2019 Submission Guidelines

Authors of manuscripts submitted after January 1, 2020, should adhere to the 2020 Submission Guidelines, which can be found here.

Updated 22 October 2018

Psychological Science welcomes the submission of papers presenting original research, theory, or applications on mind, brain, or behavior. Preference is given to papers that make a new and notable contribution—an idea, a discovery, a connection—to psychological science, broadly interpreted to include emerging as well as established areas of research (e.g., neuroeconomics versus psychophysics), across specialties of psychology and related fields, and that are written to be intelligible to a wide range of readers.

Submission of Manuscripts
Manuscripts should be submitted electronically to the Psychological Science submission site, http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/psci. Before submitting your manuscript, please be sure to consult the Contributor FAQ.

Read the latest editorial policies from the APS Publications Committee.

Quick Links

Manuscript Review Process

Two-Tier Review
Two members of the editorial team read each submitted manuscript. One reader has interests and expertise in the relevant research area and offers a specialist’s opinion, whereas the other reader, who is less knowledgeable in the subject matter, provides a generalist’s perspective. In most cases, the specialist reader is an Associate Editor, whereas the generalist reader is a Senior Editor or the Editor in Chief.

If either reader thinks the paper has a reasonable chance of ultimately being accepted for publication in the journal, then it is sent to two or more external referees for extended review. The Associate Editor usually oversees this process and writes the subsequent decision letter (accept, reject, or revise and resubmit). Alternatively, if both readers decide the paper is unlikely to be competitive for publication, then the paper is declined on initial editorial review.

Within 2 weeks of submission, authors are notified by e-mail that their manuscript either (a) has been declined on initial editorial review or (b) has been sent to outside experts for extended review. For manuscripts afforded extended review, authors can expect a decision within 60 days of manuscript submission. Manuscripts declined after either initial or extended review cannot be reconsidered unless the responsible action editor has invited resubmission following revision (see Question 16 in the Contributor FAQ).

Authors may submit a list of recommended (and opposed) reviewers. Authors often are familiar with experts in their area of research, and editors appreciate the suggestions. Keep in mind that editors will consider these requests but cannot guarantee that they will be honored.

Please note: Psychological Science uses StatCheck, an R program written by Sacha Epskamp and Michele B. Nuijten that is designed to detect inconsistencies between different components of inferential statistics (e.g., t value, df, and p). StatCheck is not designed to detect fraud, but rather to catch typographical errors (which occur often in psychology; see https://mbnuijten.com/statcheck/). We run StatCheck only on manuscripts that are sent out for extended review and not immediately rejected after extended review. Authors are informed if StatCheck detects any inconsistencies. Authors are encouraged to run StatCheck (http://statcheck.io/) before submitting a manuscript, and authors of accepted manuscripts are now required to provide a clean StatCheck report before the manuscript enters production (see below).

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Criteria for Acceptance for Publication in Psychological Science

The main criteria for publication in Psychological Science are general theoretical significance and methodological/statistical rigor.

  • “General” because to warrant publication in this journal a manuscript must be of general interest to psychological scientists. Research that is likely to be read and understood only by specialists in a subdomain is better suited for a more specialized journal.
  • “Theoretical significance” because research published in Psychological Science should make a difference in the way psychologists think about important issues. Work that is purely descriptive or that only modestly extends knowledge of firmly established phenomena can be valuable but is unlikely to meet criteria for acceptance in this highly selective journal.
  • “Methodological/statistical rigor” because replicability is a foundational value of science. Replicability is not the only consideration, but it is an important one.  Science, like the rest of life, is full of trade-offs, and the editors at Psychological Science appreciate that it is more difficult to attain high levels of precision and replicability in some important areas of psychology than others.  Nonetheless, to succeed, submissions must be as rigorous as is practically and ethically feasible, and must also be frank in addressing limits on their precision and generality (see Simons, Shoda, & Lindsay, 2017).

The journal aims to publish works that meet these three criteria in a wide range of substantive areas of psychology.  Historically, cognitive and social psychology have been dominant in this journal, but the editors hope to see increased representation of other major areas of scientific psychology, including, but not limited to, neuroscience, health, and developmental areas.  Submissions centered on clinical science that meet the criteria outlined above will be considered, but many clinically oriented manuscripts are likely to be of primary interest to clinicians and hence are more appropriate for Clinical Psychological Science. Similarly, works with a primary focus on methods and research practices are generally better suited for Advances in Methods & Practices in Psychological Science, but the editors are open to considering methodological manuscripts of extraordinary generality and importance.

