For the 25th time, the Foundation for Polish Science (FNP) has granted the annual FNP Prizes, considered to be Poland’s most important scientific awards. This year’s winners include three leading Polish researchers: Professor Jan Kozłowski, Professor Marek Samoć, Professor Józef Spałek, and Professor Bogdan Wojciszke, Deputy Dean for Research at the Sopot Faculty of Psychology at SWPS University. The award ceremony will take place on December 8, 2016 at the Royal Castle in Warsaw.
"The FNP Prize awarded to Professor Wojciszke is a wonderful news for our university and an opportunity for further development of social sciences and humanities," says Associate Professor Roman Cieślak, Rector, SWPS University.
The award for Professor Wojciszke for developing a model of agency and communion as basic dimensions of social cognition
The Foundation for Polish Science has recognized Professor Wojciszke for the formulation and verification of a dual perspective model in social cognition, where agency and communion constitute two fundamental dimensions of content. The agentic content refers to goal-achievement and task functioning (competence, assertiveness, decisiveness), whereas communal content refers to the maintenance of relationships and social functioning (benevolence, trustworthiness, morality). These two most important dimensions of behavior are independent of each other and are ubiquitous in social cognition. They explain over 80% of the overall assessments of others that people make, including assessments of business and political leaders.
Professor Wojciszke has researched the perceptions people have about themselves and others. When asked to remember events that had influenced their self-esteem, people typically recall agentic behaviors (i.e., successes or failures). In contrast, when asked to remember events that had influenced their impressions of others, people typically recall communal behaviors. In other words, while assessing others, people judge the social value of their behaviors and evaluate whether the goals and intentions are beneficial or damaging. However, during self-assessment, people assume the role of an agent, who monitors the effectiveness of goal attainment, while the goal itself is deemed beneficial a priori.
The Dual Perspective Model proposed by Professor Wojciszke provides a new approach to the classic issue of social cognition. The theory has changed the basis of psychology and has been shaping the direction of current and future research, since the 1990s. The Dual Perspective Model has become the new paradigm in modern social psychology. It allows to study stereotypes, biases as well as group and intergroup relations. Recently, the theory has been also applied to organisations and marketing brands.
The majority of Professor Wojciszke’s research results on social cognition have been published in prestigious social psychology journals, including Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, European Review of Social Psychology, European Journal of Social Psychology, Social Cognition, Social Psychological and Personality Science. In 2010, Professor Wojciszke summarized his research on social cognition in a monograph Sprawczość i wspólnotowość [Agency and Communion] (Gdańsk: GWP, 2010) and in an extensive article, co-authored by Andrea Abele, “Communal and Agentic Content in Social Cognition: A Dual Perspective Model” published in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, in 2014).
The publications, summarizing extensive research conducted in Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Columbia, Japan and the United States, have helped to disseminate the results globally. The book has been awarded the Teofrast Award, the most prestigious prize for books on psychology, in Poland.
The Dual Perspective Model proposed by Professor Wojciszke provides a new approach to the classic issue of social cognition. The theory has changed the basis of psychology and has been shaping the direction of current and future research since the 1990s. The Dual Perspective Model has become the new paradigm in modern social psychology. It allows to study stereotypes, biases as well as group and intergroup relations. Recently, the theory has been also applied to organisations and marketing brands.
Professor Bogdan Wojciszke
Bogdan Wojciszke graduated from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań with a M.A. degree in Psychology. In 1978, he completed his Ph.D. at the University of Gdańsk, where he worked as Director of the Institute of Psychology until 2000. He completed his post-doctoral studies (habilitacja) in 1986, at the University of Warsaw. In 1993, he was granted Professorial title in the discipline of Humanities. From 2002 to 2008, he was Director of the Institute of Psychology at the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN). Currently, Professor Wojciszke is Deputy Dean of the Sopot Faculty of Psychology at SWPS University.
Recipient of research internships at the University of Aberdeen, the Institute of Max Planck in Berlin and Nuffield College at University of Oxford and Alexander-von-Humboldt Research Fellowships. He was also a Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan and the University of Halle, in Germany. He is a member-correspondent of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN), an elected Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, and member of the Executive Board of the European Association of Social Psychology. Recipient of a MISTRZ Grant, provided by the Foundation for Polish Science. He is the most often cited Polish psychologist (over 4,000 times, h=30).
He was Editor in Chief of Przegląd Psychologiczny [Review of Psychology], the official journal of the Polish Psychological Association. Additionally, he was Editorial Consultant and Associate Editor of the European Journal of Social Psychology, Editorial Consultant for Social Psychology, a member of the Editorial Board of Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, and member of the Editorial Board of Studia Psychologiczne [Psychological Studies].
He is the author of psychology textbooks, such as Człowiek wśród ludzi: Zarys psychologii społecznej [Man Among People: Introduction to Social Psychology] and Psychologia społeczna [Social Psychology], which are used by psychology students at Polish universities. Professor Wojciszke has founded the Sopot Social Cognition Lab, the major social cognition research center in Eastern Europe. In 2011, he was awarded Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.
Other 2016 FNP Award Recipients
This year, other recipients of the FNP Prize included:
Professor Jan Kozłowski, from the Institute of Environmental Sciences at the Jagiellonian University, in Life and Earth Sciences category for the formulation and experimental verification of a theory explaining the diversity of life strategies of organisms, resulting from the optimal allocation of resources.
Professor Marek Samoć, from the Faulty of Chemistry at the Wrocław University of Science and Technology, in Chemical and Materials Sciences category for research on nano-structural materials for nonlinear optics.
Professor Józef Spałek, from the Institute of Physics at the Jagiellonian University, in Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences category for research on strongly correlated electron systems, in particular the derivation of the t-J model.
FNP Prize - Polish Nobel Prize
The Foundation for Polish Science Prize (FNP Prize) was established in 1992. So far, the Foundation has recognized 91 researchers, including the 2016 recipients. The FNP Prize is awarded for outstanding scientific achievements and discoveries that expand the boundaries of knowledge, introduce new research avenues, provide significant contributions to the development of science and culture in Poland, and ensure that Poland is at the forefront of meeting the most demanding challenges of the modern world. The award amount is 200,000 PLN (approx. 46,000 Euro).
The prize is awarded in four areas: life and earth sciences, chemical and materials sciences, mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences and humanities and social sciences.
The candidates for the FNP Prize are nominated by eminent representatives of science and research community that have been selected by the Council and the Board of Directors of the Foundation. The Foundation Council awards the FNP Prize on the basis of opinions provided by independent experts and reviewers.