Bridging Social and Cognitive Psychology?

When I was asked to comment on the benefits and costs of bridging cognitive psychology, my own field of research, with social psychology, I thought this was easy—the more so as I have a social-psychological background myself (Schultz-Gambard, Feierabend, & Hommel, 1988; Schultz-Gambard & Hommel, 1987). However, addressing this issue requires one to define what a cognitive and a social psychologist is, and here my confusion began. Let me use an empirical example—an experiment that I conducted for my doctoral dissertation (Hommel, 1993)—to explain why.