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Social Cognition, Vol. 11, No. 3, 1993, pp. 271-275
On January 1, I began my term as editor of Social Cognition and David
Schneider ended his lengthy and distinguished stewardship of the
journal. Susan Andersen and Charles Lord assumed the roles of associate editors, and Tory Higgins who served as special issues editor
under David Schneider agreed to continue in that capacity. These
changes in the editorial team were reflected on the cover of the journal,
and were accompanied by the usual transitional markers: changes in
the cover design, editorial board, instructions to authors, and a farewell
editorial from David. Perhaps these hints were a bit subtle for some, as
David still receives submissions with regularity.
This welcoming editorial completes the traditions surrounding the
changing of the editorial guard, and serves as a reminder to those still tempted to send submissions to the past editor. Not coincidentally, it
also marks the first issue of Social Cognition processed entirely by the
new editorial staff. For despite all those superficial changes in the cover, with publication lags being what they are, the change in
editorship is only now coming in fruition.
I will now address some of the questions that I imagine you would
want to ask the incoming editor. For the sake of exposition, I'll pretend
that I am being interviewed by Mike Wallace of 60 minutes, who would, of course, ask probing questions about the kinds of things that
inquiring minds really want to know.
We've heard that there may be some controversies in this field, and we intend
to get to the bottom of them. But just to bring our audience up to speed, what exactly is social cognition? I mean, how zvould you define the field of social cognition?
Well, social cognition is
a field that combines ideas and methods from cognitive and social psychologies in an attempt to understand the role that cognitive processes play in social affairs.
Some critics feel that the field has emphasized the cognitive at the expense of
the social...
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THE TRUTH ABOUT SOCIAL COGNITION
272 CARLSTON
I do think that there has been a great deal of excitement about
applying cognitive theories and methods in social contexts, and therefore much of the emphasis has been on...