Antonia Abbey, PhD
I received my PhD in social psychology from Northwestern University in 1982.
This was during a "crisis" in social psychology regarding the extent to which our elegant theories and paradigms could inform "real life" behavior given the limitations associated with laboratory studies conducted with psychology students. I was inspired by these discussions and for my dissertation examined theories of control and attributions of responsibility among rape victims who sought hospital services in downtown Chicago.
Almost everything that could go wrong in field research, did go wrong in that study; nonetheless it started my career focus on causes and consequences of men's sexual violence against women.
Over the years, I have reviewed manuscripts for many different journals and grant proposals for several NIH study sections. My editorial experience is more limited; I was previously an Associate Editor for the Psychology of Women Quarterly.
I am in the process of putting together a team of Associate Editors and Consulting Editors with expertise across a wide range of violence topics.
I want to thank and commend Sherry Hamby for having the vision and determination to start this journal. It has filled a critical need in the violence field and I am honored to have the opportunity to build on her solid foundation.
I want to maintain this journal's high standards by publishing high quality empirical and theoretical papers that expand our understanding of the psychology of violence. I want the journal to continue to publish quantitative and qualitative studies, as well as some theoretical papers and thoughtful review papers, particularly those that integrate across disciplines and/or types of violence.
Methodological papers are also important given how little is known regarding the extent to which standard measures adequately assess the violence experienced by marginalized groups and in different cultures.
I also want to highlight some papers by inviting commentaries that represent complementary perspectives. Additionally, I would like to increase graduate student involvement in the review process through mentoring from the editorial board.
I have been deeply disturbed in recent years by the cheating scandals as well as the replication crisis in psychology and other sciences. I teach research methods to first year doctoral students and it is painful to share examples of studies that were completely made up and retracted, as well as studies that cannot be replicated after being heavily promoted by researchers and the media.
These revelations shatter our images of the objective nature of science and further erode the public's confidence in scientific facts. Part of the problem is the pressure many researchers feel to exaggerate the strength and generalizability of a study's findings in order to publish it in a high quality journal.
I want authors to be explicit about which hypotheses were exploratory, and when they find something unexpected or know there are important methodological limitations, I want them to describe the findings as tentative and in need of replication.
Even the highest quality study has limitations, and I expect authors to fairly describe their studies' strengths and limitations, including what can be said about generalizability to other populations and contexts.
As a multidisciplinary journal, the Psychology of Violence recognizes that all forms of violence and aggression are interconnected and required cross-cutting work that incorporates research from psychology, public health, neuroscience, sociology, medicine, and other behavioral and social sciences.
We live in a violent world in which divisions between people have become more pronounced and manipulated by those who benefit from discord. I care deeply about understanding and reducing (dare I hope that we could eliminate?) interpersonal violence.
Guiding, encouraging, and promoting quality research is one of the best ways that I can use my skills to address the world's violence epidemic, as well as to try to counteract the current climate in which science and facts are discredited and ignored.