Note that “theoretical significance” differs from “surprising novelty.” Indeed, surprising effects are subject to particularly careful scrutiny.  A direct replication that yields compelling evidence for (or against) a theoretically important but empirically uncertain phenomenon might well meet the “theoretical significance” criterion. (For ways to assess evidence for the null hypothesis, see, for example, Masson, 2011; Harms & Lakens, 2018; and JASP.)

To promote replicability and transparency, authors are encouraged to preregister their studies (including data-analysis plans) before conducting them (see Lindsay, Simons, & Lilienfeld, 2017; Veldkamp et al., 2018). As one option, the Open Science Framework provides a step-by-step workflow for pregistering a research project at osf.io/prereg. Researchers are also asked to make their materials, data, and analysis scripts available to reviewers (in ways that are ethically appropriate and practically feasible).  Prospective submitters of manuscripts are encouraged to read former Editor-in-Chief Eric Eich’s 2014 editorial, current Editor-in-Chief Steve Lindsay’s 2015 and 2016 editorials, and an in-press chapter by Mellor, Vazire, and Lindsay on writing transparent research reports.

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Journals of the Association for Psychological Science (APS)
Psychological Science does not compete with other journals of APS, including Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, Clinical Psychological Science, Current Directions in Psychological Science, Perspectives on Psychological Science, and Psychological Science in the Public Interest. The journals vary in terms of domain and manuscript formats. Manuscripts rejected by another APS journal on the grounds of quality (e.g., flaws in methodology, data, or concept) are not eligible for consideration by Psychological Science.

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Preparing Your Manuscript

Article Types
See also Table 1 below.

Research Article. Most of the articles published in Psychological Science are Research Articles. Research Articles may present new data, new theory, new methods, or any combination of these. They are limited to

  • 2,000 words (includes all introductory and discussion material in the main text, any footnotes, acknowledgments, and appendices; does not include 150-word abstract, Method or Results sections (except footnotes), cover page, Author Contributions, or reference list)
  • 40 references

The Method and Results sections of Research Articles do not count toward the total word count limit. The aim here is to allow authors to provide clear, complete, self-contained descriptions of their studies. But as much as Psychological Science prizes narrative clarity and completeness, so too does it value concision. In almost all cases, an adequate account of method and results can be achieved in 2,500 or fewer words for Regular Articles. Methodological minutiae and fine-grained details on the Results—the sorts of information that only “insiders” would relish and require for purposes of replication—should be placed in SOM-R, not in the main text.

Many Research Articles contain two or more studies. Such submissions may include “interim” introductions and discussions that bracket the studies, in addition to an opening “general” introduction and a closing “general” discussion. Authors who opt for this sort of organization should bear in mind that the aforementioned word limits on introductory and Discussion sections include both interim and general varieties. Any combined “Results and Discussion” sections will be counted toward the word limit.

Narrative material that belongs in the introductory or Discussion sections should not be placed in the Method or Results section, within reasonable limits. Thus, for example, authors may include a few sentences to place their findings in context when they are presented in the Results section. However, excessive packing of a Method or Results section with material appropriate to the introduction or Discussion will trigger immediate revision or rejection of the manuscript. Hybrid “Methods & Results” sections are disallowed for any type of submission.

Short Report. Short Reports present concise but complete accounts of new empirical findings of broad interest. They are limited to

  • 750 words (includes all introductory and discussion material in the main text, any footnotes, acknowledgments, and appendices; does not include 150-word abstract, Method or Results sections (except footnotes), cover page, Author Contributions, or reference list)
  • 20 references
  • 2 figures and/or tables (combined total)

Commentary. Commentaries criticize and/or supplement articles previously published in Psychological Science. They are limited to

  • 1,000 words (includes main text, notes, acknowledgments, and appendices; does not include cover page, Author Contributions, or reference list)
  • 20 references
  • 1 figure (no more than 2 panels) or 1 table

Note: For Commentaries or Replies to Commentaries reporting new data, the Method and Results sections are not included in the word count.

The action editor typically solicits feedback on a submitted Commentary from the lead author of the target article, in addition to reviews by two independent experts. Upon acceptance of a Commentary that is critical of a paper previously published in Psychological Science, the action editor will invite the lead author of the target article to submit a Reply to Commentary (see below).

