Zajonc, R. B.

Basic Biographical Information

Robert Boleslaw Zajonc (1923–2008) held many prestigious titles in his lifetime for his numerous accomplishments in the discipline of psychology. Zajonc was a professor of psychology at both University of Michigan and Stanford University. He was once the president of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, and the president of APA Division 1 (Society for General Psychology), as well as a member of the APA Board of Scientific Affairs (Burnstein 2009). Zajonc was a recipient of the Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions from the American Psychological Association in 1978, as well as the Distinguished Scientist Award from the Society of Experimental Social Psychology in 1986 (Burnstein 2009). Though he lost his life to pancreatic cancer (Burnstein 2009), Zajonc has made many contributions to the field that will live on.

Zajonc was born in Lodz, Poland. During the Nazi invasion of Poland, the Zajonc family fled to Warsaw, where a bombing kill...