Psychological Bulletin

Before submission, please carefully read and follow the submission guidelines detailed below. Manuscripts that do not conform to the submission guidelines may be returned without review.

Submissions are handled only through our Editorial Manager platform, and the only official journal website is through APA. If you believe you interacted with a fraudulent website for this journal, please email APA Journals. Review our resource for authors for more information on identifying predatory journals.

Submission

Submit manuscripts electronically through the Manuscript Submission Portal. Our preferred format is Microsoft Word (.docx). LaTex (.tex) may also be used; submit as a zip file with an accompanied Portable Document Format (.pdf) of the manuscript file.

All new manuscripts submitted should be prepared according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association using the 7th edition. Manuscripts may be copyedited for bias-free language (see Chapter 5 of the Publication Manual). APA Style and Grammar Guidelines for the 7^th edition are available.

Submit Manuscript

Blair T. Johnson, editor
University of Connecticut

General correspondence may be directed to the editor's office.

In addition to addresses and phone numbers, please supply electronic mail addresses and fax numbers, if available, for potential use by the editorial office and later by the production office.

Keep a copy of the manuscript to guard against loss.

Psychological Bulletin uses a software system to screen submitted content for similarity with other published content. The system compares the initial version of each submitted manuscript against a database of millions of scholarly documents, as well as content appearing on the open web. This procedure enables APA to check submissions for potential overlap with material previously published in scholarly journals (e.g., lifted or republished material).

Masked review policy

The identities of authors will be withheld from reviewers and will be revealed after determining the final disposition of the manuscript only upon request and with the permission of the authors.

Authors are responsible for the preparation of manuscripts to permit masked review. Manuscripts submitted electronically should include all author names and affiliations, as well as the corresponding author's and co-authors' contact information, in the box labeled "cover letter," not in the manuscript file.

Every effort should be made to ensure that the manuscript itself contains no clues to the authors' identities, including deletion of easily identified self-references from the reference list as well as grant numbers, names of institutions providing IRB approval, self-citations (especially to recent publications), and links to online repositories for data, materials, code, or preregistrations (e.g., Create a View-Only Link for a Project).

If an author believes that disclosing a personal identity is critical to receiving a fair review, such a request along with a justification should be made in the cover letter accompanying the manuscript.

Every effort should be made to ensure that the manuscript itself contains no clues to the authors' identities, including deletion of easily identified self-references from the reference list.

If an author feels that revealing his or her identity is critical to receiving a fair review, such a request along with its justification should be made in the cover letter accompanying the manuscript.

Please ensure that the final version for production includes a byline and full author note for typesetting.

Journal Article Reporting Standards

Authors using meta-analytic methods must consult APA Style Meta-Analytic Reporting Standards (MARS). All systematic reviews must conform to standards of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA; Page et al., 2020); as the title of this standard implies, PRISMA is a reporting standard and not a formal methodological quality standard. These standards offer ways to improve transparency in reporting to ensure that readers have the information necessary to evaluate the quality of the research, to facilitate collaboration, and to ease replication efforts. These and other contemporary guidelines focus on transparency in methods reporting, recommending descriptions of how the researchers’ own perspectives affected the study, as well as the contexts in which the research and analysis took place (for further details, see editorial, Johnson, 2021). For submissions using quantitative and mixed methods, authors must adhere to the APA Style Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS).

Transparency and openness

APA endorses the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines developed by a community working group in conjunction with the Center for Open Science (Nosek et al. 2015). Effective February 1, 2022, empirical research, including meta-analyses, submitted to Psychological Bulletin will be required to report their work transparently as per journal policy.

Authors should include a subsection in the method section titled "Transparency and openness." This subsection should detail the efforts the authors have made to comply with the TOP guidelines. For example:

We adhered to the MARS guidelines for meta-analytic reporting (Appelbaum et al., 2018). All meta-analytic data, analysis code, and research materials (including our coding scheme) are available at [stable link to repository]. Data were analyzed using R, version 4.0.0 (R Core Team, 2020) and the package metafor, version 3.0-2 (Viechtbauer, 2010). This review project was not preregistered.

We adhered to the PRISMA 2020 guidelines for systematic reviews (Page et al., 2021). All data, analysis code, and research materials (including our coding scheme) are available at [stable link to repository]. Data were modeled using Comprehensive Meta-Analysis Version 3 (Borenstein et al., 2013). This review project was preregistered at [stable link to repository].

