Psychological Methods^®

Psychological Methods ^® is devoted to the development and dissemination of methods for collecting, analyzing, understanding, and interpreting psychological data. Its purpose is the dissemination of innovations in research design, measurement, methodology, and quantitative and qualitative analysis to the psychological community; its further purpose is to promote effective communication about related substantive and methodological issues.

The audience is expected to be diverse and to include those who develop new procedures, those who are responsible for undergraduate and graduate training in design, measurement, and statistics, as well as those who employ those procedures in research.

The journal solicits original theoretical, quantitative, empirical, and methodological articles; reviews of important methodological issues; tutorials; articles illustrating innovative applications of new procedures to psychological problems; articles on the teaching of quantitative methods; and reviews of statistical software.

Submissions will be judged on their relevance to understanding psychological data, methodological correctness, and accessibility to a wide audience. Where appropriate, submissions should illustrate through concrete example how the procedures described or developed can enhance the quality of psychological research.

The journal welcomes submissions that show the relevance to psychology of procedures developed in other fields. Empirical and theoretical articles on specific tests or test construction should have a broad thrust; otherwise, they may be more appropriate for Psychological Assessment. Similarly, articles of interest to only a single subdiscipline of psychology may typically be more appropriate for a journal devoted to that specialty unless they make an exceptional contribution to the literature.

Disclaimer: APA and the Editors of Psychological Methods assume no responsibility for statements and opinions advanced by the authors of its articles.

Editor

Douglas Steinley, PhD
University of Missouri—Columbia, United States

Associate Editors

Sarah Depaoli, PhD
University of California, Merced, United States

Michael C. Edwards, PhD
Arizona State University, United States

Emilio Ferrer, PhD
University of California, Davis, United States

David Kaplan, PhD
University of Wisconsin–Madison, United States

Kristopher J. Preacher, PhD 
Vanderbilt University, United States

Lijuan (Peggy) Wang, PhD
University of Notre Dame, United States

Consulting Editors

Samantha F. Anderson, PhD
Arizona State University, United States

Deborah L. Bandalos, PhD
James Madison University, United States

Daniel J. Bauer, PhD
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States

Shelley A. Blozis, PhD
University of California, Davis, United States

Kenneth Bollen, PhD
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, United States

David V. Budescu, PhD
Fordham University, United States

Sun-Joo Cho, PhD
Vanderbilt University, United States

Sy-Miin Chow, PhD
Pennsylvania State University, United States

Patrick J. Curran, PhD
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States

Pascal R. Deboeck, PhD
University of Utah, United States

Craig K. Enders, PhD
University of California, Los Angeles, United States

Sacha Epskamp, PhD
University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Kathleen Gates, PhD
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, United States

Richard Gonzalez, PhD
University of Michigan, United States

Kevin J. Grimm, PhD
Arizona State University, United States

Gregory R. Hancock, PhD
University of Maryland, College Park, United States

Jeffrey R. Harring, PhD
University of Maryland, College Park, United States

Lesa Hoffman, PhD
University of Iowa, United States

Julian D. Karch, PhD
Leiden University, the Netherlands

Ken Kelley, PhD
University of Notre Dame, United States

Irene Klugkist, PhD
Utrecht University, the Netherlands

Nidhi Kohli, PhD
University of Minnesota, United States

Gitta Lubke, PhD
University of Notre Dame, United States

David P. MacKinnon, PhD
Arizona State University, United States

Keith A. Markus, PhD
John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York, United States

Daniel McNeish, PhD
Arizona State University, United States

Jorge Luis Mendoza, PhD
University of Oklahoma, United States

Edgar C. Merkle, PhD
University of Missouri, United States

Jolynn Pek, PhD
Ohio State University, United States

Tenko Raykov, PhD
Michigan State University, United States

Nilam Ram, PhD
Pennsylvania State University, United States

Mijke Rhemtulla, PhD
University of California, Davis, United States

Edward Rigdon, PhD
Georgia State University, United States

Victoria Savalei, PhD
University of British Columbia, Canada

Patrick E. Shrout, PhD
New York University, United States

Sonya K. Sterba, PhD
Vanderbilt University, United States

Stephen G. West, PhD
Arizona State University, United States

Jelte M. Wicherts, PhD
Tilburg University, the Netherlands

Ke-Hai Yuan, PhD
University of Notre Dame, United States

Guangjian Zhang, PhD
University of Notre Dame, United States

Zhiyong (Johnny) Zhang, PhD
University of Notre Dame, United States

Peer Review Coordinator

Nick Millington
American Psychological Association, United States

Abstracting and indexing services providing coverage of Psychological Methods^®

• Academic OneFile
• Cabell's Directory of Publishing Opportunities in Psychology
• Current Abstracts
• Current Contents: Social & Behavioral Sciences
• Education Research Complete
• Education Source
• Educator's Reference Complete
• Ergonomics Abstracts
• ERIH (European Reference Index for the Humanities and Social Sciences)
• Journal Citations Report: Social Sciences Edition
• MEDLINE
• Mosby's Nursing Consult
• OCLC
• Psychology Collection
• PsycINFO
• PsycLine
• SafetyLit
• SCOPUS
• Social Sciences Citation Index
• Social Work Abstracts
• Supplemental Index
• TOC Premier

Prior to 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.

