Law and Human Behavior

Submission

Law and Human Behavior ^® uses a software system to screen submissions for similarity with other published content. The system compares each submission against a database of 25+ million scholarly publications and generates a similarity report for the editorial team.

Please submit manuscripts electronically through the Manuscript Submission Portal in Microsoft Word (.docx) or LaTex (.tex) as a zip file with an accompanied Portable Document Format (.pdf) of the manuscript file.

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.

Submit Manuscript

David DeMatteo, JD, PhD, ABPP (Forensic)
Drexel University, United States
Email

The corresponding author must provide a complete email address because the editorial office handles all correspondence electronically.

Masked review policy

Law and Human Behavior uses masked review for all submissions. The cover letter should include all authors’ names and institutional affiliations.

Authors should not include any personal information (name, affiliation, etc.) anywhere in the manuscript. They should mask any clues to their identity, including grant numbers, names of institutions providing IRB approval, self-citations, and links to online repositories for data, materials, code, or preregistrations (e.g., Create a View-only Link for a Project).

This journal’s peer review process as defined by the NISO Peer Review Taxonomy is: 

• Identity transparency: Double anonymized
• Reviewer interacts with: Editor
• Review information published: None

Manuscript preparation

Prepare manuscripts 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).

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. Instructions regarding the preparation of display equations, computer code, and tables appear at the end of these submission instructions.

Additional guidance on APA Style is available on the APA Style website.

Authors who think that their submission may benefit from additional academic writing or language editing should 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 required for publication in an APA journal and does not guarantee selection for peer review, manuscript acceptance, or preference for publication.

Open science badges

Articles are eligible for open science badges recognizing publicly available data, materials, and/or preregistration plans and analyses. These badges are awarded on a self-disclosure basis.

At submission, authors must confirm that criteria have been fulfilled in a signed badge disclosure form (PDF, 42KB) that must be submitted as supplemental material. If the Editorial Team confirms that all criteria have been met, the form will then be published with the article as supplemental material.

Authors should also note their eligibility for the badge(s) in the cover letter.

For all badges, items must be made available on an open-access repository with a persistent identifier in a format that is time-stamped, immutable, and permanent. For the preregistered badge, this is an institutional registration system.

Data and materials must be made available under an open license allowing others to copy, share, and use the data, with attribution and copyright as applicable.

Available badges are:

Open Data:
All data necessary to reproduce the reported results that are digitally shareable are made publicly available. Information necessary for replication (e.g., codebooks or metadata) must be included.

Open Data: Protected Access:
A “PA” (Protected Access) notation may be added to open data badges if sensitive, personal data are available only from an approved third-party repository that manages access to data to qualified researchers through a documented process. To be eligible for an open data badge with such a notation, the repository must publicly describe the steps necessary to obtain the data and detailed data documentation (e.g. variable names and allowed values) must be made available publicly. View a list of approved protected access repositories .

Open Materials:
All materials necessary to reproduce the reported results that are digitally shareable, along with descriptions of non-digital materials necessary for replication, are made publicly available.

Preregistered:
At least one study's design has been preregistered with descriptions of (a) the research design and study materials, including the planned sample size; (b) the motivating research question or hypothesis; (c) the outcome variable(s); and (d) the predictor variables, including controls, covariates, and independent variables. Results must be fully disclosed. As long as they are distinguished from other results in the article, results from analyses that were not preregistered may be reported in the article.

Preregistered+Analysis Plan:
At least one study’s design has been preregistered along with an analysis plan for the research — and results are recorded according to that plan.

Note that it may not be possible to preregister a study or to share data and materials. Applying for open science badges is optional.

Abstract and keywords

On page two, all manuscripts must include a structured abstract (300 words maximum) that has each of the following sections:

• Objective(s): A concise statement of the issue, problem, or research question(s) under examination.
• Hypotheses: Main predictions or expected outcomes.
• Method: A description of participants (number and pertinent characteristics such as age, sex, ethnic or racial group) and essential features of method including research design, materials, outcome measures, and procedures.
• Results: Key findings including effect size estimates and confidence intervals.
• Conclusions: Inferences based on results and implications for theory, research, and practice.