We adhered to the PRISMA 2020 guidelines for systematic reviews (Page et al., 2021). All data and research materials (including our coding scheme) are available at [stable link to repository]. This review was not preregistered.

Links to preregistrations and data, code, and materials should also be included in the author note.

• Citation: Level 2, Requirement—All data, program code, and other methods developed by others must be appropriately cited in the text and listed in the references section, as relevant.
• Data Transparency: Level 2, Requirement—Article states whether the raw and/or processed data on which study conclusions are based are available and either where to access them or the legal or ethical reasons why they are not available (with approval from the editor in chief).
• Analytic Methods (Code) Transparency: Level 2, Requirement—Article states whether computer code or syntax needed to reproduce analyses in an article is available and either where to access it or the legal or ethical reasons why it is not available.
• Research Materials Transparency: Level 2, Requirement—Article states whether materials described in the method section are available and either where to access them or states the legal and/or ethical reasons why they are not available (with approval from the editor in chief).
• Design and Analysis Transparency (Reporting Standards): Level 2, Requirement—Authors must comply with APA Style Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS and/or MARS). PRISMA 2020 is an acceptable replacement.
• Study Preregistration: Level 2, Requirement—Article states whether the study design and (if applicable) hypotheses of any of the work reported was preregistered and, if so, where to access it. If the study was preregistered, access to the preregistration should be available at submission. Authors must submit a masked copy via stable link or supplemental material.
• Analysis Plan Preregistration: Level 2, Requirement—Article states whether any of the work reported preregistered an analysis plan and, if so, where to access it. If the analysis plan was preregistered, access to the preregistration should be available at submission. Authors must submit a masked copy via stable link or supplemental material.
• Replication: Level 1, Disclosure—The journal publishes replications only if they represent significant advances in psychological science and/or practice, consistent with the aims and scope of Psychological Bulletin.

Data, materials, and code

Reviews that include quantitative analyses (e.g., meta-analyses) must state whether data and study materials (if these were created for the review, e.g., coding schemes) are available and where to access them. If they cannot be made available, authors must state the legal or ethical reasons why they are not available. Recommended repositories include APA’s repository on the Open Science Framework (OSF).

We require that authors who submit quantitative analyses supply their databases, codebook, and relevant scripts (e.g., so that reviewers can check analyses).

Authors may provide anonymized links to databases, codebook, and relevant scripts (instructions on how to do so are available on OSF); Dataverse and ICPSR also offer services for posting replication data files). Should the manuscript be published, these links (now made non-anonymized) must be included in the author note. Authors should be alert to use registries that permit anonymizing contributors’ names (to maintain the journal’s double-masked reviewing strategy). As of December 2021, PROSPERO does not offer this feature; Bulletin submissions that have been registered on PROSPERO can be attach the registration details as an appendix, omitting author names and the registration number.

Authors must make sure to remove authorship information (e.g., names, affiliations) from these files, in order to help maintain the integrity of the double-masked review process. Similarly, linked webpage and materials available there should not reveal the authors' identities. The database must include all variables reported in the manuscript.

In both the author note and at the end of the method section, specify whether and where the data and material will be available or note the legal or ethical reasons for not doing so. For submissions with quantitative or simulation analytic methods, state in the transparency and openness sub-section whether the study analysis code is available, and, if so, where to access it. For example:

All data for this project, along with relevant code and codebooks, have been made publicly available at the [repository name] and can be accessed at [persistent URL or DOI].

The code behind this analysis/simulation has been made publicly available at the [repository name] and can be accessed at [persistent URL or DOI].

Preregistration of studies and analysis plans

Preregistration of studies and specific hypotheses are often a useful tool for making strong theoretical claims. Likewise, preregistration of analysis plans can be useful for distinguishing confirmatory and exploratory analyses. We encourage investigators to preregister their studies and analysis plans prior to conducting the research (e.g., ClinicalTrials.gov or the Preregistration for Quantitative Research in Psychology template) via a publicly accessible registry system (e.g., OSF, ClinicalTrials.gov, or other trial registries in the WHO Registry Network).

Articles must state whether or not any work was preregistered and, if so, where to access the preregistration. If reviews were pre-registered as protocols or if quantitative analyses were pre-registered, include the registry links in the method section and the author note. Preregistrations must be available to reviewers; authors may submit a masked copy via stable link or supplemental material. Links in the method section (transparency and openness sub-section) and the author note should be replaced with an identifiable copy on acceptance. For example:

For a systematic review : This review’s protocol was pre-registered at [stable link to protocol]. We followed the PRISMA-P checklist when preparing the protocol, and we followed PRISMA reporting guidelines for the final report.