Reply to Commentary. Replies to Commentaries allow authors of articles that are targets of critical commentaries an opportunity to formally respond. Replies to Commentaries are by invitation only, and like the critical commentaries that initiated them, they are subject to external review (including by the author of the Commentary) and their acceptance is not assured. Replies to Commentaries are limited to

  • 1,000 words (includes main text, notes, acknowledgments, and appendices; does not include cover page, Author Contributions, or reference list)
  • 20 references
  • 1 figure (no more than 2 panels) or 1 table

The criterion for Commentaries and Replies to Commentaries is general theoretical significance.

Preregistered Direct Replication. Preregistered Direct Replications (PDRs) report high-quality, preregistered, direct replications of studies published in Psychological Science. Authors of a PDR must make a convincing case that the replication will make a valuable contribution to understanding a phenomenon and/or theory of broad current interest to psychologists. As with all Psychological Science submissions, the primary criterion is general theoretical significance. Direct replications should reproduce the original methods and procedures as closely as possible, with the goal of measuring the same effect under essentially (but not necessarily superficially) the same conditions as in the original study. Researchers undertaking a PDR project are encouraged to consult with the author or authors of the original article. Researchers are encouraged to submit a proposal for a PDR before they begin data collection (as per the procedure for Registered Reports as described at https://cos.io/rr/). Once an RR-PDR protocol has been provisionally accepted (Stage 1 acceptance), authors are required to register their approved protocol on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/) or other recognised repository (publicly or under private embargo that is retained until final acceptance of the Stage 2 manuscript). Authors may use any recognized registry, but the accepted protocol can be easily registered using a tailored mechanism for Registered Reports on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/rr/). Following registration, authors of RR-PDRs will conduct the study as planned. PDR submissions will also be considered after data have been collected, provided that a detailed research plan had been formally preregistered prior to data collection, but RR’s are encouraged.

Table 1. Limits for Psychological Science Articles by Type

Article Type

Word Limit

Reference Limit

Figure and/or Table Limit

What counts toward the word limit?

Introduction & Discussion

Method & Results

Notes, Acknowledgments, appendices

Cover page, abstract, Author Contributions, references

Research Article

2,000

40

n/a

X

X

Short Report

750

20

2

X

X

Commentary or Reply to Commentary

1,000

20

1

All main text, including notes, acknowledgments, and appendices count toward the word limit*

Preregistered Direct Replication

1,500

30

3

X

X

*For commentaries reporting new data, Method and Results sections are not included in the word count.

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Manuscript Style, Structure, and Content
The style of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th edition, must be followed with respect to handling of references, abbreviations, and symbols. Please embed figures and tables within the main text.

Authors are encouraged to consult the APA Guide for New Authors for more information on the manuscript-submission and peer-review process.

Further guidance can be found on our Manuscript Structure, Style, and Content Guidelines page.

File Types

You may upload your manuscript and ancillary files as Word .doc or .docx, as .rtf, as .pdf, or as .tex. If you submit a .tex file, please also submit a PDF file conversion, as the submission portal cannot render .tex files in the PDF proof.

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Preparation of Graphics
The journal requires that authors embed figures within the main document near to where they are discussed in the text. A figure’s caption should be placed in the text just below the figure.

Authors who are submitting revisions should also upload separate figure files that adhere to the APS Figure Format and Style Guidelines. Submitting separate, production-quality files helps to facilitate timely publication should the manuscript ultimately be accepted.

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Statistics
Psychological Science recommends the use of the “new statistics”—effect sizes, confidence intervals, and meta-analysis—to avoid problems associated with null-hypothesis significance testing (NHST). Authors are encouraged to consult this Psychological Science tutorial by Geoff Cumming, which argues that estimation and meta-analysis are more informative than NHST and that they foster development of a cumulative, quantitative discipline. Cumming has also prepared a video workshop on the new statistics that can be found here.

Authors must include effect sizes for their major results and distributional information in their graphs (or tables, for that matter). Fine-grained graphical presentations that show how data are distributed are often the most honest way of communicating results. Please report 95% confidence intervals instead of standard deviations or standard errors around mean dependent variables, because confidence intervals convey more useful information—another point discussed in Cumming’s tutorial.