Please supply three to five keywords after the abstract. Carefully consider keywords that will help a reader to find and retrieve your article.

Public Significance Statements

Authors must provide 2–3 brief sentences regarding the public significance of their study, review, or other type of manuscript. This statement will appear at the end of the Abstract both online and in print, and augments the Abstract content. There is no need for authors to restate what they did and found. Instead they should describe the theoretical and practical implications of their work in language a lay audience will understand. These statements are intended to increase dissemination and use by larger, more diverse audiences. Additional guidance on Public Significance Statements can be found online.

Examples of Public Significance Statements include

• “This study links police officers’ concerns with appearing racist when interacting with community members to diminished confidence in their legitimate authority and greater support for coercive policing. In this respect, negative stereotypes of police officers can potentially undermine officer morale and public safety.”
• “Risk assessment instruments and algorithms are playing an increasing role in decision making about people involved in the justice system. In this experiment, providing judges with risk assessment information about a defendant increased the severity of their sentences for relatively poor—but not affluent—defendants. It may be necessary to provide guidelines and training to help judges understand their intuitive biases and more effectively and fairly incorporate risk assessment into decision making about defendants.”
• “Child forensic interviewers often want, find helpful, and have access to pre-interview information about the child, alleged abuse, and disclosure. This information might help interviewers facilitate conversations with reluctant children and generate alternative hypotheses, but it also has the potential to compromise the accuracy of children’s reports. Future research should systematically examine the effects of pre-interview information on child forensic interviews to ensure accurate, legally-defensible reports from alleged child victims.”

To be maximally useful, these statements of public significance should not simply be sentences lifted directly from the manuscript. They should provide a bottom-line, take-home message that is accurate and easily understood. In addition, they should be able to be translated into media-appropriate statements for use in press releases and on social media. The editorial team will carefully review all Public Significance Statements to make sure they meet these standards prior to final acceptance and publication.

Constraints on generality

In a subsection of the discussion titled “Constraints on generality,” authors are encouraged to include a detailed discussion of the limits on generality (see Simons et al., 2017). In this section, authors should detail grounds for concluding why the results are, may, or may not be specific to the characteristics of the participants. They should address limits on generality not only for participants but for materials, procedures, and context. Authors should also specify which methods they think could be varied without affecting the result and which should remain constant. Researchers using qualitative methodologies should specify if/how/why they are not extrapolating and generalizing from their data.  

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, Law and Human Behavior 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 the CRediT 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 re-use.
• 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. Not all roles will be applicable to any particular scholarly work.

Journal Article Reporting Standards

Authors are required to follow the APA Style Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS) for quantitative or qualitative, meta-analysis, and mixed methods research. Updated in 2018, the standards offer ways to improve transparency in reporting to ensure that readers have the information necessary to evaluate the quality of the research and to facilitate collaboration and replication. The new JARS:

• recommend the division of hypotheses, analyses and conclusions into primary, secondary and exploratory groupings to allow for a full understanding of quantitative analyses presented in a manuscript and to enhance reproducibility;
• offer modules for authors reporting on N-of-1 designs, replications, clinical trials, longitudinal studies and observational studies, as well as the analytic methods of structural equation modeling and Bayesian analysis; and
• include guidelines on reporting on registration (including making protocols public); participant characteristics, including demographic characteristics; inclusion and exclusion criteria; psychometric characteristics of outcome measures and other variables; and planned data diagnostics and analytic strategy.

JARS-Qual are of use to researchers using qualitative methods like narrative, grounded theory, phenomenological, critical, discursive, performative, ethnographic, consensual qualitative, case study, psychobiography, and thematic analysis approaches. The guidelines focus on transparency in quantitative and mixed methods reporting, recommending descriptions of how the researcher’s own perspective affected the study as well as the contexts in which the research and analysis took place.

Openness and transparency

Authors should state all sources of financial support for the conduct of the research (e.g., This research was supported by Award XX from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Institute of Child Health and Human Development) in the author note. If the funding source was involved in any other aspects of the research (e.g., study design, analysis, interpretation, writing), then clearly state the role. If the funding source had no other involvement other than financial support, then simply state that the funding source had no other role other than financial support.