For a systematic review with meta-analysis: This review’s protocol was pre-registered at [stable link to protocol]. We followed the PRISMA-P checklist when preparing the protocol, and we followed PRISMA reporting guidelines for the final report. The meta-analytic analysis plan is at [stable link]. The meta-analytic data are shared at [stable link to repository].

For a meta-analysis that extends a previous review: This review replicates and extends [citation to previous review]. Its protocol was pre-registered at [stable link to protocol]. We followed the PRISMA-P checklist when preparing the protocol, and we followed PRISMA reporting guidelines for the final report. The meta-analytic analysis plan is at [stable link]. The meta-analytic data are shared at [stable link to repository].

For an unregistered review : This review was not pre-registered. We followed PRISMA reporting guidelines for the final report.

Registered reports

Registered Reports (RRs) are a form of article in which authors get peer review and preapproval from a journal editorial team before carrying out a study. In the case of Psychological Bulletin, the study is an evidence in some form, not an original primary-level study (see above). Submissions may adopt a qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods approach to evidence synthesis. Authors of preregistered reports are expected to provide a strong theoretical frame and rationale for a synthesis. These include a presentation of the theoretical reasons the literature might be heterogeneous. A final product would then illuminate theoretical processes and empirical results that have not yet been brought to light. The journal agrees to publish the outcome of that work no matter what results emerge, whether hypotheses are confirmed or not. RRs are often a useful tool for testing strong theoretical and/or empirical claims. The format provides the benefit of peer review to provide feedback on evidence synthesis conceptualization, study design, and methods, at a point in the process where that feedback is most useful. Nonetheless, a successful RR presents a strong theoretical frame and a clear presentation of how data will be collected, organized, and analyzed. The onus is on the authors to provide this theoretical frame. As with preregistrations, RRs can be useful for clearly distinguishing confirmatory and exploratory analyses. RRs are available for submissions for which no data analysis has yet taken place; ideally, they are submitted before formal coding activities are completed. Initial submissions should at least present evidence that key study dimensions are codable and available in rich-enough depth to permit key hypothesis tests (e.g., by coding a sample of the literature).

Authors who wish to submit a registered report for consideration should select this option in the editorial software. The review process for RRs is similar to that used for completed evidence syntheses, except that reviewers are requested to evaluate the contribution of the work prospectively, before knowing the results. Specifically, reviewers are asked to evaluate (a) whether the literature is large enough to permit good tests of the proposed ideas, (b) the adequacy of the proposed plan for dealing with the methodological quality of the underlying studies, (c) the qualitative coding plan, and (d) the plans for any descriptive or inferential statistical analysis, including the feasibility of planned analyses for moderators or other aspects. RRs are expected to discuss potential limitations in the evidence synthesis methods proposed along with limitations of the underlying database. Peer reviewers will evaluate such dimensions in deciding whether to recommend that the journal publish a future version of the project.

Registered reports require a two-stage review process:

First, authors submit a Stage 1 manuscript, which is a partial manuscript that includes introduction, theoretical framework, rationale for the study, hypotheses, and methods (including an analysis plan). The partial manuscript will be peer reviewed for these aspects. Because articles in Psychological Bulletin tend to utilize large databases, it is acceptable for a Stage 1 manuscript to have completed (or nearly completed) the study coding phase, but analyses are not permitted. RR submissions may also have preregistrations (e.g., OSF), but ideally these are blinded of author identities to facilitate double-blind review.

If the Stage 1 Registered Report manuscript receives an "in-principal acceptance (IPA)," then the study has the potential to be published if is performed exactly as proposed (also including the proposed statistical evaluation) regardless of the outcome of the study. After this stage and before analysis commences, the study is preregistered (e.g., through the Registered Report tools from OSF).

In Stage 2, the full paper undergoes a second peer-review process, including all results, a complete discussion section, and a Transparency and Openness section that includes the preregistration information. Peer review evaluates if the study protocol was implemented with integrity and whether the rationale for any deviations from the Stage 1 registered plan were acceptable. A rejection is still possible if the study’s execution and analysis diverged too much from the proposed study design and/or the manuscript is of low quality. The refinement of the discussion and conclusions may still require further revision, but the goal is to expedite the process.

