I am delighted to announce that the recipient of the second annual International Society for Self and Identity Career Contribution Award is Abraham Tesser.

This is the second year in which this new honor bestowed. This Career Contribution Award complements the existing Young Investigator Award, given annually now at the SPSP Pre-conference. The first recipient of the Career Contribution Award, last year, was Marilynn Brewer.

This Career Award is to recognize contributions to theory and research on self and identity that span a career, contributions which promote and inspire creative and integrative work. The selection committee this year was comprised Jeff Greenberg, Marilynn Brewer, and Bob Arkin.

Abe Tesser; The very name quickly conjures up landmark theoretical and empirical contributions, creative and integrative work that has shaped contemporary thinking on self and identity. There is probably no one who has had a more defining impact on the development of current work on the self and identity than Abe. There is certainly no one's research and theory more fun and engaging to teach about.

Abe Tesser received his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Purdue University in 1967. He is now Professor Emeritus at the University of Georgia, having been Research Professor and Director of the Institute for Behavioral Research there for a decade, and having spent his entire career moving through the ranks at Georgia. Abe recently spent a year as Visiting Professor at Ohio State University (1999).

Abe's scholarly contributions began with an eclectic and rich mix of interests in processes of attitude formation and change (e.g., effects of time and thought on attitude polarization), interpersonal relations and exchange (e.g., the MUM effect), application (e.g., social context of suicide, sexual attraction), methodology and measurement , as well as contributions to the topic of self and identity. The importance of his contributions in all these areas has continued through the last three decades, and are certainly well-documented. But teachers and researchers of social psychology probably most appreciate the unique and generative interlacing of cognitive, affective, and behavioral issues represented in Self-Evaluation Maintenance theory. This theory and the research findings that grow from it can be spellbinding in the right hands, and exemplify the value of theory on the self to inform the understanding of feelings and both individual and interpersonal behavior and thought.

Abe Tesser's many honors include delivering the Plenary Address to the Society for Experimental Social Psychology in 1999, serving as President of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the Research Scientist award from the NIMH, serving as Editor of JPSP, and he has been a Lecturer in the APA Visiting Scientist Program. Abe has also edited and contributed to several important volumes focused on the self and identity.

Abe is retired in name only, being every bit as active a voice and leader among researchers as always. His research continues to be focused on the social self. He has regaled us recently with contributions on "the self zoo," relationship ecology and romance, facial features (of American movie actresses) and popularity, ecology of the marriage and self-evaluation maintenance, issues of the mutable self, and the "genuine self."

As part of this award, Abe Tesser will present an invited address at the Self Pre-conference at SESP in Columbus, Ohio in October (Thursday, October 10th). It is no mystery why Abraham Tesser is named the 2002 recipient of the ISSI Career Contribution Award. Nevertheless, his address is entitled: "Mystery Moods and the Maintenance of Self-Esteem."

Bob Arkin
Chair of the Selection Committee, 2002