Psychology of Violence

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 Brad J. Bushman, PhD, please submit manuscripts electronically through the Manuscript Submission Portal in Microsoft Word format (.doc or .docx) or LaTex (.tex) as a zip file with an accompanied Portable Document Format (.pdf) of the manuscript file.

Prepare manuscripts according to the guidelines stated below, following the 7^th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association and the Psychology of Violence journal requirements.

Submit Manuscript

General correspondence may be directed to the editor’s office.

In addition to addresses and phone numbers, please supply email addresses for use by the editorial office and later by the production office. Most correspondence between the editorial office and authors is handled by email, so a valid email address is important to the timely flow of communication during the editorial process.

Also, please be sure to provide names and contact information for each of your co-authors in the cover letter.

Keep a copy of the manuscript to guard against loss.

If you encounter difficulties with submission, please email the peer review coordinator, Davia Tanelus.

Submission policies

Authors should verify in their cover letter that manuscripts submitted to Psychology of Violence have not been published previously and are not currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. The cover letter should also list any other publications from the same dataset and describe how the manuscript overlaps with and is different from other publications, if any, based on the same dataset. See the APA Publication Manual for a detailed discussion of this issue. The cover letter is not shared with reviewers so this information should not be masked.

Authors of accepted articles will be required to complete APA's Publication Rights form and Full Disclosure of Interests form. All studies involving human participants or animal subjects must also adhere to the Ethical Principles of APA. Authors must disclose any potential conflicts of interest with their research or certify that they have none. All publication forms are available on the Forms for Journals Publication page.

Masked review policy

This journal uses a masked reviewing system for all submissions. The first page of the manuscript should omit the authors’ names and affiliations but should include the title of the manuscript and the date it is submitted. Footnotes containing information pertaining to the authors' identities or affiliations should not be included in the manuscript but may be provided after a manuscript is accepted. Make every effort to see that the manuscript itself contains no clues to the authors’ identities.

Equity, diversity, and inclusion statement

Psychology of Violence recognizes that members of marginalized and minoritized groups experience extremely high levels of violence due to a host of legal, social, cultural, economic, and other structural factors. These marginalized and minoritized groups include (but are not limited to) women, individuals who are LGBTQIA2S+, individuals who are members of marginalized ethnic/racial groups, individuals who are low income, individuals with disabilities, individuals from religious minority groups, and individuals who are impacted by privilege and oppression at the intersection of their identities.  We are committed to reducing biases within violence research and ourselves. Psychology of Violence is also committed to recruiting a diverse editorial team and publishing articles authored by individuals from marginalized and minoritized groups. Psychology of Violence encourages scholarship that uses theoretical perspectives, study designs, study samples, and analytical methods that promote equity by representing diversity and inclusion of marginalized and minoritized groups in the United States and internationally. Authors are encouraged to consider system-level factors that influence individuals’ behavior.

Journal Article Reporting Standards

Authors should review the updated APA Style Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS) for quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research before submitting. These 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. Further resources, including flowcharts, are available on the APA Style Journal Article Reports Standards page.

Sharing of data and stimulus materials

Psychology of Violence encourages authors of accepted manuscripts to make their materials and data publicly available on a third-party repository, including (but not limited to) APA's data-sharing repository. APA's data sharing policy does not require public posting, so you are free to decide what is best for your project in terms of public data, materials, and conditions on their use. Maintaining participants' anonymity is an important concern that may preclude public sharing of a dataset. However, APA policy does require authors to make their data available to other researchers upon request.

Manuscript types

Psychology of Violence publishes three types of articles:

• Full-length articles (10,000-word limit)
• Research reports (2,500-word limit)
• Short reports (1,000-word limit)

The word limits exclude the abstract, references, tables, and figures. Psychology of Violence publishes both quantitative and qualitative research. The journal also publishes review articles, including meta-analyses, and theoretical pieces.

Commentaries

Commentaries are considered for publication in Psychology of Violence. There are two types. The first type is when a reader submits an unsolicited comment on an article published in Psychology of Violence. The primary purpose of the commentary would be to provide a meaningful insight, concern, alternative interpretation, clarification, or critical analysis of the original article. It is not intended to simply be a critique of the literature review or basic methodology or statistics (e.g., suggesting articles that should have been included in the literature review, suggesting a different type of data analysis, noting that a study is statistically underpowered). Instead, the commentary should provide a richer and more comprehensive context for understanding the article that significantly adds to the literature by focusing on conceptual issues, methodological issues, and/or the policy implications of the findings. If a commentary is accepted, then the original author is invited to write a reply to the comment.

Commentaries should be submitted no later than 12 months after publication of the original article. If the editor determines that the commentary meets the criteria described above, then it will be subject to the same process of peer review and the same editorial criteria and standards as any other manuscript. Commentaries may be no more than half the length of the original article, and replies may be no more than half the length of the commentary. A commentary and reply will be published together. Except under rare circumstances, there will be only one round of comment and reply. The title of a commentary should include a subtitle reflecting the actual title and year of publication of the article that is the focus of the comment.

