Submission guidelines

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.

Submissions are handled only through our Editorial Manager platform, and the only official journal website is through APA. If you believe you interacted with a fraudulent website for this journal, please email APA Journalsopens in new window. Review our resource for authors for more information on identifying predatory journals.

Neuropsychology^® is now using a software system to screen submitted content for similarity with other published content. The system compares each submitted manuscript against a database of 25+ million scholarly publications, 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). A similarity report will be generated by the system and provided to the Neuropsychology Editorial office for review immediately upon submission.

To submit to the editorial office of Steven Paul Woods, PsyD, please submit manuscripts electronically through the Manuscript Submission Portal in Microsoft Word (.docx), Open Office, 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 Manuscriptopens in new window

The file must exactly copy, in all respects and in a single file, the complete APA-style printed version of the manuscript.

Authors with questions concerning manuscript submission should address these directly to the Neuropsychology editorial officeopens in new window.

In addition to addresses and phone numbers, please supply email addresses and fax numbers, if available, for potential use by the editorial office and later by the production office.

Keep a copy of the manuscript to guard against loss.

Neuropsychology is a peer-reviewed journal that typically publishes original research as full-length regular articles; systematic reviews and meta-analyses, as well as theoretical articles, are also welcome if they advance knowledge regarding human brain-behavior relationships.

Neuropsychology  encourages/publishes direct replications. Submissions should include “A Replication of XX Study” in the subtitle of the manuscript as well as in the abstract.

A detailed description of the editorial coverage policy appears on the inside of the front cover of each issue.

Other article formats, such as brief reports and case studies, will also be considered for publication.

Each issue of Neuropsychology will highlight one article with the designation as an “Editor’s Choice” paper. Selection is based on the recommendations of the associate editors, based on the following criteria: diversity of authors or participants; innovation; scientific rigor; and likely clinical or public significance or impact. Selected papers will appear in the Editor’s Choice newsletter.

Meta-analyses published in Neuropsychology should adhere to the APA Style Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS) for manuscripts reporting meta-analyses (PDF, 64KB; see Table 9)opens in new window.

Visit the APA Style JARS websiteopens in new window for more information.

Case studies will be considered if they raise or illustrate important questions that go beyond the single case and have heuristic value.

The official language of APA journals is English.

Neuropsychology frequently publishes manuscripts submitted by authors from non-English-speaking countries. Authors not fluent in English are strongly recommended to have their manuscript edited for English usage prior to submission. If this is not possible, a notation to this effect should be included in the cover letter to the editor.

Although time constraints prevent the editor and associate editors from assisting authors with their written English, several organizations have extended offers to the journal to provide this service for authors; contact the editor for more information.

Starting in 2010, all manuscripts published in Neuropsychology will include a structured abstract of up to 250 words. The Abstract, presented in paragraph form, should be typed on a separate page (page 2 of the manuscript), and must include each of the following sections:

• Objective: A brief statement of the purpose of the study
• Method: A detailed summary of the participants as well as descriptions of the study design, measures, and procedures
• Results: A detailed summary of the primary findings that include effect sizes or confidence intervals with significance testing
• Conclusions: A summary of the research and implications of the findings

After the abstract, please supply three to five keywords.

Neuropsychology requires authors of all manuscripts to submit a short Key Points summary, written in conversational English, that summarizes the main takeaways for the article. The Key Points section allows authors' work to be more discoverable and easily interpreted by a number of audiences (clinicians, policy makers, news media).

In the manuscript, include a separate section called “Key points” after the abstract.

Please structure the key points as follows; each section should be no more than one short sentence in length:

• Question: What is the key question this paper addresses?
• Findings: What are the primary findings?
• Importance: What are the key scientific and practical implications of the findings?
• Next steps: What directions should be explored in future research?

Please refer to the Guidance for Translational Abstracts and Public Significance Statements page to help you write this text.

Neuropsychology is committed to improving equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in scientific research, in line with the APA Publishing EDI framework.

The journal encourages submissions which extend beyond Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) samples (Henrich, et al., 2010opens in new window). The journal welcomes submissions which feature Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) and other historically marginalized sample populations. The journal particularly welcomes submissions which feature community-based participatory research (CBPR) models (see Collins, et al., 2018opens in new window) and study designs that address heterogeneity within diverse samples. Studies focused exclusively on BIPOC or other marginalized populations are also welcome.

