THE "HILLEL EINHORN NEW INVESTIGATOR" AWARD FOR 2008

The Society for Judgment and Decision Making is soliciting submissions for the Hillel Einhorn New Investigator Award. The purpose of this award is to encourage outstanding work by new researchers. Individuals are eligible if they have not yet completed their Ph.D. or if they have completed their Ph.D. within the last five years (on or after July 1, 2003). To be considered for the award, please submit four copies of a journal-style manuscript on any topic related to judgment and decision making. Submissions should be accompanied by (1) four copies of a summary or extended abstract of the paper, not to exceed four pages in length and (2) a cover letter that includes the name of the investigator's graduate advisor and the date that the Ph.D. was awarded (if applicable). In the case of co-authored papers, if the authors are all new investigators they can be considered jointly; otherwise, the new investigator(s) must be the primary author(s) and should be the primary source of ideas. Submissions in dissertation format will not be considered, but articles based on a dissertation are encouraged. Both reprints of published articles and manuscripts that have not yet been published are acceptable.

Submissions will be judged by a committee appointed by the Society and chaired by Dan Ariely. To be considered, submissions must be received by July 1, 2008. The committee will announce the results to the participants by September 15, 2008. The award will be announced and presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making, which will be held in Chicago, IL, November 15-17. The winner will be invited to give a presentation at that meeting. If the winner cannot obtain full funding from his/her own institution to attend the meeting, an application may be made to the Society for supplemental travel needs.

Send materials to:
Dan Ariely
Fuqua School of Business
Box 90120
Duke University
Durham, NC 27708
Phone: (919) 660-7703
dandan@duke.edu

Suggested Guidelines for the Einhorn Award Committee

(The guidelines below are directed at the Award Committee. Those who wish to apply for the award should be reading the official submission solitication that appears above for the current cycle's procedures).

The Society for Judgment and Decision Making presents the Hillel Einhorn New Investigator Award, the purpose of which is to encourage outstanding work by new researchers, every year (starting in 2007; formerly it was every other year). Individuals are eligible if they have not yet completed their Ph.D. or if they have completed their Ph.D. within the five years prior to the date of award. The award is based on a journal-style manuscript on any topic related to judgment and decision making. The award will be announced and presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making, which is normally held in November. The winner will be invited to give a presentation at that meeting. If the winner cannot obtain full funding from his/her own institution to attend the meeting, an application may be made to the Society for supplemental travel needs.

Procedures for submission

Submissions should be accompanied by (1) four copies of a summary or extended abstract of the paper, not to exceed four pages in length and (2) a cover letter that includes the name of the investigator's graduate advisor and the date that the Ph.D. was awarded (if applicable). In the case of co-authored papers, if the authors are all new investigators they can be considered jointly; otherwise, the new investigator(s) must be the primary author(s) and should be the primary source of ideas. Only one submission by an individual will be considered. Submissions in dissertation format will not be considered, but articles based on a dissertation are encouraged. Reprints of published articles, manuscripts in press and manuscripts that have not yet been submitted for publication are acceptable. To be considered, submissions must normally be received by July 1 of the year of the award.

Committee composition

The committee has been composed of four members of the Society, appointed by the President of the Society. Membership has been for a four year period, with one or two people rotating off the committee at the end of their four year term, so that continuity of membership is maintained by having at least two remaining members. A returning member, designated by the president of the Society, normally serves as chair of the committee. It is normally the case that at least one member of the committee is a past winner of the award. It is expected that a committee member who has a student who has submitted a paper will recuse himself or herself at an appropriate time in the committee deliberations.

Publicizing the award

The chair should be responsible for requesting the editor of the JDM Newsletter to announce the award in a timely fashion, and requesting the JDM webmaster to include the announcement on the JDM home page. The announcement should describe the procedures, indicate to whom the submissions should be made and by what date. Previous announcements can serve as a template, and would normally require only slight modification.

Committee procedures

The announcement should instruct submitters to send the submission to the committee chair, named in the announcement. In rare cases, the chair may see a submission as outside the guidelines, and reject the submission. As soon as the date for submission is past, the chair, with the advice of the whole committee, designates readers for the submitted papers and distributes the papers.

If there are ten or fewer papers, then the whole committee could be asked to read and evaluate each one. Each committee member rates each submission on a 10-point scale, with 10 being the highest rating. The ratings are sent to the chair who distributes them to all the members. The committee can decide who the winner is by whatever decision rules on which the members agree.

If there are too many submissions for each committee member to read them all, then the set of submissions can be divided in so that each committee member has a reasonable number to evaluate. In such cases, the chair can divide the committee into subcommittees. Each subcommittee uses the same rating scale to select the top two or three candidates from its group. The surviving candidates are then evaluated by the whole committee and the whole committee can decide who the winner is, as above.

If it so chooses, the committee may elect to name an honorable mention as well as a winner. The name of the honorable mentionee could be announced at the meeting of the Society.

Announcement of the award

As soon as possible after the committee has selected the winner the committee chair informs the president of the Society and the program chair of the name of the winner and the title of the winning submission. The president of the Society can then have the pleasure of informing the winner! The winner is publicly announced at the meeting.

Notes

At the discretion of the committee, component judgments judgments may be made. For example, each submission could be given dimension ratings as well as an overall rating. A possible set would be

• In the core of JDM
• Theoretical importance
• Methodological soundness
• Implications for practice