The contributors of this special issue were asked to articulate their own individual philosophies and the lessons they have learned based on their own experience as theoreticians. All of the papers offer authentic, deeply felt, and extremely valuable perspectives on diverse aspects of theory construction in social-personality psychology.

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.