To promote a more equitable research and publication process, Neuropsychology has adopted the following standards for inclusive research reporting.

The method section of each empirical report must contain a detailed description of the study participants, which should include (but is not limited to) the following:

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

In both the abstract and in the discussion section of the manuscript, authors should discuss the diversity of their study samples and the generalizability of their findings (see constraints on generality section below).

Authors should also justify their sample demographics in the discussion section. If Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) or all-White samples are used, authors should justify their samples and describe their sample inclusion efforts (see Roberts, et al., 2020opens in new window for more information on justifying sample demographics).

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 Internal Review Board.

In the discussion, preferably in a subsection titled “Constraints on generality,” authors should include a detailed discussion of the limits on generality of their research (see Simons, Shoda, & Lindsay, 2017opens in new window for discussion and examples). In this section, authors should identify and justify the target populations for their findings, and address limits on generality not only for participants but for materials, procedures, and context. They should also specify which methods they believe could be varied without affecting the result and which should remain constant for the purposes of replication.

Neuropsychology welcomes submissions that proactively challenge racism and other forms of oppression. In line with the APA Guidelines on Race and Ethnicity in Psychology (2019)opens in new window, authors are encouraged to include reflexive statements in the discussion section, addressing the following questions.

• What are the policy implications of these findings?
• Could this research be misinterpreted or misused to negatively affect underrepresented groups? Does the research have the potential to cause harm to vulnerable groups? If so, how can this be addressed and mitigated?
• Does the design or framing of this research reinforce negative stereotypes about marginalized populations?
• What roles do the researcher(s)’ values and worldview play in the selection of this topic or design of the study?

The APA Publication Manual (7th ed.opens in new window) 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, this journal has adopted the Contributor Roles Taxonomyopens in new window (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 prompted to select one or more contributor roles for each author at initial submission. All authors should have reviewed and agreed to their individual contribution(s) before submission. If the manuscript is accepted for publication, an Author Contributions Statement will be generated during the typesetting process and published in the author note of the final article. It is not necessary for authors to provide a written Author Contributions Statement upon 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 reuse.
• 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.

Articles are eligible for open science badges recognizing publicly available data, materials, and/or preregistered 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)opens in new window 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.

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 Protected Access (PA) 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. Manuscripts with data deposited in ICPSR's database are eligible for this badge.

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.

Nonstandard abbreviations should be introduced by placing the abbreviation in parentheses after the first occurrence of the term being abbreviated in both the abstract and the text. The metric system should be followed for all volumes, lengths, weights, and so on. Temperatures should be expressed in degrees Celsius (centigrade). Units should conform to the International System of Units (SI; see the Publication Manual).

Whenever appropriate, statistical analyses should include effect sizes and confidence intervals and figures should include error bars. Authors are strongly encouraged to read the APA guidelines for statistical methods and reporting, L. Wilkinson and the Task Force on Statistical Inference, 1999, “Statistical Methods in Psychology Journals: Guidelines and Explanationsopens in new window,” American Psychologist, 54, 594–604 (PDF, 1171KB).

Neuropsychology requires the use of the CONSORT reporting standards (i.e., a checklist and flow diagram) for any study identified as a randomized clinical trial, consistent with the policy established by the Publications and Communications Board of the American Psychological Association. CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) offers a standard way to improve the quality of such reports and to ensure that readers have the information necessary to evaluate the quality of a clinical trial.

Manuscripts that are identified/classified as randomized clinical trials are required to include a flow diagram of the progress through the phases of the trial and a checklist that identifies where in the manuscript the various criteria are addressed. (The checklist should be placed in an Appendix of the manuscript for review purposes.) When a study is not fully consistent with the CONSORT statement, the limitations should be acknowledged and discussed in the text of the manuscript.

For follow-up studies of previously published clinical trials, authors should submit a flow diagram of the progress through the phases of the trial and follow-up. The above checklist information should be completed to the extent possible, especially for the results and discussion sections of the manuscript.

Visit the CONSORT Statement Web siteopens in new window for more details and resources.

Authors should review the APA Style Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS) for quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods. 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 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 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 of study preregistration (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 offers guidance to researchers using qualitative methods such as narrative data, grounded theory, phenomenological, critical, discursive, performative, ethnographic, consensual qualitative, case study, psychobiography, and thematic analysis approaches. 

