Editor Spotlight

Dr. Colin Wayne Leach is a professor of Psychology and Africana Studies at Barnard College.

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 and personality psychologist who mainly studies emotion about status and morality concerns from a transdisciplinary systems perspective. More on me and my work can be found on my webpageopens in new window.

I was associate editor of this journal from 2014 to 2016 before becoming co-editor of Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin from 2017 to 2019. I have been an editor or associate editor in all but one of the last dozen years.

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 approach is outlined in the editorial (PDF, 85KB)opens in new window written for the journal. My main priorities for editorial practice are openness and honesty in aims and efforts (by editors, reviewers, and authors). In terms of content, we welcome all work that helps us make good inferences about interpersonal relations and group processes. Personally, I think that multiple methods and operationalizations strengthen such inferences. As I wrote for the online journal description, “Although a multiplicity of methods and contexts will likely be considered a strength, all submissions should address the implications of the chosen method and context for the power and quality of inference.”

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?

JPSP is seen as the place for definitive work. In the present time of mistrust in science, it is all the more important for it to be reliable and trustworthy and to be seen as such by colleagues and by the public at large.

COVID-19 seems to be an increasingly popular topic for research right now. But I’m excited about the growing trend in studies that examine people in place as dynamic systems (i.e., multilevel; event or context-contingent; variable over time, place, people).

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

One internal challenge is getting agreement on the best (most reliable and valid) ways to assess clearly and consensually defined psychological constructs. Another challenge is in updating methodological and statistical tools to examine those constructs as operating within dynamic systems of people in place. I am inspired by the ways in which systems meta-theory, theory, methods, and statistics have vastly improved our understanding of weather over the last few decades.

Do you have plans for a special issue or changes to the editorial process? Are you making any changes?

In the first nine months as an incoming team, we have worked hard to calibrate our decision-making so that standards of evaluation are as consistent as possible. This makes expectations more explicit and thus more widely accessible. In addition to a summary of these expectations in my editorial (PDF, 85KB)opens in new window, decision letters have been designed to reference the APA and other standards that guide assessment (e.g., statistical power, method reporting, transparency). My hope is that this common ground enables us to engage authors and reviewers alike in constructive, civil, and principled intellectual exchanges.

Also, we are working hard to render definitive decisions as quickly as possible. Because work published in JPSP is expected to be comprehensive, it has been common for reviewers and handling editors to subject authors to numerous, lengthy rounds of review that may or may not result in publication. That has all sorts of cumulative costs. By making definitive decisions that aim to be as explicit as possible about the necessary (theoretical, methodological, statistical) basis for the author’s inferences, we hope to empower all involved to cooperate in transparent effort and evaluation. Reviewers are key to this.

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