Research

Project 1 (preprint): The State of Social Cognition Research

This project brings together early-career researchers from diverse disciplines to critically examine the current state of social cognition research and to actively shape its future. While interest in social cognition is rapidly growing, the field remains highly fragmented, with unclear and inconsistent construct definitions and methodological tools that often fail to capture the interactive nature of real-world social behavior.

Our work focuses on identifying shared challenges across theoretical and empirical traditions, clarifying sources of disagreement, and working toward greater conceptual coherence. In particular, we address ambiguity surrounding the definition, scope, and components of social cognition, as well as limitations of commonly used assessment tools that rely on static, passive, and low-ecological-validity tasks.

We adopt an iterative, community-driven approach that combines theory development, methodological innovation, and open dialogue. This includes promoting transparent reporting of conceptual assumptions, developing and validating more interactive and ecologically valid methods (e.g., games, second-person neuroscience, virtual reality, and computational approaches), and fostering consensus-building through open science practices and collaborative research.

Guided by principles of humility, courage, epistemic trust, and inclusivity, our project aims to support early-career researchers while building stronger, shared foundations for social cognition research—ultimately enabling more cumulative, impactful, and socially relevant science.

Read the preprint: Buergi*, N., Cantiani*, A., Catoira*, B., Gautier*, M., Gori*, I., Konrad*, A. C., Maliske*, L., Nijhof*, A. D., Pabst*, A., & Pronizius, E. (2026). State of social cognition research: Challenges, future directions, and efforts toward consensus building. https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/fh4cz_v1