Author contribution statements using CRediT

The APA Publication Manual (7th ed.) stipulates that "authorship encompasses...not only persons who do the writing but also those who have made substantial scientific contributions to a study." In the spirit of transparency and openness, Psychological Bulletin has adopted the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) to describe each author's individual contributions to the work. CRediT offers authors the opportunity to share an accurate and detailed description of their diverse contributions to a manuscript.

Submitting authors will be asked to identify the contributions of all authors at initial submission according to this taxonomy. If the manuscript is accepted for publication, the CRediT designations will be published as an Author Contributions Statement in the author note of the final article. All authors should have reviewed and agreed to their individual contribution(s) before submission.

CRediT includes 14 contributor roles, as described below:

• Conceptualization: Ideas; formulation or evolution of overarching research goals and aims.
• Data curation: Management activities to annotate (produce metadata), scrub data and maintain research data (including software code, where it is necessary for interpreting the data itself) for initial use and later reuse.
• Formal analysis: Application of statistical, mathematical, computational, or other formal techniques to analyze or synthesize study data.
• Funding acquisition: Acquisition of the financial support for the project leading to this publication.
• Investigation: Conducting a research and investigation process, specifically performing the experiments, or data/evidence collection.
• Methodology: Development or design of methodology; creation of models.
• Project administration: Management and coordination responsibility for the research activity planning and execution.
• Resources: Provision of study materials, reagents, materials, patients, laboratory samples, animals, instrumentation, computing resources, or other analysis tools.
• Software: Programming, software development; designing computer programs; implementation of the computer code and supporting algorithms; testing of existing code components.
• Supervision: Oversight and leadership responsibility for the research activity planning and execution, including mentorship external to the core team.
• Validation: Verification, whether as a part of the activity or separate, of the overall replication/reproducibility of results/experiments and other research outputs.
• Visualization: Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically visualization/data presentation.
• Writing—original draft: Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically writing the initial draft (including substantive translation).
• Writing—review and editing: Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work by those from the original research group, specifically critical review, commentary or revision—including pre- or post-publication stages.

Authors can claim credit for more than one contributor role, and the same role can be attributed to more than one author.

Policy on commentaries

Psychological Bulletin traditionally publishes commentaries that are requested by the action editor in light of issues that arise during the review. These commentaries are brief, with the length set by the action editor but never exceeding half of the length of the original article.

The authors of the target article are then invited to write a response. The length of the response is also determined by the action editor and cannot exceed half of the length of the individual commentary/ies.

Both commentaries and responses have a strict timeline set by the action editor, which is typically one month. The response from the author/s of the target article ends the discussion in the context of Psychological Bulletin. After that point, authors are encouraged to submit related manuscripts to other scientific outlets.

Commentaries are not accepted for articles that are already in print.

Unsolicited commentaries may be submitted by authors only while accepted target articles are disseminated online. If submitted later, authors must present a strong rationale for considering a comment beyond the standard time frame. Such requests, however, are rarely granted, and authors should consider other outlets for unsolicited commentaries. Unsolicited commentaries are subject to the regular process of preliminary editorial review after which a commentary, if deemed appropriate, may be sent out for external peer review.

No commentaries are published without external review.

Manuscript preparation

Prepare manuscripts according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association using the 7^th edition. Manuscripts may be copyedited for bias-free language (see Chapter 5 of the Publication Manual). APA Style and Grammar Guidelines for the 7^th edition are available.

Review APA's Journal Manuscript Preparation Guidelines before submitting your article.

Double-space all copy. Other formatting instructions, as well as instructions on preparing tables, figures, references, metrics, and abstracts, appear in the Manual. Additional guidance on APA Style is available on the APA Style website.

Below are additional instructions regarding the preparation of display equations, computer code, and tables.

Display equations

For equations, use MathType (third-party software) or Equation Editor (built into Word since 2007). Earlier versions of equation support in Word are converted to low-resolution graphics when they enter the production process and must be rekeyed by the typesetter, which may introduce errors. Review the instructions for how to use Word’s equation editor.

If you have an equation that has already been produced using Microsoft Word 2007 or 2010 and you have access to the full version of MathType 6.5 or later, you can convert this equation to MathType by clicking on MathType Insert Equation. Copy the equation from Microsoft Word and paste it into the MathType box. Verify that your equation is correct, click File, and then click Update. Your equation has now been inserted into your Word file as a MathType Equation.

Computer code

Because altering computer code in any way (e.g., indents, line spacing, line breaks, page breaks) during the typesetting process could alter its meaning, we treat computer code differently from the rest of your article in our production process. To that end, we request separate files for computer code.