Authors should also provide a conflict of interest statement in the author note disclosing any real or potentially perceived conflict(s) of interest, including financial, personal, or other relationships with other organizations or companies that may inappropriately impact or influence the research and interpretation of the findings. If there are no conflicts of interest, this should be clearly stated.

Authors should provide a data availability statement indicating whether the data, methods used in the analysis, code, and materials used to conduct the research will be made available to any researcher for purposes of reproducing the results or replicating the procedure. In both the author note and at the end of the method section, either specify where that material will be available or note the ethical or legal reasons for not doing so.

Preregistration of studies and analysis plans can be useful for distinguishing confirmatory and exploratory analyses. We encourage researchers to preregister their studies and analysis plans prior to conducting the research (e.g., Open Science Framework, ClinicalTrials.gov). If any aspect of the study is preregistered, include the registry link in the author note.

Authors who have posted their manuscripts to preprint archives, such as PsyArXiv, prior to submission should include a link to the preprint in the author note.

Reviewer mentorship program

Law and Human Behavior offers a reviewer mentorship program where graduate students and early career professionals are paired with a mentor from the editorial board and are given the opportunity to learn more about the peer review process and the structure of a quality article review. For more information, please refer to:

McAuliff, B. D., Hunt, J. S., Levett, L. M., Zelechoski, A. D., Scherr, K. C., & DeMatteo, D. (2019). Taking the next steps: Promoting open science and expanding diversity in Law and Human Behavior [Editorial]. Law and Human Behavior, 43(1), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000322

Research disclosures

The method section of each manuscript must contain a detailed description of the study participants, including (but not limited to) the following:

• age
• sex
• gender
• ethnicity
• nativity or immigration history (as appropriate)
• SES (as appropriate)
• clinical diagnoses and comorbidities (as appropriate)
• any other relevant demographics (e.g., sexual orientation)

The method section also must include a statement describing how informed consent was obtained from the participants (or their parents/guardians), including for secondary use of data if applicable, and indicate that the study was conducted in compliance with an appropriate Institutional Review Board (masked for peer-review).

In the method section or supplemental materials, authors should report:

• all levels of all independent variables for all predictors or manipulations relevant to the target research question, whether successful or failed;
• all dependent variables or measures collected for the target research question;
• the total number of excluded observations and the reasons for making those exclusions; and
• the exact p values, effect sizes, and 95% confidence intervals, or an explanation of why this was not possible.

Authors may use StatCheck to detect inconsistencies in the reporting of inferential statistics.

Law and Human Behavior has instituted a policy that data coding needs to be performed by a minimum of two coders for at least 51% (but preferably all) of participants' responses or related qualitative data. Ideally, coders are blind to hypotheses, condition, or any other information that could result in systematic bias. In addition, authors must compute and report reliability statistics that take into account chance agreement (e.g., Cohen’s kappa).

Data coding

Law and Human Behavior requires that data coding be performed by a minimum of two coders for at least 51% (but preferably all) of participants' responses or related qualitative data. Ideally, coders are blind to hypotheses, study condition, or any other information that could result in systematic bias. Exceptions to this policy may be made in extraordinary circumstances. In addition, authors must compute and report reliability statistics that take into account chance agreement (e.g., Cohen’s kappa). The journal recognizes that double coding is not expected with some qualitative methodologies.

Registered reports, null results, and replications

In addition to full-length research papers reporting novel findings, the journal publishes registered reports, negative findings, and replications, regardless of result. Preregistration of replication studies is strongly recommended, but not required.

Registered reports require a two-step review process. The first step is the submission of the registration manuscript. This is a partial manuscript that includes:

• description of key research questions and background literature;
• method section including experimental design, independent and dependent variables, materials, and procedure;
• a priori statistical power analysis using an effect size based on the literature (preferably a meta-analysis)
• data analysis plan including a full description of all planned comparisons; and
• pilot data (if applicable).

