Social Psychology Network

Maintained by Scott Plous, Wesleyan University

Dr. Carol Tavris

Dr. Carol Tavris

Dr. Carol Tavris's work as a writer, teacher, and lecturer has been devoted to educating the public about psychological science. Her book with Elliot Aronson, "Mistakes Were Made (But Not by ME): Why we justify foolish beliefs, bad decisions, and hurtful acts" (revised edition, 2015, and most recently updated in 2020 with a new chapter--"Dissonance, Democracy, and the Demagogue"), applies cognitive dissonance theory to a wide variety of topics, including politics, conflicts of interest, memory (everyday and "recovered"), the criminal justice system, police interrogation, the daycare sex-abuse epidemic, family quarrels, international conflicts, and business. Her latest book, with oncologist Avrum Bluming, is "Estrogen Matters" (Little, Brown Spark, 2018). In addition to writing essays and book reviews, she contributes a column for Skeptic magazine, "The Gadfly."

She has spoken to students, psychologists, mediators, lawyers, judges, physicians, business executives, and general audiences on, among other topics, self-justification; science and pseudoscience in psychology; gender and sexuality; critical thinking; and anger. In the legal arena, Dr. Tavris has given many addresses and workshops to attorneys and judges on the difference between testimony based on good psychological science and that based on pseudoscience and subjective clinical opinion.

Dr. Tavris is a Charter Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science. Her honors and awards include the 2014 Media Achievement Award from SPSP; an honorary doctorate from Simmons college in 2013; the Distinguished Media Contribution Award from the American Association of Applied and Preventive Psychology (for The Mismeasure of Woman), the Heritage Publications Award from Division 35 of the American Psychological Association (for The Mismeasure of Woman), the “Movers and Shakers” Award from Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research, the Distinguished Contribution to Women’s Health Award from the APA Conference on Women’s Health, an award from the Center for Inquiry, Independent Investigations Group, for contributions to skepticism and science, and the 2016 Bertrand Russell distinguished scholar award from the Foundation for Critical Thinking, Sonoma State.

Primary Interests:

  • Aggression, Conflict, Peace
  • Culture and Ethnicity
  • Emotion, Mood, Affect
  • Gender Psychology
  • Law and Public Policy

Note from the Network: The holder of this profile has certified having all necessary rights, licenses, and authorization to post the files listed below. Visitors are welcome to copy or use any files for noncommercial or journalistic purposes provided they credit the profile holder and cite this page as the source.

Books:

Journal Articles:

Other Publications:

Dr. Carol Tavris
Los Angeles, California 90046
United States of America

Send a message to Dr. Carol Tavris

Note: You will be emailed a copy of your message.

Psychology Headlines

From Around the World

News Feed (35,797 subscribers)