In online supplemental material

We request that runnable source code be included as supplemental material to the article. For more information, visit Supplementing Your Article With Online Material.

In the text of the article

If you would like to include code in the text of your published manuscript, please submit a separate file with your code exactly as you want it to appear, using Courier New font with a type size of 8 points. We will make an image of each segment of code in your article that exceeds 40 characters in length. (Shorter snippets of code that appear in text will be typeset in Courier New and run in with the rest of the text.) If an appendix contains a mix of code and explanatory text, please submit a file that contains the entire appendix, with the code keyed in 8-point Courier New.

Tables

Use Word's insert table function when you create tables. Using spaces or tabs in your table will create problems when the table is typeset and may result in errors.

Academic writing and English language editing services

Authors who feel that their manuscript may benefit from additional academic writing or language editing support prior to submission are encouraged to seek out such services at their host institutions, engage with colleagues and subject matter experts, and/or consider several vendors that offer discounts to APA authors.

Please note that APA does not endorse or take responsibility for the service providers listed. It is strictly a referral service.

Use of such service is not mandatory for publication in an APA journal. Use of one or more of these services does not guarantee selection for peer review, manuscript acceptance, or preference for publication in any APA journal.

Submitting supplemental materials

APA can place supplemental materials online, available via the published article in the PsycArticles^® database. Please see Supplementing Your Article With Online Material for more details.

Abstract and keywords

All manuscripts must include an abstract containing a maximum of 250 words typed on a separate page. After the abstract, please supply up to five keywords or brief phrases.

Public significance statements

Authors submitting manuscripts to Psychological Bulletin are required to provide two to three brief sentences regarding the relevance or public health significance of the study or meta-analysis described in their manuscript.

This description should be included within the manuscript on the abstract/keywords page.

It should be written in language that is easily understood by both professionals and members of the lay public.

Examples:

• "This meta-analytic review strongly suggests that (description of a given psychosocial treatment) is an effective treatment for anxiety, but only if it is of mild to moderate severity. For persons with severe anxiety, additional treatments may be necessary."
• "This systematic review indicates that personality changes following psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy. The changes are small and persist for (description of time in months or years)"
• "This meta-analytic review reveals a small to moderate effect of incidentally presenting words (e.g., as part of a game) on the actual actions of the recipients following priming. These effects are stronger when recipients of the primes are likely to value the behavior."

To be maximally useful, these statements of public significance should not simply be sentences lifted directly from the manuscript.

This statement supports efforts to increase the dissemination and usage of research findings by larger and more diverse audiences. In addition, they should be able to be translated into media-appropriate statements for use in press releases and on social media.

Authors may refer to the Guidance for Translational Abstracts and Public Significance Statements page for help writing their statement.

Prior to final acceptance and publication, all public significance statements will be carefully reviewed to make sure they meet these standards. Authors will be expected to revise statements as necessary.

References

List references in alphabetical order. Each listed reference should be cited in text, and each text citation should be listed in the references section.

Examples of basic reference formats:

Journal article

McCauley, S. M., & Christiansen, M. H. (2019). Language learning as language use: A cross-linguistic model of child language development. Psychological Review, 126(1), 1–51. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000126

Authored book

Brown, L. S. (2018). Feminist therapy (2nd ed.). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000092-000

Chapter in an edited book

Balsam, K. F., Martell, C. R., Jones. K. P., & Safren, S. A. (2019). Affirmative cognitive behavior therapy with sexual and gender minority people. In G. Y. Iwamasa & P. A. Hays (Eds.), Culturally responsive cognitive behavior therapy: Practice and supervision (2nd ed., pp. 287–314). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000119-012

All secondary data and program code and other methods from other articles must be appropriately cited in the text and listed in the references section.

Data set citation

Alegria, M., Jackson, J. S., Kessler, R. C., & Takeuchi, D. (2016). Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiology Surveys (CPES), 2001–2003 [Data set]. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR20240.v8

Software/Code citation

Viechtbauer, W. (2010). Conducting meta-analyses in R with the metafor package. Journal of Statistical Software, 36(3), 1–48. https://www.jstatsoft.org/v36/i03/

Wickham, H. et al., (2019). Welcome to the tidyverse. Journal of Open Source Software, 4(43), 1686, https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.0 1686

Figures

Preferred formats for graphics files are TIFF and JPG, and preferred format for vector-based files is EPS. Graphics downloaded or saved from web pages are not acceptable for publication. Multipanel figures (i.e., figures with parts labeled a, b, c, d, etc.) should be assembled into one file. When possible, please place symbol legends below the figure instead of to the side.

