埃裏奧特·阿倫森是世界上最負盛名的社會心理學傢之一。2002年他當選世紀百名最傑齣心理學傢之一。他現是加利福尼亞大學聖剋魯茲分校的名譽教授和斯坦福大學的特邀訪問教授。

當我還是個孩子的時候，我們生活在反猶太情緒嚴重的街區，而我們是那裏惟一一傢猶太人。我不得不在每天傍晚的時候去猶太學校。我是這個街區中惟一一個去猶太學校念書的少年，這使我很容易地成為街區中一些年紀較大的惡棍的攻擊目標。在天黑以後從猶太學校迴傢的路上，我經常被遊蕩的歹徒搶劫，他們還高喊著反猶太的侮辱性的字句。

我非常清晰地記得，在被一頓暴打之後我坐在圍欄上，為流血的鼻子或撕破的嘴巴止血，我為自己感到難過，並且很想知道這些小孩為什麼會如此討厭我，即使他們根本就不認識我。我思考著，那些小孩到底是被教育成憎恨猶太人的，還是由於某種原因，他們天生就是那樣。我想知道他們的憎惡是否能被改變——如果他們多一點瞭解我，他們會不會就不那麼恨我瞭呢?我反思瞭自己的性格。如果情況正好相反——也就是說，如果我比他們塊頭更大、身體更強壯的話，我會沒有什麼原因地把他們痛打一頓嗎?

當然，那時候我並沒有意識到，但最終我發現這些都是很深刻的問題。大約30年後，作為一個社會心理學傢，我很幸運地得到一份工作，它使我能夠迴答其中一些問題，並創造一些技術來減少這種使我成為一名受害者的偏見。

When Elliot Aronson, Timothy Wilson, and Robin Akert started with the first edition of Social Psychology their overriding goal was simple but ambitious: capture the excitement of social psychology in a textbook. Now in its sixth edition, the authors have discovered - through many kind letters and e-mail from professors and students - that they have succeeded in making their book an enjoyable, fascinating story, not just a dry report of facts and figures. In their work they have found that social psychology comes alive for students when they understand the whole context of the field: how theories inspire research, why research is performed as it is, how further research triggers yet new avenues of study. The authors have reached students by conveying their own fascination with the research process in a down-to-earth, meaningful way, yet have done so without sacrificing a firm foundation on which to build the reader's understanding. Here, in its sixth edition, the authors present a rigorous, scientific approach to social psychology in a manner that continues to build on the text's legacy of engaging and fascinating students.