Reporting Statistical Results

The abstract should include information about the sample size(s) in studies reported in the manuscript. Please report test statistics with two decimal points (e.g., t(34) = 5.67) and probability values with three decimal points. In addition, exact p values should be reported for all results greater than .001; p values below this range should be described as “p < .001.” Authors should be particularly attentive to APA style when typing statistical details (e.g., Ns for chi-square tests, formatting of dfs), and if special mathematical expressions are required, they should not be graphic objects but rather inserted with Word’s Equation Editor or similar.

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Guidelines for Reporting fMRI Data
Studies involving fMRI or other neuroimaging methods typically entail much larger numbers of measures than those found in behavioral research. Analyses of neuroimaging data have their own well-developed statistical frameworks and reporting standards. We recognize that the focus of fMRI analyses is often not on effect sizes, but rather on (a) statistical reliability and (b) replicability. We refer authors to Poldrack et al. (2008) for a useful list of reporting guidelines for such analyses.

We also recognize that adherence to the kind of complete reporting suggested by Poldrack et al. (2008) may require partitioning some of this material to Supplemental Online Materials (SOM). Most of the items listed by Poldrack et al. (2008) in their Appendix A can be succinctly and completely described in the main text. Exceptions that should be put into SOM are sections of the appendix labeled “Intersubject registration” and “Statistical modeling” (if nonstandard).

For region of interest (ROI)-based analyses, the process of ROI selection should be clearly stated in the main text; in particular, it should be noted whether the ROI was selected prior to any analyses of the data. Reports of ROI analyses should include effect sizes. Any ROI-based analyses must be supplemented by whole-brain analyses. A complete table of activation coordinates, together with their statistics, should be provided; however, such tables should typically be put in SOM.

The strongest submissions will address both reliability and replicability and will report results for appropriately large samples and/or a replication study. For instance, a study concerning correlations of brain activation with behavioral measures may typically require a sample in excess of 100 subjects, although we recognize that sample size will vary widely depending on the details of the study. Power analyses are recommended (see Mumford, 2012).

Psychological Science will place emphasis on those functional neuroimaging studies that make a clear and compelling contribution to understanding psychological mechanisms, above and beyond a purely neuroanatomical contribution. Therefore, authors should carefully support reverse-inference statements in their Results and Discussion sections. Such support could come from strong prior results in the literature, as well as from separate meta-analyses (see Poldrack, 2011).

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Candidate Gene Research
The editors of Behavior Genetics have established perceptive policies regarding candidate gene association and Candidate Gene × Environment interaction studies of complex traits (Hewitt, 2012). Submissions to Psychological Science that report similar candidate-gene studies are expected to follow those policies.

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Research Disclosure Statements
Submitting authors must declare that they have disclosed (a) all of the dependent variables or measures collected, (b) any data exclusions (subjects or observations), and (c) all of the conditions/groups/predictors tested for each study reported in the submitted manuscript. The Disclosure Statement section looks like this:


For all studies reported in your manuscript, check the boxes below to confirm that:

  1. All dependent variables or measures that were analyzed for this article’s target research question have been reported in the Methods section(s)
  2. All levels of all independent variables or all predictors or manipulations, whether successful or failed, have been reported in the Method section(s)
  3. The total number of excluded observations and (b) the reasons for making those exclusions (if any) have been reported in the Method section(s)

Submitting authors are also asked to explain why they believe that the sample sizes in the studies they report were appropriate. Bakker et al. (2016) reported evidence that many published research psychologists have faulty intuitions regarding statistical power. Over the past 50 years, many psychologists have conducted large numbers of studies with low statistical power and submitted for publication those studies that obtained statistically significant results (Cohen, 1969). That practice leads to exaggerated estimates of effect size. Indeed, when statistical power is very low, only results that exaggerate the true size of an effect can be statistically significant. Therefore, it is typically not appropriate to base sample size solely on the sample sizes and/or effect sizes reported in prior research or on the results of small pilot studies (see, e.g., Gelman & Carlin, 2014). There is no single right answer to this question, but authors must explain (in the submission portal and in the manuscript) why they believe their sample size is appropriate. If an estimate of the size of an effect is given, the unit of measurement (e.g., Cohen’s d) must be specified and some rationale for believing that the estimate is sound must be provided. If the study tests more than one effect, authors must make clear which of those effects their power analysis was based upon.

