He received his doctorate at the University of Arizona in 1995. He has conducted research on the necessary and sufficient conditions for the arousal of cognitive dissonance and on the role of affect in the dissonance process. In addition to continuing these lines of research, he conducts research aimed at understanding the motivation underlying dissonance processes.Judson Mills is a professor of psychology and director of the Graduate Program in Social Psychology at the University of Maryland, College Park. He studied with Leon Festinger at the University of Minnesota and at Stanford University, where he received his doctorate in psychology in 1958. He worked as Festinger's research assistant during the period 1954–1957, when Festinger was developing the theory of cognitive dissonance.