The quest for the gist: on challenges of going abstract in social and personality psychology.

Abstraction and generalization constitute important aims of science (Kruglanski, 2001, in press), yet broad theorizing is rather rare in social and personality psychology. Some reasons for this state of affairs are examined, including the considerable staying power of insufficiently abstract theories and the broad resistance that abstract theories can incite. The trials and tribulations of abstract theorizing are considered, drawing on my own work on lay epistemics. Its problems and pitfalls notwithstanding, abstract theorizing is what our field needs more of if progress is to take place and social and personality psychology is to obtain the voice it merits in the general cultural dialogue about societal issues. To encourage such theorizing, 3 principles are offered, including the commonality focus (the horizontal voyage), the data focus (the vertical voyage), and the restructuration focus (the upstream voyage) principles.