people do that by attempting to adopt strategies that simplify complex problems”.

This is why I try not to attribute someone’s behavior to an internal cause, which means that I do not use the fundamental attribution error = “the tendency to overestimate the general importance of personality or dispositional factors relative to situational or environmental influences when describing or explaining the cause of social behavior”.

I try not to use my confirmation bias = “a tendency to seek confirmation of initial impressions or believes”.

I try not to be blinded by my bias blind spot = “the belief that we are more objective and less biased than most other people”.

I try to not think that my group, the ingroup = “our group, the one we identify and feel we belong” is better than their group, the outgroup = “a group with which we do not identify; the members of which we tend to see as being all the same”.

Be aware that everything in psychology is a matter of probabilistics. Therefore, I do not apply the above to all situations.
I am human. Consequently, I err. But I learn from my mistakes. 🙂 

As a conclusion to the debates currently on Romanian social media, I leave you the wise words of Elliot Aronson:
“An old Bedouin proverb says, <<Me against my brother, my brother and I against my cousin, and all of us against the stranger.>>
This proverb perfectly captures how our tribal minds divide the world into gradations of us and them.”

P.S. The first edition of “The Social Animal” was printed for the first time in 1972. I have read the 12th edition.
Kindle, 2021