Resolution

• All color line art and halftones: 300 DPI
• Black and white line tone and gray halftone images: 600 DPI

Line weights

• Adobe Photoshop images
  • Color (RGB, CMYK) images: 2 pixels
  • Grayscale images: 4 pixels
• Adobe Illustrator Images
  • Stroke weight: 0.5 points

APA offers authors the option to publish their figures online in color without the costs associated with print publication of color figures.

The same caption will appear on both the online (color) and print (black and white) versions. To ensure that the figure can be understood in both formats, authors should add alternative wording (e.g., "the red (dark gray) bars represent") as needed.

For authors who prefer their figures to be published in color both in print and online, original color figures can be printed in color at the editor's and publisher's discretion provided the author agrees to pay:

• 900ドル for one figure
• An additional 600ドル for the second figure
• An additional 450ドル for each subsequent figure

Permissions

Authors of accepted papers must obtain and provide to the editor on final acceptance all necessary permissions to reproduce in print and electronic form any copyrighted work, including test materials (or portions thereof), photographs, and other graphic images (including those used as stimuli in experiments).

On advice of counsel, APA may decline to publish any image whose copyright status is unknown.

• Download Permissions Alert Form (PDF, 13KB)

Publication policies

For full details on publication policies, including use of Artificial Intelligence tools, please see APA Publishing Policies.

APA policy prohibits an author from submitting the same manuscript for concurrent consideration by two or more publications.

See also APA Journals^® Internet Posting Guidelines.

APA requires authors to reveal any possible conflict of interest in the conduct and reporting of research (e.g., financial interests in a test or procedure, funding by pharmaceutical companies for drug research).

• Download Full Disclosure of Interests Form (PDF, 41KB)

In light of changing patterns of scientific knowledge dissemination, APA requires authors to provide information on prior dissemination of the data and narrative interpretations of the data/research appearing in the manuscript (e.g., if some or all were presented at a conference or meeting, posted on a listserv, shared on a website, including academic social networks like ResearchGate, etc.). This information (2–4 sentences) must be provided as part of the author note.

Psychological Bulletin accepts submissions that have appeared as preprints, working papers, white papers, or dissertations in publicly available, online archives (e.g., PsyArXiv, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses). Authors are expected to disclose these documents at the time they submit manuscripts to the journal.

Ethical Principles

It is a violation of APA Ethical Principles to publish "as original data, data that have been previously published" (Standard 8.13).

In addition, APA Ethical Principles specify that "after research results are published, psychologists do not withhold the data on which their conclusions are based from other competent professionals who seek to verify the substantive claims through reanalysis and who intend to use such data only for that purpose, provided that the confidentiality of the participants can be protected and unless legal rights concerning proprietary data preclude their release" (Standard 8.14).

APA expects authors to adhere to these standards. Specifically, APA expects authors to have their data available throughout the editorial review process and for at least 5 years after the date of publication.

Authors are required to state in writing that they have complied with APA ethical standards in the treatment of their sample, human or animal, or to describe the details of treatment.

• Download Certification of Compliance With APA Ethical Principles Form (PDF, 26KB)

The APA Ethics Office provides the full Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct electronically on its website in HTML, PDF, and Word format. You may also request a copy by emailing or calling the APA Ethics Office (202-336-5930). You may also read "Ethical Principles," December 1992, American Psychologist, Vol. 47, pp. 1597–1611.

Other information

See APA’s Publishing Policies page for more information on publication policies, including information on author contributorship and responsibilities of authors, author name changes after publication, the use of generative artificial intelligence, funder information and conflict-of-interest disclosures, duplicate publication, data publication and reuse, and preprints.

Visit the Journals Publishing Resource Center for more resources for writing, reviewing, and editing articles for publishing in APA journals.

