This special issue features papers that offer deeply felt, valuable perspectives on diverse aspects of theory construction in social-personality psychology. The goal is to furnish a basis for starting a discussion about the considerable challenges of theorizing, the ways of meeting those challenges, and the great rewards that successful theorizing offers to the discipline as a whole.

Volume 8, Number 2, 2004. Contents: A.W. Kruglanski, E.T. Higgins, Preface to the Special Issue. D. Abrams, M.A. Hogg, Metatheory: Lessons From Social Identity Research. M.B. Brewer, Taking the Social Origins of Human Nature Seriously: Toward a More Imperialist Social Psychology. J.T. Cacioppo, Common Sense, Intuition, and Theory in Personality and Social Psychology. K. Fiedler, Tools, Toys, Truisms, and Theories: Some Thoughts on the Creative Cycle of Theory Formation. S.T. Fiske, Mind the Gap: In Praise of Informal Sources of Formal Theory. E.T. Higgins, Making a Theory Useful: Lessons Handed Down. J.G. Holmes, The Benefits of Abstract Functional Analysis in Theory Construction: The Case of Interdependence Theory. A.W. Kruglanski, The Quest for the Gist: On Challenges of Going Abstract in Social and Personality Psychology. J.M. Levine, R.L. Moreland, Collaboration: The Social Context of Theory Development. W.J. McGuire, A Perspectivist Approach to Theory Construction. A. Nowak, Dynamical Minimalism: Why Less Is More in Psychology. Y. Trope, Theory in Social Psychology: Seeing the Forest and the Trees. R.S. Wyer, Jr., A Personalized Theory of Theory Construction. M.P. Zanna, The Naïve Epistemology of a Working Social Psychologist (or the Working Epistemology of a Naïve Social Psychologist): The Value of Taking "Temporary Givens" Seriously.

Arie W. Kruglanski, E. Tory Higgins