Submitters are also asked if they conducted preliminary analyses on the data and decided whether or not to collect additional data based on the outcome of those analyses. That practice, known as “optional stopping,” inflates the risk of making a Type I error (see Simmons, Nelson, & Simonsohn, 2011).

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Author Contributions
Authorship implies significant participation in the research reported or in writing the manuscript, including participation in the design and/or interpretation of reported experiments or results, participation in the acquisition and/or analysis of data, and participation in the drafting and/or revising of the manuscript. All authors must agree to the order in which the authors are listed and must have read the final manuscript and approved its submission. They must also agree to take responsibility for the work in the event that its integrity or veracity is questioned.

Each submitted manuscript must include a paragraph (not included in the word count), after the body of the main text and before any acknowledgments, that states each author’s contribution. Here are examples:

“D. P. Smith developed the study concept. All authors contributed to the study design. Testing and data collection were performed by D. P. Smith. D. P. Smith and A. C. Brown performed the data analysis and interpretation under the supervision of H. L. Jones. D. P. Smith drafted the manuscript, and A. C. Brown and H. L. Jones provided critical revisions. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript for submission.”

“D. P. Smith is the sole author of this article and is responsible for its content.”

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Open Practices Statement
Psychological Science encourages researchers to preregister their research plans and (to the extent practically feasible and ethically appropriate) to make their data and materials available to other scientists (for rationales, see Lindsay, 2015, 2017, and Lindsay, Simons, & Lilienfeld, 2016). As part of that encouragement, each manuscript reporting new empirical work is to include an Open Practices Statement in which the author(s) state whether or not the study(ies) reported were preregistered and whether or not the data and/or materials are available on a third-party permanent archive. The statements should be direct and to the point. Authors are not required to offer explanations but they may do so if they choose. Commentaries and Replies that do not report new data do not need to include an Open Practices Statement. The Open Practices Statement will have no bearing on the peer review process.

All of the following are examples of acceptable statements:

“Neither of the experiments reported in this article was formally preregistered. Neither the data nor the materials have been made available on a permanent third-party archive; requests for the data or materials can be sent via email to the lead author at [email].”

“Neither of the studies reported in this article was formally preregistered. The data have not been made available on a permanent third-party archive because our Institutional Review Board ruled that we could not post the data; requests for the data can be sent via email to the lead author. The complete questionnaires are included in the Supplemental Online Material associated with this article at [url].”

“Experiment 1 was not formally preregistered; the preregistration for Experiment 2 can be accessed at [url]. De-identified data for both experiments along with a code-book and the data analysis scripts are posted at [url]; access to the data is limited to qualified researchers. The materials used in these studies are widely available.”

“We analyzed archival data that are not under our direct control; requests to access the data should be directed to the relevant archive. Our complete analysis scripts and code book have been posted at [url].”

Questions, concerns, and suggestions regarding this Open Practices Statement can be directed to psci@psychologicalscience.org.

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Ethical Considerations
Authors reporting research involving human subjects should indicate whether the protocol was approved by an institutional review board or similar committee and whether it was carried out in accordance with the provisions of the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki. Authors reporting research involving nonhuman animal subjects should indicate whether institutional and national guidelines for the care and use of laboratory animals were followed.

Identifying information of participants will not be published unless the information is necessary and written, informed consent is obtained.

Any potential conflicts of interest should be reported in the online submission process and in the article. If you have been remunerated for advancing a particular perspective related to the research reported in your manuscript (e.g., regarding the efficacy of an intervention) then that should be declared as a potential conflict when you submit a manuscript related to that topic. The Declaration of Conflicting Interests section that appears in every article will state any reported conflicts or will read “The author(s) declared no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship or the publication of this article.”

Manuscripts should conform to the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, which can be found in full at www.icmje.org. In particular, authors should reference the following sections:

  • II.A. Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors
  • II.B. Author Responsibilities—Conflicts of Interest
  • II.E. Protection of Research Participants
  • III.B. Scientific Misconduct, Expressions of Concern, and Retraction
  • III.K. Clinical Trial Registration (if applicable)

The APS journals follow the code of conduct of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and follow COPE guidelines when misconduct is suspected or alleged.