Editor

Blair T. Johnson, PhD
University of Connecticut, United States

Associate editors

S. Alexandra Burt, PhD
Michigan State University, United States

Sheri L. Johnson, PhD
University of California, Berkeley, United States

Monica Melby-Lervåg, PhD
University of Oslo, Norway

Nnamdi Pole, PhD
Smith College, United States

James E. Pustejovsky, PhD
University of Wisconsin Madison, United States

Shaul Shalvi, PhD
University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Rong Su, PhD
University of Iowa, United States

Paul Verhaeghen, PhD
Georgia Institute of Technology, United States

Thomas L. Webb, PhD
University of Sheffield, United Kingdom

Consulting editors

Dolores Albarracín, PhD
University of Pennsylvania, United States

Tammy D. Allen, PhD
University of South Florida, United States

Jeromy Anglim, PhD
Deakin University, Australia

Karl Ask, PhD
University of Gothenburg, Sweden

Mark Assink, PhD
University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Daniel Balliet, PhD
Vrije University Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Karen Bartsch, PhD
University of Wyoming, United States

Yoella Bereby-Meyer, PhD
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Daniel Berry, EdD
University of Minnesota, United States

Wiebke Bleidorn, PhD
University of Zurich, Switzerland

Lucy Bowes, PhD
University of Oxford, United Kingdom

Brad J. Bushman, PhD
The Ohio State University, United States

Noel A. Card, PhD
University of Georgia, United States

Nichelle C. Carpenter, PhD
Rutgers University-New Brunswick, United States

Mike W.-L. Cheung, PhD
National University of Singapore, Singapore

Pim Cuijpers, PhD
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Dev K. Dalal, PhD
University at Albany, State University of New York, United States

Alice H. Eagly, PhD
Northwestern University, United States

Carlton J. Fong, PhD
Texas State University, United States

Barbara L. Fredrickson, PhD
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States

Daniel Fulford, PhD
Boston University, United States

Andreas Glöckner, PhD
University of Cologne, Germany

Usha Claire Goswami, PhD
University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

Martin Hagger, PhD
University of California, Merced, United States

Elizabeth P. Hayden, PhD
University of Western Ontario, Canada

Emily Alden Hennessy, PhD
Harvard Medical School, United States

Maria Kangas, PhD
Macquarie University, Australia

Nils Köbis, PhD
University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany

Alison C. Koenka, PhD
Virginia Commonwealth University, United States

R. Brooke Lea, PhD
Macalester College, United States

Spike W. S. Lee, PhD
University of Toronto, Canada

Jianlin Liu, PhD
Institute of Mental Health, Singapore

Songqi Liu, PhD
Georgia State University, United States

Corinna Löckenhoff, PhD
Cornell University, United States

Kellie Lynch, PhD
The University of Texas at San Antonio, United States

Keith Maddox, PhD
Tufts University, United States

Blakeley B. McShane, PhD
Northwestern University, United States

Diana J. Meter, PhD
Utah State University, United States

Gregory E. Miller, PhD
Northwestern University, United States

Marina Milyavskaya, PhD
Carleton University, Canada

Nora S. Newcombe, PhD
Temple University, United States

Ernest H. O’Boyle Jr., PhD
Indiana University, United States

Deniz S. Ones, PhD
University of Minnesota, United States

Páraic S. O’Súilleabháin, PhD
University of Limerick, Ireland

Fred Oswald, PhD
Rice University, United States

Steven C. Pan, PhD
National University of Singapore, Singapore

Peng Peng, PhD
The University of Texas at Austin, United States

Terri D. Pigott, PhD
Georgia State University, United States

Ayelet Meron Ruscio, PhD
University of Pennsylvania, United States

Ronny Scherer, PhD
University of Oslo, Norway

Toni Schmader, PhD
University of British Columbia, Canada

Paschal Sheeran, PhD
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States

Jonathan Smallwood, PhD
University of York, United Kingdom

Jose A. Soto, PhD
The Pennsylvania State University, United States

Bonnie Spring, PhD
Northwestern University, United States

Emily E. Tanner-Smith, PhD
University of Oregon, United States

Isabel Thielmann, PhD
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law, Germany

Elliot M. Tucker-Drob, PhD
University of Texas at Austin, United States

Yukiko Uchida, PhD
Kyoto University, Japan

Daniel Voyer, PhD
University of New Brunswick, Canada

Edward Robert Watkins, PhD
University of Exeter, United Kingdom

Brenton M. Wiernik, PhD
University of South Florida, United States

David B. Wilson, PhD
George Mason University, United States

Editorial fellows

Hongjian Cao, PhD
University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China

Ivy N. Defoe, PhD
University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Drexler James, PhD
University of Minnesota, United States

Methodological reviewers and editorial assistants

Kyle L. Barron, BA, MA
University of Connecticut, United States

Kaleigh A. Davis, BA
University of Connecticut, United States

Matthew B. Jané, MS
University of Connecticut, United States

Chen Li, PhD
University of Connecticut, United States

Lourdes Mollica
University of Connecticut, United States

Lisset Martinez-Berman, MS
University of Connecticut, United States

Emersyn Rokos, BS
University of Connecticut, United States

Sarah S. Tsai, BS
University of Connecticut, United States

Peer review coordinator

Emily Densmore
American Psychological Association, United States

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Transparency and Openness Promotion

