Susan Fiske and Harold Kelley

Susan Fiske (1952– ) has been at the forefront of research in the field of social cognition since the late 1970s. She has contributed important research on a number of topics, including the development of schemas, schema-triggered affect, categorical processing, stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination, and is co-author with Shelley Taylor of two editions of the leading source book in this field, Social Cognition. Beginning with the premise that people readily categorize other people (especially based on race, gender and age), Fiske’s research addresses how stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination are encouraged or discouraged by social relationships, such as cooperation, competition and power.

Harold Kelley (1921–2003), Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), was a distinguished pioneer and contributor to social psychology. He provided two seminal models of the attribution process, which explained attributions across multiple and single events and stimulated abundant subsequent research in the field. In making attributions, Kelley regarded individuals as applied scientists who also use cognitive heuristics or ‘causal schemata’. His work described the kinds of attribution scenarios in which these schemata would be engaged. In addition to his seminal work in attribution theory, Kelley contributed to classic theories of attitude change and of interdependence in relationships.