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Conference Proceedings
Authors who wish to submit to Psychological Science a manuscript that contains research previously presented at a conference must do so in accordance with the following guidelines:

If the proceedings published only the abstracts of the conference presentations, or if the conference proceedings were provided only to attendees (i.e., not made available to the public or to members of the press), authors may submit their manuscript to the journal. If the proceedings were more widely distributed or made available to the press or public, please include an explanation in an additional file, and the editor-in-chief will determine if the manuscript is eligible for consideration by the journal. If the proceedings material contained reports more substantive than just abstracts, the journal submission must be significantly different from the proceedings material in order to be considered. As a rule of thumb, the Psychological Science submission must be at least twice the word length of the proceedings material, to provide authors the opportunity to clearly distinguish between the two reports in terms of their scientific scope and significance.

If any version or part of the submitted manuscript has been published in conference proceedings, the authors must disclose this in their submission and provide a complete reference to the publication in their manuscript. Authors must also upload the published proceedings material as supplementary material with their submission.

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Supplemental Material
Authors are free to submit certain types of Supplemental Material for online-only publication. If the manuscript is accepted for publication, such material will be published online on the publisher’s Web site, linked to the article.

Psychological Science allows for the online publication of two types of supplemental online material, reviewed (SOM-R) and unreviewed (SOM-U). SOM-R includes material that has undergone both an initial review (by two members of the editorial team) and an extended review (by two or more external referees). SOM-U includes unreviewed material, or information that has not been vetted by either the editors or the external referees. Neither type of supplemental material will be copyedited or formatted; it will be posted online exactly as submitted.

The editorial team takes the adjective supplemental seriously. Both SOM-R and SOM-U should include the sort of material that enhances the reader’s understanding of an article but is not essential for understanding the article.

More about SOM-R and SOM-U:

One intuitive way to understand the SOM-R/SOM-U distinction is that SOM-R is the kind of information that you might write in a rebuttal letter to reviewers who want to see more explanation of methods or supplemental analyses, whereas SOM-U is the kind of information that you might post on your own lab’s Web site to make available background information or provide stimuli.

In SOM-R, authors may wish to provide more details on their methods and procedures—details of particular interest to specialists in the area (e.g., event-related potential measurement: Piton et al., 2000; functional MRI: Poldrack et al., 2008; structural equation modeling: Raykov, Tomer, & Nesselroade, 1991); to readers concerned with the reliability, generality, and robustness of the results (e.g., Simmons, Nelson, & Simonsohn, 2011); or to researchers who might endeavor to replicate the results for themselves. If authors have carried out conceptual or methodological replications of their own, they may wish to summarize such complementary studies in SOM-R. Given that Psychological Science places a premium on innovation and discovery, evidence that attests to the replicability of the principal results is highly valued by editors, reviewers, and readers alike. SOM-R is generally limited to 1,000 words (including text, notes, and captions for tables or figures), 10 references, and three tables or figures (combined); requests to exceed these limits must be approved in advance by the Editor in Chief.

Common examples of SOM-U include research stimuli, audio or video recordings, and ancillary citations; for example, authors who have reached the allowable limit of references for their type of publication (General Article, Short Report, etc.) may wish to cite additional sources as Recommended Readings within the SOM-U. References to classic as well as contemporary contributions in the relevant research area are especially desirable, as they provide an easy and effective way for authors to stitch their work into the broader tapestry of the field.

To reiterate a key point made earlier (see Article Types), “SOM-R is the preferred location for methodological minutiae and fine-grained details on the Results—the sorts of information that only ‘insiders’ would relish and require for purposes of replication.” Authors are strongly advised to take full advantage of SOM-R for this purpose, as it allows the editors to make efficient use of their limited annual allotment of printed pages.

If you intend to upload SOM-R or SOM-U, please read the Guidelines for Publication of Supplemental Online Material, which describes conventions for naming files and for citing Supplemental Materials in the manuscript. SOM-R and SOM-U files should be uploaded when the manuscript proper is submitted.

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English Language Help
Authors who would like to refine the use of English in their manuscripts might consider using the services of a professional English-language editing company. A listing of some of these companies follows. Please be aware that the journal makes no endorsement of any of these companies. An author’s use of these services in no way guarantees that his or her submission will ultimately be accepted. Any arrangement an author enters into will be exclusively between the author and the particular company, and any costs incurred are the sole responsibility of the author.

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Contributor FAQ
Contributors are encouraged to consult the Contributor FAQ before submitting manuscripts to Psychological Science.

