The International Social Cognition Network (ISCON) is seeking nominations for the 2012 Best Social Cognition Paper Award. Each year, this award recognizes an outstanding article in the field of Social Cognition. Theoretical as well as empirical articles are eligible. The most prominent criteria will be the importance of the contribution and the envisioned influence it will have in the years to come.

ISCON wants to emphasize that it defines Social Cognition broadly. In addition, the ISCON Best Paper Award is not instituted with a certain age group in mind. Senior and junior faculty, as well as graduate students, are all encouraged to nominate their work.

Social cognition is not a content area, but an approach to understanding social psychological phenomena. It is a level of analysis that aims at understanding social phenomena by investigating the mental processes that underlie them. The major concerns of the approach are the processes involved in the perception, judgment, and memory of social stimuli; the effects of cognitive, affective, and motivational factors on social information processing; and the behavioral and interpersonal consequences of mental processes. This level of analysis may be applied to any content area within social psychology, including research on intrapersonal, interpersonal, intragroup, and intergroup processes.

This year's award covers the 2012 calendar year. Thus, all peer-reviewed journal articles published in the 2012 edition(s) of scientific journals are eligible. Applicants are asked to nominate themselves and to submit an article on which they are (co)author, as well as a statement (maximum 500 words) in which the strengths of the article are highlighted. Nominees should make sure that other authors of the nominated article do not object to the nomination.

Articles and accompanying statements should be sent electronically to Keith Payne (payne@unc.edu) with "ISCON Best Paper Award” in the subject line. The 2012 Best Paper Award Committee consists of Ayelet Fishbach (University of Chicago, USA), Rob Holland (Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands), and Keith Payne (University of North Carolina at Chapel-Hill, USA). The deadline for nominations is June 1, 2013. Nominations arriving after the deadline cannot be considered.

The award will be presented at the ISCON Social Cognition Preconference to the SPSP Meeting in Austin, TX, in February of 2014.

On behalf of the ISCON Executive Committee,

Bertram Gawronski
President, International Social Cognition Network