The guidelines focus on transparency in 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. 

Authors should also review the new Journal Article Reporting Standards for Race, Ethnicity, and Culture (JARS–REC). Meant for all authors, regardless of research topic, JARS–REC include standards for all stages of research and manuscript writing, on, for example: 

• Using the title, abstract, and keywords to identify race and ethnicity of participants without signaling Whiteness as default; 
• Discussing the applicability of the theoretical approach to populations for which it was not developed; 
• Addressing limits on generality, recognizing that generalizability is always constrained and is not the primary purpose of every study; and 
• Considering whether findings could be used or misused to cause harm. 

For more, see the Guidance for Authors sections of the table (PDF, 184KB)opens in new window. 

APA endorses the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines by a community working group in conjunction with the Center for Open Science (Nosek et al. 2015opens in new window). Effective July 1, 2021, empirical research, including meta-analyses, submitted to Neuropsychology must meet the “disclosure” level for all eight aspects of research planning and reporting as well as the "requirement" level (Level 2) for citation, design and analysis transparency, and preregistration. Authors should include a subsection in the method section titled “Transparency and openness.” This subsection should detail the efforts the authors have made to comply with the TOP guidelines.

For example:

• We report how we determined our sample size, all data exclusions (if any), all manipulations, and all measures in the study, and we follow JARS (Kazak, 2018). All data, analysis code, and research materials are available at [stable link to repository]. Data were analyzed using R, version 4.0.0 (R Core Team, 2020) and the package ggplot, version 3.2.1 (Wickham, 2016). This study’s design and its analysis were not pre-registered.

Links to preregistrations and data, code, and materials should also be included in the author note.

Authors must state whether data and study materials are available and, if so, where to access them. Recommended repositories include APA’s repositoryopens in new window on the Open Science Framework (OSF), or authors can access a full list of other recommended repositoriesopens in new window.

In both the author note and at the end of the method section, specify whether and where the data and material will be available or note the legal or ethical reasons for not doing so. For submissions with quantitative or simulation analytic methods, state whether the study analysis code is available, and, if so, where to access it (or the legal or ethical reason why it is not available).

For example:

• All data have been made publicly available at the [repository name] and can be accessed at [persistent URL or DOI].
• Materials and analysis code for this study are not available.
• The code behind this analysis/simulation has been made publicly available at the [repository name] and can be accessed at [persistent URL or DOI].

For studies that are not clinical trials, preregistration is encouraged, but not required. Preregistration of studies and specific hypotheses can be a useful tool for making strong theoretical claims. Likewise, preregistration of analysis plans can be useful for distinguishing confirmatory and exploratory analyses. Investigators are encouraged to preregister their studies and analysis plans prior to conducting the research (e.g., ClinicalTrials.govopens in new window or the Preregistration for Quantitative Research in Psychologyopens in new window template) via a publicly accessible registry system (e.g., OSFopens in new window, ClinicalTrials.gov, or other trial registries in the WHO Registry Network).

Articles must state whether or not any work was preregistered and, if so, where to access the preregistration. Preregistrations must be available to reviewers; authors may submit a masked copy via stable link or supplemental material. Links in the method section and the author note should be replaced with an identifiable copy on acceptance.

For example:

• This study’s design was preregistered; see [STABLE LINK OR DOI].
• This study’s design and hypotheses were preregistered; see [STABLE LINK OR DOI].
• This study’s analysis plan was preregistered; see [STABLE LINK OR DOI].
• This study was not preregistered.

Masked reviews are required.

Each copy of a manuscript should include a separate title page with authors' names and affiliations, and these should not appear anywhere else on the manuscript. Footnotes that identify the authors should be typed on a separate page.

It is the author’s responsibility to see that the manuscript itself contains no clues to their identities, 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 Projectopens in new window).

Please ensure that the final version of your manuscript for production includes a byline and full author note for typesetting.

Include the following in your submission letter:

• a statement of compliance with APA ethical standards
• a statement that the manuscript or data have not been published previously and that they are not under consideration for publication elsewhere
• a statement to reflect that all listed authors have contributed significantly to the manuscript and consent to their names on the manuscript
• a brief statement of how the article content is relevant to the domain of Neuropsychology as described in the journal inside cover

Failure to include any of the requirements above may result in a delay of the review process. On an optional basis, authors may provide the names and email addresses of up to three qualified potential reviewers for the manuscript.