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Following Acceptance of Your Manuscript

Open Practices
Manuscripts accepted for publication are eligible to earn one or more of the following badges in recognition of open scientific practices:

  • Open Data badge for making publicly available the digitally-shareable data necessary to reproduce the reported result. This includes annotated copies of the code or syntax used for all exploratory and principal analyses.
  • Open Materials badge for making publicly available the digitally shareable materials/methods necessary to reproduce the reported results. Authors are also encouraged to make publicly available video recordings of their study procedures; in return, a special Visualized Methods notation will be added to the authors’ Open Materials badge.
  • Preregistration badge for having a preregistered design and analysis plan for the reported research and reporting results according to that plan. An analysis plan includes specification of the variables and the analyses that will be conducted. Please see Steve Lindsay’s statement on preregistration for more information.

The criteria for earning badges and the process by which they are awarded, along with answers to frequently asked questions, are described in the Open Practices document. The document proposes two ways for certifying organizations to award badges for individual studies: disclosure or peer review. For now, this journal will follow the simpler disclosure method. Please see the Open Practice Badges page and Eric Eich’s Observer interview for more information.

More about the Visualized Methods notation:

Even with uncapped Method sections in Research Articles and Research Reports (see Table 1), there is only so much an author can convey through words; researchers who want to follow up on someone’s paper might benefit by seeing how things were actually done. Videos of study procedures could also serve as valuable teaching tools for psychology students, undergraduate and graduate alike.

Making such videos publicly available should facilitate obtaining an Open Materials badge, but would not necessarily be sufficient to earn one. For instance, in the case of a study with a computer-delivered behavioral task, the script would need to be available in order for another researcher to reproduce the procedure; a video of someone completing the computer task would not be sufficient. However, the video would make it a good deal easier for some kinds of studies to earn the Open Materials badge, such as those that entail a social interaction of some kind.

By awarding an Open Materials badge with Visualized Methods notation, Psychological Science aims to promote open behavior and to recognize that a video can be very useful for certain manuscripts; however, the journal is not trying to say that a manuscript without a video is somehow inferior to one with a video (which may not make sense in all cases).

Journal staff will contact the corresponding authors of accepted manuscripts with details on the badge-awarding process.

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Embargo Policy and Media Relations
Psychological Science does not impose media embargoes. In accordance with our mission of sharing the science with the public, APS may in some cases publicly disseminate information about the content of accepted articles before they are actually published in the journal. Authors are free to disseminate to colleagues and media outlets information about a forthcoming article that they have contributed to Psychological Science as soon as the manuscript has been accepted and they have completed the Contributor Publishing Agreement form. Media or press-office inquiries should be directed to Anna Mikulak, Associate Director of News & Information, at amikulak@psychologicalscience.org.

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Contributor Publishing Agreement
In order for SAGE to proceed with publication of your article, you must complete a Contributor Publishing Agreement online. You can find this form in your Author Center at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/psci. Within your Author Dashboard is the “Manuscripts with Decisions” queue, where you will be able to access the “Contributor Form” link within the “Action” column for your accepted manuscript. Please note that without a completed agreement, we are unable to proceed with publication of your article.

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Third-Party Permissions
If your accepted manuscript contains third-party material requiring permission, please forward all permission agreements to the editorial office (editorialoffice@psychologicalscience.org) within 5 days of signing the Contributor Publishing Agreement.

If a figure or video includes an image of a person, the authors must obtain a signed Audio/Visual Likeness Release Form from each person appearing in the figure or video before the article can be published. This is also true for photographs or video of celebrities. Please contact the editorial office (editorialoffice@psychologicalscience.org) if you have any questions.

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StatCheck
StatCheck is an R program that is designed to detect inconsistencies between different components of inferential statistics (e.g., t value, df, and p). StatCheck is not designed to detect fraud, but rather to catch typographical errors (see https://mbnuijten.com/statcheck/ for more about StatCheck). Journal staff run StatCheck on every manuscript that is not immediately rejected after review, but authors of accepted manuscripts must also provide a StatCheck report run on the accepted version of the manuscript that indicates a clean (i.e., error-free) result. A web app version of StatCheck can be accessed at http://statcheck.io/. If StatCheck does detect errors in the accepted version of the manuscript, authors should contact the action editor directly to determine the best course of action.