The partial manuscript will be reviewed for rigor and methodological approach. If accepted, this amounts to provisional acceptance of the full report regardless of the study’s outcomes. The second step of the process will consist of reviewing the full manuscript for adherence to the registered design (authors must report any deviations in the full manuscript).

Registered report instructions (PDF, 121KB)

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

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. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR20240.v8

All data, program code and other methods must be appropriately cited in the text and listed in the References section.

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.

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

Submitting supplemental materials

APA can place supplemental materials online, available via the published article in the APA PsycArticles^® database. Please see supplementing your article with online material for more details.

Display equations

We strongly encourage you to use MathType (third-party software) or Equation Editor 3.0 (built into pre-2007 versions of Word) to construct your equations, rather than the equation support that is built into Word 2007 and Word 2010. Equations composed with the built-in Word 2007/Word 2010 equation support are converted to low-resolution graphics when they enter the production process and must be rekeyed by the typesetter, which may introduce errors.

To construct your equations with MathType or Equation Editor 3.0:

• go to the Text section of the Insert tab and select Object; and
• select MathType or Equation Editor 3.0 in the drop-down menu.

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.

Use Equation Editor 3.0 or MathType only for equations or for formulas that cannot be produced as Word text using the Times or Symbol font.

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.

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.

Authors may post preformatted versions of accepted manuscripts on their personal websites, university, and preprint repositories and author networking sites. The posted manuscript must include a citation and/or link to the final published article.

Published articles that were posted on a preprint archive, such as PsyArXiv, must include a link to the preprint manuscript in the author note. Any press coverage of prepublication manuscripts may preclude press releases by APA’s Public Affairs Office.

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)

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.

Appeals process

Manuscripts rejected without review

Authors of manuscripts rejected without review may appeal the decision to the editor-in-chief, requesting a reconsideration of the decision. If that appeal is rejected but the author believes the decision is inappropriate, the author may appeal to the Executive Committee of the American Psychology-Law Society (AP-LS), APA Division 41.

Manuscripts rejected after peer review

An author wishing to appeal a manuscript should direct the editorial appeal first to the associate editor who made the rejection. If the associate editor declines to further consider the manuscript, or the associate editor does a second review of the manuscript and still rejects it, the author may appeal next to the editor-in-chief. If the editor-in-chief believes the appeal has merit, the manuscript may be reassigned to a new associate editor for independent re-review. If the editor-in-chief rejects the appeal, the author may request that the appeal and the manuscript be sent to the Executive Committee of the American Psychology-Law Society (AP-LS), APA Division 41.

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

David DeMatteo, JD, PhD, ABPP (Forensic)
Drexel University, United States

Associate editors

Amanda Bergold, PhD
Seton Hall University, United States

Jennifer Cox, PhD
The University of Alabama, United States

Christopher M. King, JD, PhD
Montclair State University, United States

Jennifer Perillo, PhD
University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, United States

Liana C. Peter-Hagene, PhD
North Central College, United States

Diane Sivasubramaniam, PhD
Swinburne University of Technology, Australia

Editorial fellow

Tamara Kang, PhD
Southern Illinois University Carbondale, United States

Consulting editors

Ashley Batastini, PhD
Swinburne University of Technology, Australia

Colleen M. Berryessa, PhD
Rutgers University, United States

Iris Blandon-Gitlin, PhD
California State University, Fullerton, United States

Marcus T. Boccaccini, PhD
Sam Houston State University, United States

Eve M. Brank, JD, PhD
University of Nebraska, Lincoln, United States

Stephanie Brooks Holliday, PhD
RAND Corporation, United States

Jason A. Cantone, JD, PhD
Federal Judicial Center, United States

Steve Charman, PhD
Florida International University, United States

Preeti Chauhan, PhD
John Jay College of Criminal Justice—City University of New York, United States

