The Methodological Innovator Award is a senior career award that recognizes an individual who has made a significant or sustained contribution to innovative methods in personality and social psychology across his or her career. The award recognizes contributions that are especially likely to generate the discovery of new hypotheses, new phenomena, or new ways of thinking about the discipline of social/personality psychology.
Any kind of innovative methodological contribution (including developments of new methods, including analytic methods; innovative applications of existing methods; and creative application of methods from other fields), regardless of the format of the contribution, can be considered as evidence for the award.
Contributions by an individual could include articles, papers, book chapters, books, websites, pieces of software or hardware, symposia, or other inventions created or released and judged to be innovative.
The award is made in recognition of a record of sustained contributions in one or several areas.
Methodological contributions may be judged innovative and generative even before they have generated substantial empirical findings. The emphasis of the award is on a contribution's conceptual innovation and potential to motivate new research and further conceptual investigation.
Recipients of this award receive up to $1000 in travel ($1500 International), complimentary convention registration, up to three hotel nights at the convention hotel, and a plaque, with acknowledgment at the annual Awards Ceremony held at the SPSP Annual Convention.