Upon acceptance of their manuscript for publication, authors are expected to provide permissions, signed and dated copyright release and disclosure of interest forms, and a statement of compliance with APA ethical standards.

All proofs must be corrected and returned within 48 hours of receipt. Any extensive nonessential changes and extensive changes due to author error may incur charges. With the proofs will be a form providing the author with the opportunity to order reprints.

Direct inquiries to the APA Journals Office can be emailedopens in new window; sent to 800-374-2721; or faxed to 202-336-5549.

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).

Formatting instructions (all copy must be double-spaced) and instructions on preparing tables, figures, references, metrics, and abstracts appear in the Manual. Each table should be submitted with the manuscript file. Each should start on a separate page and must be numbered and labeled with an appropriate title. All tables must be self-explanatory.

Visit the Preparation and Submission page in the Journals Publishing Resource Center for more information

Review APA's Journal Manuscript Preparation Guidelines before submitting your article.

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.

APA can place supplemental materials online, available via the published article in the APA PsycArticles^® database.

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/rev0000126opens in new window

Authored book

Brown, L. S. (2018). Feminist therapy (2nd ed.). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000092-000opens in new window

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/10.1037/0000119-012opens in new window

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. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR20240.v8opens in new window

Software/Code citation

Viechtbauer, W. (2010). Conducting meta-analyses in R with the metafor package.  Journal of Statistical Software, 36(3), 1–48. https://www.jstatsoft.org/v36/i03/opens in new window

Wickham, H. et al., (2019). Welcome to the tidyverse. Journal of Open Source Software, 4(43), 1686, https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.01686opens in new window

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

Tables should adhere to APA Styleopens in new window. Use Word’s Insert Table function to create tables, and do not insert tabs or extra spaces to align columns as this will create problems when the table is typeset.

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.

Color figure fees

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

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.

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 the article in the production process. Supply separate files for computer code.

In online supplemental material

Runnable source code should 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 authors would like to include code in the text of the published article, submit a separate file with your code exactly as it should appear, using Courier New font with a type size of 8 points. An image will be made 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.

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)opens in new window

APA holds policies that apply to all journals published. These include policies 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. Please also refer to individual journal submission guidance for specific practices and requirements for manuscript submission.

A key convention in the publication of research is the peer review process, in which the quality and potential contribution of each manuscript is evaluated by one's peers in the scientific community. Like other scientific journals, APA journals utilize a peer review process to guide manuscript selection and publication decisions.

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.

APA policy prohibits an author from submitting the same manuscript for concurrent consideration by two or more publications.

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).

APA Journals aims to address systemic inequities and bias, promote equitable opportunities for researchers, and foster an inclusive environment within the psychological research and scholarly publishing communities, representative of the wide array of people that psychology consists of and serves. Please refer to individual journal submission guidance for specific EDI practices and requirements for manuscript submission.

The APA Journals™ Program is committed to publishing transparent, rigorous research; improving reproducibility in science; and aiding research discovery. Open science practices vary across subfields and per editor discretion, and APA Publishing supports all efforts to improve openness and transparency, especially as they improve diversity, equity, and inclusion. Please refer to individual journal submission guidance for specific OS practices and requirements for manuscript submission.

The APA Journals Office supports authors’ choices on how to publish their work. We are committed to offering options that we believe comply with most funder and institutional requirements and support both self-archiving (“green”) and APC (paid for via an article processing charge and also known as “gold”) Open Access options. Submitting a manuscript for peer review is free of charge.

APA’s current policies on generative AI include:

• When a generative AI model is used in the drafting of a manuscript for an APA publication, the use of AI must be disclosed in the methods section and cited.
• AI cannot be named as an author on an APA scholarly publication.

APA policy prohibits an author from submitting the same manuscript for concurrent consideration by two or more publications. Preprints are allowed.

Authors of accepted papers must obtain and provide 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.

It is a violation of APA Ethical Principles to publish “as original data, data that have been previously published” (Standard 8.13).

APA Ethical Principles also state 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 make their data available if asked during the editorial process and for at least five years after the date of publication.

If the manuscript is accepted, the corresponding author is required to sign and submit a Certification of Compliance with APA Ethical Principles (PDF, 26KB).opens in new window

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.