Naomi I. Eisenberger, PhD

Eisenberger is currently a professor of social psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is the director of the Social and Affective Neuroscience laboratory and a co-director of the Social Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory.

Tell us a bit about your background: What is your area of research? What is your most recent journal-editing experience?

I am a social psychologist and social neuroscientist who studies the nature of emotional experiences in people’s closest social relationships as well as why social relationships are so critical for mental and physical health. I ask questions like “Why does rejection hurt?” and “Why does social connection feel so good?” and then use neuroimaging and health-relevant assessments to understand the nature of these socioemotional experiences as well as the mechanisms that link social ties with health and well-being.

I served as an associate editor for Emotion for 6 years prior to becoming editor-in-chief. I also am a consulting editor for Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, am on the editorial board of Psychosomatic Medicine, and have served as a guest editor for Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Briefly, what are your main priorities? For example, how will you grow readership, what type of scholarship would you like to see in the journal, and what kind of content are you hoping to attract?

My main priority is to continue to showcase the best studies from the burgeoning field of affective science. Because emotions play a role in nearly every field of psychology, Emotion welcomes contributions from every psychological discipline and encourages the use of a variety of methodological assessment tools. To handle these submissions, Emotion has an impressive group of associate editors whose expertise spans many areas of psychology (neuroscience, clinical, health, cultural, social, developmental, cognitive), many different psychological methods (experimental, computational, neuroimaging, psychophysiological, diary), and many different study populations (children, older adults, underrepresented groups, close relationships). By being open to diverse perspectives and approaches, my associate editors and I hope to produce a journal that helps psychologists gain better traction in understanding the nature of emotional experience.

Why is this journal important for the field? What is its relevance to society/public health? What are the hot issues in your area right now?

Emotion is important for the field because it publishes articles that enable a better understanding of what is at the very heart of human experience: the affective feelings that color people’s experiences of the world. Understanding emotion is integral to understanding everything from romantic relationships to family dynamics, from stereotyping and prejudice to moral judgments, and from clinical to health psychology.

Some of the main issues that have been a focus of the field and that I hope to continue to advance are how emotion is understood, how it is instantiated in the brain, and what it does for people. It is still remarkable to me that, as a field, we have not agreed on a definition or theory of emotion. I hope that through the stellar work that continues to be published in journals like Emotion, the field can move toward a consensus on how to understand the nature and components of affective experience.

What challenges, if any, lie ahead for the field?

Scientific rigor and replicability are ongoing challenges in psychological science. Promoting best research practices and scientific openness is critical, and I will continue to require authors to meet certain standards to publish in Emotion. At the same time, I hope that affective scientists can continue to maintain an active sense of curiosity and wonder in their research endeavors.

Do you have plans for a special issue or changes to the editorial process? Have you introduced or are you planning to introduce any changes?

To continue to foster Emotion as one of the top places to publish cutting-edge research in affective science, I aim to appeal to emerging interests in the field and modify certain features of the review process to better reflect the importance and timeliness of the published science.

To appeal to emerging interests in the field, I intend to publish some special issues as well as some special formats, such as debates on key topics and interviews of people with key voices. I have also instituted changes to the review process to prioritize faster turnaround times for reviews. The editorial board strives to provide a timely and respectful review process that emphasizes the importance of publishing important work quickly and providing constructive feedback that improves the published scientific record.

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