PSYCHOLOGIST

Leon Festinger

1919 - 1989

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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). Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. Leon Festinger is the 63rd most popular psychologist (up from 64th in 2019), the 1,249th most popular biography from United States (down from 1,032nd in 2019) and the 21st most popular American Psychologist.

Leon Festinger is most famous for his cognitive dissonance theory. He proposed that when people are confronted with information that conflicts with their beliefs, they will change their beliefs to match the new information.

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Among PSYCHOLOGISTS

Among psychologists, Leon Festinger ranks 63 out of 235. Before him are Raymond Cattell, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Pierre Janet, Stanley Milgram, Alice Miller, and Fritz Perls. After him are William Stern, Raymond Moody, Philip Zimbardo, Bruno Bettelheim, Alexander Luria, and Karl Bühler.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1919, Leon Festinger ranks 36. Before him are Nat King Cole, Iris Murdoch, Donald J. Cram, Dino De Laurentiis, Abdirashid Shermarke, and Andreas Papandreou. After him are Hans-Joachim Marseille, James M. Buchanan, Jennifer Jones, Gerhard Barkhorn, Oleg Penkovsky, and César Manrique. Among people deceased in 1989, Leon Festinger ranks 40. Before him are Hermann Oberth, William Shockley, John Cassavetes, Sugar Ray Robinson, Giuseppe Siri, and Danilo Kiš. After him are Cornel Wilde, Bruce Chatwin, Charles J. Pedersen, Joris Ivens, Ahmadou Ahidjo, and Uichiro Hatta.

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In United States

Among people born in United States, Leon Festinger ranks 1,249 out of 20,380. Before him are William R. Pogue (1930), John Goodman (1952), Betty Ford (1918), Brendan Fraser (1968), Eliot Ness (1903), and Mickey Rooney (1920). After him are Tom Waits (1949), Robert Benton (1932), John C. Mather (1946), Wyatt Earp (1848), Robert E. Howard (1906), and Raymond Moody (1944).

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Among PSYCHOLOGISTS In United States

Among psychologists born in United States, Leon Festinger ranks 21. Before him are Lawrence Kohlberg (1927), Alfred Kinsey (1894), Milton H. Erickson (1901), Martin Seligman (1942), Roger Wolcott Sperry (1913), and Stanley Milgram (1933). After him are Raymond Moody (1944), Philip Zimbardo (1933), Mary Ainsworth (1913), George Armitage Miller (1920), Timothy Leary (1920), and G. Stanley Hall (1846).

American born Psychologists

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