submit your papers to SPPS!

 

remember how i like to tell journal editors how to do their job?  well.....

i am super excited to be starting my stint as editor in chief of Social Psychological and Personality Science, a journal that belongs to a consortium of four organizations (SPSP, SESP, EASP, and ARP), is co-sponsored by two more (AASP and SASP), and is published by SAGE.

as always, my blog posts reflect my own views and not those of SPPS, SAGE, or any other organization.  

i'm excited to take on this role for several reasons.  first, Allen McConnell, and before him Vincent Yzerbyt, built up this new journal into one of the top outlets for short reports in social/personality psychology.  the journal now receives almost 600 submissions in a typical year, publishes eight volumes per year, has a circulation of over 7,700, and has its first impact factor (2.56*). not bad for a six-year-old journal.

second, i kind of love this journal.  i've been an associate editor there for a few years, and have learned so much from reading the papers and reviews that have crossed my desk. it's amazing how much cool research can be packed into a 5,000 word article.  it seems like people are sending some of their best work to us.  i would like you to continue this excellent practice please. thank you.

third, i have an awesome team of associate editors:

Wiebke Bleidorn, UC Davis, USA
Lorne Campbell, University of Western Ontario, Canada
Jesse Graham, University of Southern California, USA
Dominique Muller, University Grenoble Alpes, France
Nickola C. Overall, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Kate A. Ratliff, University of Florida, USA
Joseph P. Simmons, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Gerben A. van Kleef, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Gregory D. Webster, University of Florida, USA
Tessa V. West, New York University, USA

fourth, it's an exciting time to be taking the helm.  lots of ideas about how to improve the scientific and peer-review process are floating around. each journal is taking its own approach to navigating this fast-changing landscape.  here are some things we are doing at SPPS:

• Upon submission, authors will be asked to confirm that they reported the following in the text of their manuscript:
• How sample size was determined for each study, and a discussion of statistical power.
• All data exclusions (e.g., dropped outliers) and how decisions about data exclusions were made.
• All measures or conditions for variables of interest to the research question(s), whether they were included in the analyses or not.
• Exact p-values, effect sizes, and 95% confidence intervals for all key results, or an explanation of why this is not possible.
• Tables, table notes, figures, and figure captions will not count towards the 5,000 word limit.
• Tables and Figures should be embedded in the manuscript upon submission, not appended at the end of the manuscript.
• The name of the handling editor (or ‘action editor’) will be printed at the end of each article.
• SPPS now accepts submissions of replication studies.

some other stats about SPPS that might be of interest:

• Acceptance rate: about 15-20%
• Average time from submission to decision: 39 days (47 if we exclude desk rejections)
• Average time from acceptance to online publication: about 20 days
• Average time from acceptance to print publication: about 4 months

i would love to hear your thoughts about these changes, and the journal in general.  and i sincerely hope you'll consider submitting your work here.  all your favorite researchers are doing it.  (actually, that's kind of true.  check out this month's table of contents. or last month's. or the month before that.)

finally, i hope you all appreciate the increased use of capital letters in this post.**

* i know i'm not supposed to care.  i wish that i didn't care.  but i do care.

** don't get used to it.

yeah.

Comments

[kadesoto]

Congrats on the new role! Wish I had something to submit!

[Komi German]

Congratulations, Simine! And congratulations, psychology!