Deborah A. Connolly, LLB, PhD
Simon Fraser University, Canada

Tarika Daftary-Kapur, PhD
Montclair State University, United States

Amy Bradfield Douglass, PhD
Bates College, United States

Eric B. Elbogen, PhD
Duke University School of Medicine, United States

David L. Faigman, JD, MA
University of California at Hastings, United States

Jaymes Fairfax-Columbo, JD, PhD
Drexel University, United States

Melanie Fessinger, PhD, MLS
Arizona State University, United States

Erik J. Girvan, JD, PhD
University of Oregon, United States

Lauren Gonzales, PhD
Columbia University Irving Medical Center, United States

Par Anders Granhag, PhD
University of Gothenburg, Sweden

Thomas Grisso, PhD
University of Massachusetts Medical School, United States

Jennifer Groscup, JD, PhD
Scripps College, United States

Max Guyll, PhD
Iowa State University, United States

Joseph A. Hamm, PhD, MLS
Michigan State University, United States

Jennifer L. Harrison, PhD
Direct Care and Treatment - Forensic Services, United States

Stephen D. Hart, PhD
Simon Fraser University, Canada

Kirk Heilbrun, PhD
Drexel University, United States

Jennifer S. Hunt, PhD
University of Kentucky, United States

Matthew Huss, PhD
Creighton University, United States

Saul Kassin, PhD
John Jay College of Criminal Justice—City University of New York, United States

Lauren E. Kois, PhD
University of Virginia, United States

Margaret Bull Kovera, PhD
John Jay College of Criminal Justice—City University of New York, United States

Daniel Krauss, JD, PhD
Claremont McKenna College, United States

Casey LaDuke, PhD
John Jay College of Criminal Justice—City University of New York, Mount Sinai Health System, United States

Monica Lawson, PhD
The University of Texas at San Antonio, United States

Amy-May Leach, PhD
University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Canada

Lora Levett, PhD
University of Florida, United States

Kamala London, PhD
University of Toledo, United States

Timothy Luke, PhD
University of Gothenburg, Sweden

Evelyn Maeder, PhD, MLS
Carleton University, Canada

Lindsay Malloy, PhD
University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Canada

Jon Maskály, PhD
University of North Dakota, United States

Bradley D. McAuliff, JD, PhD
California State University, Northridge, United States

Kelly McWilliams, PhD
John Jay College of Criminal Justice—City University of New York, United States

Christian A. Meissner, PhD
Iowa State University, United States

Daniel C. Murrie, PhD
University of Virginia, United States

Cynthia J. Najdowski, PhD
University at Albany, United States

Tess M.S. Neal, PhD
Iowa State University, United States

Amanda NeMoyer, JD, PhD
Drexel University, United States

Jennifer H. Peck, PhD
University of Central Florida, United States

Steven D. Penrod, JD, PhD
John Jay College of Criminal Justice—City University of New York, United States

Heather Price, PhD
Thompson Rivers University, Canada

Allison D. Redlich, PhD
George Mason University, United States

Krystia Reed, JD, PhD
University of Texas at El Paso, United States

Jennifer K. Robbennolt, JD, PhD
University of Illinois, United States

Mary R. Rose, PhD
University of Texas at Austin, United States

Barry Rosenfeld, PhD
Fordham University, United States

Jessica M. Salerno, PhD
Arizona State University, United States

Kyle C. Scherr, PhD
Central Michigan University, United States

Nicholas Scurich, PhD
University of California, Irvine, United States

Michael C. Seto, PhD
Royal Ottawa Health Care Group, Canada

Justin T. Sevier, JD, PhD
Florida State University College of Law, United States

Laura Smalarz, PhD
Arizona State University, United States

Andrew M. Smith, PhD
Iowa State University, United States

Samuel R. Sommers, PhD
Tufts University, United States

Loretta Stalans, PhD
Loyola University Chicago, United States

Jorge G. Varela, PhD
Sam Houston State University, United States

Gina M. Vincent, PhD
University of Massachusetts, Chan Medical School, United States

Aldert Vrij, PhD
University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom

Glenn D. Walters, PhD
Kutztown University, United States

Miko M. Wilford, PhD
Iowa State University, United States

Yueran Yang, PhD
University of Nevada, Reno, United States

Patricia Zapf, PhD
Palo Alto University, United States

Heather Zelle, JD, PhD
University of Virginia, United States

Statistical consultant

Nicholas Scurich, PhD
University of California, Irvine, United States

Editorial assistant

Simone Grisamore, MS
Drexel University, United States

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• Racial Justice in the Criminal Justice and Legal Systems:

  Special issue of the APA journal Law and Human Behavior, Vol. 47, No. 1, February 2023. This special issue showcases innovative research and clinical perspectives that advance theoretical frameworks, inform potential interventions, and illustrate the benefits of a racial justice framework.

