Not by Chance Alone: My Life as a Social Psychologist Book

I read this book over the duration of a few days. I picked this book up after reading a few chapters of "The Social Animal" by Aronson. I enjoyed his writing in both, to say the least. I was, and continue to be, hungry for personal insight into the world of academia, which I've had little of with the exception of speaking with a few professors. This book satisfied my appetite for the time being.

I enjoyed Aronson's approach to his own biography.
As he notes in his introduction, there seem to be two ways to write an autobiography
1. "To take credit for every good outcome". "I was smart enough to..."
2. "To attribute everything to the vicissitudes of chance". "I have been incredibly lucky that..."
Aronson seems have the maturity and clarity in making attributions about turning points in his life, and whether they were due to chance, ambition, or an amalgamation of the two.

Aronson's biography is mostly chronological/linear, although, when appropriate, he inserts old stories and anecdotes. His stories of the supposedly notorious, Leon Festinger, primarily known for cognitive dissonance theory and social comparison theory, are very entertaining and helpful in elucidating how Aronson became the man/social psychologist he is. They also shed light on the wide influence Festinger had on Cognitive/Social Psychology. Apparently Festinger was not seeing the implications of Dissonance theory on the Self, for some time.

To my slight surprise, Aronson knew a few people I have had an interest in.
Foremost, Dick Alpert (Baba Ram Dass) and Timothy Leary when they were at Harvard, when Aronson was acting as Assistant-Professor (in his late 20's, I might add). I have listened to many hours of Ram Dass' lectures, thanks to YouTube, and Aronson's stories paint the picture of a sociable, ambitious Dick, trying to attain tenure at Harvard. Apparently, due to Aronson's staunch advocacy of experimental methodology, Dick and Timothy were disappointed when he mentioned confounds in their proposed study of administering the newly synthesized psilocybin to university students. As it turned out, they continued along their route and went ahead with this. It should be noted, it was Dick (future Baba) who showed Aronson the best place to grab a Martini around Cambridge, along with other "important" sites.

He was also spatially familiar with the novelist Jack Ludwig, who had an affair with the 2nd wife, Sondra, of another novelist, Saul Bellow. Jack had been a frequent guest-lecturer. It seems Jack shared some characteristics with the character "Valentine Gerbasch" in Bellow's novel "Herzog"; Jack had a "club foot" while Valentine had a wooden leg, Jack slept with Bellow's wife while Valentine slept with the wife of Herzog's main character, Moses Herzog. To boot, Bellow and his wife had gone to couples therapy with a Paul Meehl, an associate of Aronson, before divorcing.

Aronson mentions some interesting trends over his academic life. One being the issue of labels and perspective; Aronson, against the idea of segregated schooling, was called, and I'm paraphrasing, a black-lover. Later on, when Aronson supported the right (not necessarily his conclusions) of a researcher, Arthur Jensen, to present ideas on racial differences in IQ, he was labelled a racist. Other stories similar to this, are mentioned.

In summation, this book was very enjoyable to read. Aronson seems to have exhibited a lot of rationality at historical moments where there seemed to be little. This approach traversed contentious themes; sexual assault policies on campus, segregation/racism, rampant anti-semitism, sexism in the work place. I would recommend this book to any 3rd/4th year student thinking about going to graduate school. Even more so, if they had an interest in the people at the major Psychology departments during the 20th century, or if they had a specific interest in Social Psychology.

I imagine I will re-read this at some point in the near future.