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" (third edition, 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, business--and the vexing problem of political polarization. Her latest book, with oncologist Avrum Bluming, is "Estrogen Matters: Why taking hormones in menopause can improve and lengthen women's lives--without raising the risk of breast cancer" (Little, Brown Spark, updated and revised 2024). Although a book on hormone therapy might seem a departure, she is the social-psychologist half of that team, and her contributions to the medical evidence that Dr. Bluming presents is to add the science, politics, and ideology behind hormone replacement therapy--with a focus on what the evidence shows is best for women's health.

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; anger; and, most recently, hormone therapy for women in menopause and beyond. 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 has written hundreds of articles, op-eds, book reviews, and essays on a wide range of psychological topics, with a focus on contentious political issues and outbreaks of social contagions, when ideological convictions tend to supersede evidence. Her column for Skeptic magazine has featured these essays.

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.