利昂·费斯廷格

利昂·费斯廷格（Leon Festinger，1919年5月8日—1989年2月11日）是一位美国社会心理学家，以其认知失调理论著称（1957年）。

在费斯廷格一生中，曾任教于美国多所大学，包括爱荷华大学、罗彻斯特大学、麻省理工学院、明尼苏达大学、密歇根大学和斯坦福大学。

费斯廷格以其认知失调理论著称。

生平

1919年5月8日，利昂·费斯廷格出生在美国纽约布鲁克林一个俄国犹太人移民家庭，父亲亚历克斯·费斯廷格是一位自学成才的刺绣制造商，母亲是萨拉·所罗门· 费斯廷格。利昂·费斯廷格就读于男子中学，1939年，费斯廷格获得纽约市立学院理学士学位，大学毕业后，费斯廷格进入爱荷华大学，在社会心理学之父科特·勒温的指导下，1940年获得心理学硕士学位，1942年获博士学位。科特·勒温试图建立心理学的“场论”（类似于物理学），以取代行为主义者的机械论模型。

同年，利昂·费斯廷格与女画家玛丽·奥利弗·Ballou结婚，两人生有3名子女：凯瑟琳、理查德和库尔特。) 之后与Ballou离婚, 1968年与 Trudy Bradley结婚。Trudy Bradley 目前为纽约大学教授。

1945年，勒温在麻省理工学院建立了群体动力学研究中心，费斯廷格也到那里担任助理教授。1947年勒温去世后，费斯廷格也离开那里，前往密歇根大学担任副教授。

Leon Festinger (8 May 1919 – 11 February 1989) was an American social psychologist who originated the theory of cognitive dissonance and social comparison theory. The rejection of the previously dominant behaviorist view of social psychology by demonstrating the inadequacy of stimulus-response conditioning accounts of human behavior is largely attributed to his theories and research. Festinger is also credited with advancing the use of laboratory experimentation in social psychology, although he simultaneously stressed the importance of studying real-life situations, a principle he practiced when personally infiltrating a doomsday cult. He is also known in social network theory for the proximity effect (or propinquity).

Festinger studied psychology under Kurt Lewin, an important figure in modern social psychology, at the University of Iowa, graduating in 1941; however, he did not develop an interest in social psychology until after joining the faculty at Lewin's Research Center for Group Dynamics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1945. Despite his preeminence in social psychology, Festinger turned to visual perception research in 1964 and then archaeology, history, and the human evolutionary sciences in 1979 until his death in 1989. Following B. F. Skinner, Jean Piaget, Sigmund Freud, and Albert Bandura, Festinger was the fifth most cited psychologist of the 20th century.

Life

Early life and education

Festinger was born in Brooklyn New York on May 8, 1919 to Russian-Jewish immigrants Alex Festinger and Sara Solomon Festinger. His father, an embroidery manufacturer, had "left Russia a radical and atheist and remained faithful to these views throughout his life." Festinger attended Boys' High School in Brooklyn, and received his BS degree in psychology from the City College of New York in 1939.

He proceeded to study under Kurt Lewin at the University of Iowa, where Festinger received his MA in 1940 and PhD in 1942 in the field of child behavior. By his own admission, he was not interested in social psychology when he arrived at Iowa, and did not take a single course in social psychology during his entire time there; instead, he was interested in Lewin's earlier work on tension systems, but Lewin's focus had shifted to social psychology by the time Festinger arrived at Iowa. However, Festinger continued to pursue his original interests, studying level of aspiration, working on statistics, developing a quantitative model of decision making, and even publishing a laboratory study on rats. Explaining his lack of interest in social psychology at the time, Festinger stated, "The looser methodology of the social psychology studies, and the vagueness of relation of the data to Lewinian concepts and theories, all seemed unappealing to me in my youthful penchant for rigor." Festinger considered himself to be a freethinker and an atheist.

After graduating, Festinger worked as a research associate at Iowa from 1941 to 1943, and then as a statistician for the Committee on Selection and Training of Aircraft Pilots at the University of Rochester from 1943 to 1945 during World War II. In 1943, Festinger married Mary Oliver Ballou, a pianist, with whom he had three children, Catherine, Richard, and Kurt. Festinger and Ballou were later divorced, and Festinger married Trudy Bradley, currently a professor of social work emeritus at New York University, in 1968.