• Technology in the Legal and Criminal Justice Systems:

  Special issue of APA journal Law and Human Behavior, Vol. 45, No. 5, October 2021. This special issue presents the most up-to-date research highlighting the application of digital technology to the fields of mental health, law, and justice.

• Police-Induced Confessions:

  A Scientific Review Paper and Commentaries of the American Psychology–Law Society (AP–LS), APA Division 41, originally published in Law and Human Behavior, Vol. 34, No. 1, February 2010. This collection reviews the literature on police interrogation and confession and distills from it important insights and policy recommendations.

Journal equity, diversity, and inclusion statement

The Law and Human Behavior editorial team believes that diversity is not simply an issue of social justice; it is an issue of good science. Representation matters, whether it involves publishing work by researchers from underrepresented groups, having an Editorial Board composed of researchers and scholars with diverse backgrounds and perspectives, or expanding the scope of existing research to address new topics that affect the lives of diverse communities. Studies focused exclusively on historically excluded populations are also welcome. The journal particularly welcomes submissions that feature collaborative research models (e.g., community-based participatory research [CBPR]; see Collins, et al., 2018) and study designs that address heterogeneity within diverse samples.

Inclusive study designs

• Diverse samples

Definitions and further details on inclusive study designs are available on the Journals EDI homepage.

Inclusive reporting standards

• Bias-free language and community-driven language guidelines (required)
• Author contribution roles using CRediT (required)
• Data sharing and data availability statements (required)
• Impact statements (required)
• Participant sample descriptions (required)
• Constraints on Generality (COG) statements (required)

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

Pathways to authorship and editorship

Reviewer mentorship program

This journal encourages reviewers to submit co-reviews with their students and trainees. The journal likewise offers a formal reviewer mentorship program where graduate students and postdoctoral fellows from historically excluded groups are matched with a senior reviewer to produce an integrated review.

Other EDI offerings

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).

Editorial

• Further Action Toward Valid Science in Law and Human Behavior: Requiring Open Data, Analytic Code, and Research Materials, December 2022
• Taking the next steps: Promoting open science and expanding diversity in Law and Human Behavior, February 2019

Editor Spotlight

• Read an interview with Editor David DeMatteo, JD, PhD

From APA Journals Article Spotlight^®

• A survey of U.S. police officers about interviewing and interrogation
• A step toward culturally informed forensic mental health assessments: Improving justice and equity for legal-system-involved people
• Just how powerful is false confession evidence?
• After having a few alcoholic beverages, are you able to comprehend your Miranda rights?
• Previous Article Spotlights

In the press

• The Prevalence of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Among People Impacted by the Criminal Legal System: An Updated Meta-Analysis and Subgroup Analyses
  November 30, 2024
• Mass shootings: Limiting magazine capacity saves lives and doesn’t infringe on gun rights
  August 19, 2020
• What do criminal justice risk assessments actually assess?
  August 22, 2019
• “Racist police officer” stereotype may become a self-fulfilling prophecy
  APA press release, July 15, 2019
• Detecting deception in children: A meta-analysis
  Mentioned in “50 lies kids say that parents always fall for” from MSN.com, March 18, 2019

Open access articles

• Developing consensus for culturally informed forensic mental health assessment: Experts' opinions on best practices.
• Developing a model of guilty plea decision-making: Fuzzy-trace theory, gist, and categorical boundaries.
• Evidence-based suspicion and the prior probability of guilt in police interrogations.
• What’s risk got to do with it: Judges’ and probation officers’ understanding and use of juvenile risk assessments in making residential placement decisions.
• Racial justice in psycholegal research and forensic psychology practice: Current advances and a framework for future progress.
• Previous open access articles