Confessions of a Recently Outed Social Psychologist: The 2024 Cooley-Mead Award Address.

This address focuses on the complex relationship between social psychology and sociology, highlighting the undervaluation of social psychology within sociology and beyond. It presents five confessions reflecting the author's personal ambivalence about identifying as a social psychologist, the broader reluctance among sociologists to claim this identity despite engaging in social psychological scholarship, and the disciplinary tensions where social psychology's contributions are often overlooked or appropriated by other sociological subfields, notably cultural sociology. The address also discusses challenges such as the stigma attached to the term "social psychology," perceptions of its narrow scope, and sociology's own marginalization in the public sphere. Finally, it advocates for embracing and promoting social psychology's identity and contributions more assertively within sociology and the American Sociological Association to enhance its visibility and impact.