APA endorses the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines by a community working group in conjunction with the Center for Open Science (Nosek et al. 2015). The TOP Guidelines cover eight fundamental aspects of research planning and reporting that can be followed by journals and authors at three levels of compliance. For example:

• Level 1: Disclosure—The article must disclose whether or not the materials are available.
• Level 2: Requirement—The article must share materials when legally and ethically permitted (or disclose the legal and/or ethical restriction when not permitted).
• Level 3: Verification—A third party must verify that the standard is met.

As of February 1, 2022, empirical research, including meta-analyses, submitted to Psychological Bulletin must, at a minimum, meet Level 2 (Requirement) for all aspects of research planning and reporting. Authors should include a subsection in their methods description titled "Transparency and openness." This subsection should detail the efforts the authors have made to comply with the TOP guidelines.

The table below summarizes the minimal TOP requirements of the journal; please refer to the TOP guidelines for details, and contact the editor (Blair T. Johnson, PhD) with any further questions. Authors must share data, materials, and code via trusted repositories (e.g., APA’s repository on the Open Science Framework (OSF)), and we encourage investigators to preregister their studies and analysis plans prior to conducting the research. There are many available preregistration forms (e.g., the APA Preregistration for Quantitative Research in Psychology template, ClinicalTrials.gov, or other preregistration templates available via OSF); completed preregistration forms should be posted on a publicly accessible registry system (e.g., OSF, ClinicalTrials.gov, or other trial registries in the WHO Registry Network).

The following list presents the eight fundamental aspects of research planning and reporting, the TOP level required by Psychological Bulletin, and a brief description of the journal’s policy.

• Citation: Level 2, Requirement—All data, program code, and other methods developed by others must be appropriately cited in the text and listed in the references section.
• Data Transparency: Level 2, Requirement—Article states whether the raw and/or processed data on which study conclusions are based are available and either where to access them or the legal or ethical reasons why they are not available.
• Analytic Methods (Code) Transparency: Level 2, Requirement—Article states whether computer code or syntax needed to reproduce analyses in an article is available and either where to access it or the legal or ethical reasons why it is not available.
• Research Materials Transparency: Level 2, Requirement—Article states whether materials described in the method section are available and either where to access them or the legal or ethical reasons why they are not available.
• Design and Analysis Transparency (Reporting Standards): Level 2, Requirement—Authors must comply with APA Style Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS and/or MARS).
• Study Preregistration: Level 2, Requirement—Article states whether the study design and (if applicable) hypotheses of any of the work reported was preregistered and, if so, where to access it. If the study was preregistered, access to the preregistration should be available at submission. Authors must submit a masked copy via stable link or supplemental material.
• Analysis Plan Preregistration: Level 2, Requirement—Article states whether any of the work reported preregistered an analysis plan and, if so, where to access it. If the analysis plan was preregistered, access to the preregistration should be available at submission. Authors must submit a masked copy via stable link or supplemental material.
• Replication: Level 1, Disclosure—The journal publishes replications only if they represent significant advances in psychological science and/or practice, consistent with the aims and scope of Psychological Bulletin.

Inclusive reporting standards

• Bias-free language and community-driven language guidelines (required)
• Impact statements (required)

More information on this journal’s reporting standards is listed under the submission guidelines tab.

Other EDI offerings

ORCID reviewer recognition

Open Research and Contributor ID (ORCID) Reviewer Recognition provides a visible and verifiable way for journals to publicly credit reviewers without compromising the confidentiality of the peer-review process. This journal has implemented the ORCID Reviewer Recognition feature in Editorial Manager, meaning that reviewers can be recognized for their contributions to the peer-review process.

Masked peer review

This journal offers masked peer review (where both the authors’ and reviewers’ identities are not known to the other). Research has shown that masked peer review can help reduce implicit bias against traditionally female names or early-career scientists with smaller publication records (Budden et al., 2008; Darling, 2015).

Announcement

• New editors appointed

Editor Spotlight

• Read an interview with Editor Blair T. Johnson, PhD

Editorial

• Johnson, B. T. (2021). Toward a more transparent, rigorous, and generative psychology. [Editorial.] Psychological Bulletin, 147(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000317

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