Customer Reviews

The Social Animal

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
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I am a current undergraduate student at the University of California at Santa Cruz. This past quarter, I had the honor of being in Elliot Aronson's last ever lecture class at Santa Cruz. It was amazing. His teaching and writing inspired me to re-evaluate my actions and myself as a person. Aronson's heart shows through in his writing--and even more in his lecturing. The book truly causes one to look at his actions and reactions to various interactions with those around him. The Social Animal focuses on why, how, and when people formulate different ideas about society and the people contained in it. One definitely gains an understanding of himself and his interactions, views, ideals, predjudices, etc. after reading this critical analysis of human social behavior. Again, I feel honored to have been enlightened by Elliot Aronson.

I am a graduate student and forever labor at parties under the misconception others have about what it is that I study. This book was panacea for me -- I bought it and gave copies of it to my parents and various assorted others. In lay-person's prose, Aronson explains the major, and most influential, of social psychological achievements. He accurately explains what social psychology is and why it's helpful without ever sounding like a professor talking down to students. It is a must-read for everyone, not only because it is so clear and cogent, but because it can explain and clarify to many the basic processes underlying most of everyday life.

This a fantastically user friendly guide to understand whether or not things we say about much of human behavior is true. For example "Is beauty really in the eye of the beholder?" "If I want people to believe me, should I speak first or last?" "What attracts people to each other?" "Will seeing violence on TV matter?" Elliot Aronson, author of 15 books, noted scientist, and member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, concisely explains a number of social issues with the light of scientific truth. Internationally recognized for sixteen years, The Social Animal, offers plain and often funny insight as to what psychologists know about human behavior in the social context. Used as both text book and sophisticated reading, few books offer enlightenment about what happens in social cirmstances, with such easily understood and scientific presentation.

A very interesting and tremendously well-written book--a pure delight to read. In writing this book, Aronson not only demonstrates his wide-ranging knowledge of Social Psychology, but also attempts (very successfully, in my opinion) to transmit to the reader his infectious enthusiasm for the subject. By consciously choosing not to employ pretentious language (alas, the bane of academia!), Aronson allows the subject to speak for itself. This is an immensely readable book (any high-school student would have no problems with it) but is nonetheless very informative. It would not be an overexaggeration to say that having read this book during my freshman year in college was one of the first in a series of steps that culminated in my decision to go on to graduate school in Social Psychology. Read it!

Aronson's emminently readable volume is packed with useful--if not always profound--insights and information that go a long way towards explaining many of the abnomal "normalities" of our own society. Although Aronson's volume is far from being preachy, it is difficult not to make certain connections within our own society that have the character of being drawn directly from Aronson's experiments.

Racism, for instance can now be explained entirely in social psychological terms. Both white and non-white behaviror--actions and interactions--follow the models of Aronson's experiments precisely. Alienation within our society and the attendant lost of a sense of community is another example of one of the secondary effects of social psychological processes made so profoundly clear from this book.

Aronson leaves us with a lot to digest and think about, and this in my view is what books of this sort should do. This is a real tour de force. I highly recommend it.

This is one of those books that you only come across by chance. I became aware of this book by snooping around a friends office and saw it on the shelf with ruffled pages and post it notes sticking out of it. At first I couldn't tell if it was a bible or not, but it seems it was my friends bible.

After memorizing the title, which I did forget, and searching all over the internet for it, I finally found it. I guess I was too embarrassed to ask my friend, because I don't think he would like the idea of my snooping around.

After reading a few pages I came to realize what the big deal was with my friend. This book covers many theories behind people's less than intuitive behavior. He explains how rewarding children for undesirable behavior will lead to less of that bahavior. For example, if you want children to play with a boring toy, just leave it in a room of other more attractive toys, but demand that the children play with the more attractive toys and even give the children some candy or some money to play with these toys and eventually these children will gravitate toward the boring toy. It doen't make sense on the surface, but when you read that these behaviors are backed by a lot of research and explained theory you will start to see how it makes sense.

There are tons of examples in this book all backed by research and with clear explanations.

This book is well-written, fun to read, highly informative, and thoroughly based in research. It has important implications for us all. What more could one ask?

I used Aronson's textbook when I took social psychology as a sophomore back in the day. This makes a great introduction to social psychology, but in addition, it just makes a very readable book. Even if you're not taking a course in social psychology, you'll enjoy reading this book. Thanks to Aronson's style it doesn't come across like a textbook, but doesn't sacrifice rigor at all. As a result, for me, it was the best textbook I ever used. I'm doing a graduate degree in social psychology now, thanks, in part, to this book.

I'm glad it's still in the print and I hope more professors adopt it.

Easy to read and comprehend, not overly difficult to grasp the concepts being covered either. This book is well written and informative.

Check it out.

I really enjoyed The Social Animal, it was an excellent book! And it was actually fun to read (compared to other college books). I read this book for my social psych class @CU. There are a lot of really interesting studies cited in the book about everday things that you wouldn't notice unless it was pointed out to you. And it has some very interesting points on prejudice and self-justification. Even if you're not going to be a social psychologist or, maybe, you're not even in a social psych class, I think it's important to read. I highly recommend it!