Submission

To submit to the Editorial Office of Douglas Steinley, PhD, 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.

Starting June 15, 2020, all new manuscripts submitted should be prepared according to the 7^th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. APA Style and Grammar Guidelines for the 7^th edition are available.

Submit Manuscript

General correspondence may be directed to the Editorial Office via email.

In the cover letter, include assurance that the manuscript is not under review elsewhere, that any primary data have not been published previously or accepted for publication, and that the appropriate ethical guidelines were followed in the conduct of the research.

Each manuscript must include on separate pages

• author footnotes, which include acknowledgments of support and the name and address of the author to whom correspondence should be sent
• a title page with the author's name and affiliation when the research was done

Submissions are judged on their relevance to understanding psychological data, methodological correctness, and accessibility to a wide audience. Where appropriate, submissions should illustrate through concrete example how the procedures described or developed can enhance the quality of psychological research.

The journal welcomes submissions that show the relevance to psychology of procedures developed in other fields. Empirical and theoretical articles on specific tests or test construction should have a broad thrust; otherwise, they may be more appropriate for Psychological Assessment. Similarly, articles of interest to only a single subdiscipline of psychology may typically be more appropriate for a journal devoted to that specialty unless they make an exceptional contribution to the literature.

Also 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 Methods is now using 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 40+ million scholarly documents, as well as content appearing on the open web. This allows APA to check submissions for potential overlap with material previously published in scholarly journals (e.g., lifted or republished material).

Types of Articles Solicited

• original theoretical, quantitative, empirical, and methodological articles
• reviews of important methodological issues
• tutorials
• articles illustrating innovative applications of new procedures to psychological problems
• articles on the teaching of quantitative methods
• reviews of statistical software

Masked Review Policy

Masked reviews are optional, and authors who wish masked reviews must specifically request them when submitting their manuscripts. Authors may suggest individuals qualified to do reviewing.

For masked reviews, authors should send two PDF files. One file should be a complete copy of the manuscript for the editorial office. The second should delete the title page and all other identifying information.

Make every effort to ensure that the manuscript itself contains no clues as to author identity.

If your manuscript was mask reviewed, please ensure that the final version for production includes a byline and full author note for typesetting.

Length

Manuscripts should generally not exceed 12,000 words (approximately 40 double-spaced pages in 12-point Times New Roman font), not including references, tables, figures, and appendixes. Manuscripts longer than 12,000 words will be considered for publication only if they are judged to have the potential to make an exceptional contribution to the literature.

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. 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

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.
• 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.

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.

Psychological Methods requires authors submit two abstracts.

One will be reviewed for its suitability as a description for scientists and for purposes of document retrieval from reference databases — this abstract is required at article submission.

The other abstract will be reviewed for its ability to communicate the essence of the article and its value to applied researchers who are not methodologists. Upon request, editors can assist the authors in constructing the nontechnical abstract, which should be submitted with the initial submission or the first revision.

After the abstract, please supply up to five keywords or brief phrases.

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:
  Hughes, G., Desantis, A., & Waszak, F. (2013). Mechanisms of intentional binding and sensory attenuation: The role of temporal prediction, temporal control, identity prediction, and motor prediction. Psychological Bulletin, 139, 133–151. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0028566
• Authored Book:
  Rogers, T. T., & McClelland, J. L. (2004). Semantic cognition: A parallel distributed processing approach. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Chapter in an Edited Book:
  Gill, M. J., & Sypher, B. D. (2009). Workplace incivility and organizational trust. In P. Lutgen-Sandvik & B. D. Sypher (Eds.), Destructive organizational communication: Processes, consequences, and constructive ways of organizing (pp. 53–73). New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.

Figures

Graphics files are welcome if supplied as Tiff or EPS files. Multipanel figures (i.e., figures with parts labeled a, b, c, d, etc.) should be assembled into one file.

The minimum line weight for line art is 0.5 point for optimal printing.

For more information about acceptable resolutions, fonts, sizing, and other figure issues, please see the general guidelines.

When possible, please place symbol legends below the figure instead of to the side.

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

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)

Open Science Badges

Starting in January 2017, 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, 33KB) that must be submitted as supplemental material. If all criteria are met as confirmed by the editor, 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 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.

Publication 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 Disclosure of Interests Form (PDF, 38KB)

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.

Authors of accepted manuscripts are required to transfer the copyright to APA.

• For manuscripts not funded by the Wellcome Trust or the Research Councils UK
  Publication Rights (Copyright Transfer) Form (PDF, 83KB)
• For manuscripts funded by the Wellcome Trust or the Research Councils UK
  Wellcome Trust or Research Councils UK Publication Rights Form (PDF, 34KB)

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

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

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• Bayesian Data Analysis — Part I

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• Big Data in Psychology

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• Meta-Analysis Topics

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• Longitudinal Topics

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• Multi-Study Methods for Building a Cumulative Psychological Science

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