(1922-1997) American psychologist who pursued his doctorate degree at the University of Michigan, graduating in 1949. Taught at Minnesota University for twelve years beginning in 1949, after which he was invited to be part of the faculty at Columbia University, where he remained for the duration of his career. Important to the fields of social and health psychology, he discovered methods to carry out rigorous laboratory experimentation concerning the complexities of social psychology and achieved validation of those experiments in real-world scenarios. Subjects for research included social pressure within groups, social communication, attribution theory, and addictive behavior patterns such as overeating and smoking. Author of several articles, one of his most controversial was