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Figures
Authors of accepted manuscripts must be prepared to provide production-quality figure files to editorial office staff. This typically means high-resolution [> 300 dots/in. (DPI)] JPEG files for image elements and editable files for graphs or other line drawings. Please see our Figure Format and Style Guidelines for more information.

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Acceptance Date
Please note that the official acceptance date will reflect the day our editorial office has all the files necessary to begin the production process—including the Contributor Agreement, any permissions documentation, and production-quality figure files—rather than the date the acceptance letter was sent to authors.

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Copyediting
A member of APS’s production team will contact you regarding copyediting of your manuscript. Please note that copyeditors edit accepted articles—often extensively—so that they will be clear and accessible to all readers of Psychological Science.

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Funder Mandates/Open Access
The APS journals offer both green and gold open-access options that enable authors to comply with mandates from funders such as the National Institutes of Health, Wellcome Trust, and RCUK.

APS and SAGE can help fulfill many funders’ mandates to archive your accepted manuscript by making your article open access and depositing your manuscript files in PubMed Central. NIH-funded manuscripts submitted to Psychological Science after September 1, 2013, will be deposited into PubMed Central upon acceptance for publication as long as the authors indicate the funding during the submission process. Authors who wish to pay to make an article/manuscript publicly available immediately upon publication in order to comply with NIH or similar requirements may use the SAGE Choice option (gold open access).

Note that authors who do not choose to participate in SAGE Choice must choose a 12-month embargo for manuscripts submitted to PubMed Central.

For more information on open-access options and compliance at SAGE, including author self-archiving deposits (green open access) or SAGE Choice (gold open access), visit SAGE Publishing Policies on the Journal Author Gateway.

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Permission to Reuse
As author and copyright holder of the article, you may do the following at any time without seeking permission:

  • Distribute photocopies of the published article for teaching purposes or to research colleagues on a noncommercial basis.
  • Circulate or post the original manuscript submission (i.e., the pre-peer-review version) or an abstract of the article on any repository or Web site.
  • Post the accepted (post-peer-review) version of the manuscript on your own personal Web site, your department’s Web site, or the repository of your institution.

At any time after publication, you may use the final published version of the article in a book you write or edit without seeking permission.

One year after publication, you may also

  • Post the accepted version of the article in any repository or Web site not listed above.

You may not post the final published article on a Web site or in a repository without permission from SAGE.

When posting or reusing the article, please provide a link to the appropriate DOI for the published version.

Please note that the SAGE-created PDF of the final published article may not be posted elsewhere at any time.

For any use not detailed above, please contact SAGE at permissions@sagepub.com. Please forward to SAGE all inquiries and requests received from third parties for permissions, reprint rights, subsidiary rights licenses, and all other use and licensing of the article.

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Corrections
If you discover an error in your published article, please email psci@psychologicalscience.org immediately. The journal’s managing editor will work with you and the editor-in-chief to determine whether a correction should be made and what form it should take. An erratum corrects an error made by APS or the publisher; a corrigendum corrects an error made by the author(s).

A correction notice will be published if an error affects the publication record, the scientific integrity of the article, or the reputation of the authors or the journal. In general, Psychological Science will not publish a formal correction for spelling or grammatical errors or for errors that do not significantly affect an article’s findings or conclusions or a reader’s understanding.

If a correction notice is published, a new, corrected version of the article will be posted online unless there is no obvious corrected version to replace the original. For example, if the purpose of the correction is to acknowledge work that was not cited but perhaps should have been, there will be a correction notice but no new online version.

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OnlineFirst Publication and TWiPS
All accepted manuscripts are published online (OnlineFirst) as soon as they reach their final copyedited, typeset, and corrected form, and each accepted article appears in a monthly print issue of Psychological Science as well as in the digital This Week in Psychological Science (TWiPS), which is distributed weekly to all APS members.

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Approximate Timeline
After you have submitted your Contributor Publishing Agreement, you may be contacted by an editorial assistant requesting the proper files needed for production. (If you do not receive a message from the editorial office after you submit the Contributor Publishing Agreement, it means you have already provided all the files we need for production – thanks!) Once your article has entered production, you can expect to hear from a copyeditor within approximately 4 weeks. Every manuscript receives a thorough, substantive edit, and the manuscript is returned to the corresponding author for review before it is typeset. After the copyediting process is complete, your article should be published online within approximately 3 weeks, depending on how promptly proof corrections are returned.

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