ABSTRACT
I will never forget the evening I came home from a long day of undergraduate instruction to a life-altering message on my answering machine. The caller, in a deep, booming voice, said, “Hello, Jeff, this is Elliot Aronson. I’m calling to say that I would like to admit you to do your graduate work in social psychology with me.” I was floored. I had been introduced to the field of social psychology by reading The Social Animal, and, inspired by the idea of the Jigsaw Classroom, I had spent my junior and senior years conducting cooperative learning research in schools. I also knew from a quick phone call with Elliot that we were both interested in the AIDS crisis and in finding ways to reduce the transmission of HIV. When I got his call, I was pretty certain that I would carve out a career using social psychology to solve important social problems. I was determined at that time to be the best applied social psychologist on the planet.