The second type of commentary is initiated by the editor, who identifies an accepted article as one for which a commentary might be useful (e.g., controversial theoretical perspective or empirical findings; groundbreaking topic). The editor will invite one or more individuals to comment on the accepted article; and the author of the original piece is then invited to submit a reply or rebuttal to the comment. Comments and rebuttals go through the peer review and editorial process as described above. The original article is then published along with the comments and reply in chronological order.

Manuscript preparation guidelines

Manuscripts must be prepared according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association using the 7th edition.

All APA requirements are important; the ones listed below are particularly noteworthy:

• Disclose all prior publications with this dataset in the cover letter (which is only seen by editors). 
• Use bias-free language.
• Double space the entire text and references, putting only one table or figure on a page at the end of the manuscript, using one-inch margins all around, and including a header and page numbers.  
• Minimize the use of acronyms so your manuscript is accessible to a wide audience.

All manuscripts that remain under consideration at Psychology of Violence will be asked to include the following:

• A structured abstract divided into four sections with the headings: Objective, method, results, and conclusions. The objective should clearly communicate the novel contribution of the manuscript. Do not, however, claim that "this is the first study ever to..." Such a claim cannot be substantiated. In the conclusion, please identify at least one specific implication and avoid boilerplate language such as "Implications will be discussed." Target length is no more than 250 words.
• 4 to 5 keywords for all manuscripts.
• A statement that clearly describes the study's purpose must be provided in the first 3 paragraphs of the paper.
• The introduction needs to end with numbered statements of hypotheses or research questions, and these need to be explicitly revisited in the results and discussion.
• Authors are expected to review the APA Style Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS) and verify that they have included all relevant methodological information for the type of study they conducted, including effect sizes when they can be calculated.
• Number of items, response categories, alpha, and scoring need to be presented for all measures. Validity should be addressed.
• Sample size: Qualitative studies need to provide a rationale for the sample size based on their specific methodology. Quantitative studies need to include a formal power analysis that corresponds to the hypotheses and data analytic approach whenever possible; alternative methods used to determine the precision of parameter estimates should be used when power analyses are not appropriate for the data analytic technique. For both qualitative and quantitative studies, methodological citations should be provided to justify the technique used.
• The discussion needs separate subsections (in this order) for limitations, future research directions, and prevention, clinical, and policy implications. Regarding the implications subsection, at least one of the three types of implications listed above must be addressed and the heading should be modified to indicate those included (e.g., "Prevention and policy implications" or "Clinical implications").
• An honest assessment of the study's limitations is essential in the limitations subsection of the discussion. This section needs to describe the study's major methodological limitations and include a statement regarding the generalizability to other populations and contexts. The need to replicate exploratory or unexpected findings should be explicitly stated.

Per APA policy, authors presenting the results of randomized trials should rely on CONSORT guidelines.

Inquiries

Prospective authors are welcome to direct inquiries regarding these instructions, potential paper topics, journal policy, or manuscript preparation to the editor, Brad J. Bushman.

Additional instructions for all authors

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

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

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

Psychology of Violence uses structured abstracts divided into the following sections, with headings: objective, method, results, and conclusions. The objective should clearly communicate the novel contribution of this manuscript. The conclusions should identify at least one specific implication and avoid boilerplate language such as "Implications will be discussed." Target length is no more than 250 words.

Each manuscript needs five keywords for indexing. Please consider keywords that are common synonyms for the forms of violence addressed in your manuscript. For example, if your study is on "intimate partner violence," it may help some readers find your work if you list "domestic violence" as a keyword.

Public significance statements

Authors submitting manuscripts to Psychology of Violence are required to provide two to three brief sentences regarding the relevance or public health significance of their manuscript. This description should be included within the manuscript on the abstract/keywords page. It should be written in easy-to-understand language for members of the lay public.

To be maximally useful, these statements of public significance should not simply be sentences lifted directly from the manuscript. This statement supports efforts to increase the dissemination and usage of research findings by larger and more diverse audiences. In addition, they should be able to be translated into media-appropriate statements for use in press releases and on social media.

Authors may refer to the Guidance for Translational Abstracts and Public Significance Statements page for help writing their statement.

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

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

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.

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)

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.

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

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

Brad J. Bushman, PhD
The Ohio State University, United States of America

Associate editors

Matt DeLisi, PhD
Iowa State University, United States of America

Dorothy L. Espelage, PhD
University of North Carolina, United States of America

Ines Keygnaert, PhD
Ghent University, Belgium

Senior consulting editors

Edward Alessi, PhD
Rutgers University, United States of America

Christopher Barlett, PhD
Kansas State University, United States of America

Laurent Bègue, PhD
Université Grenoble Alpes, France

Massil Benbouriche, PhD
Université de Lille, France

Henriette Bergstrøm, PhD
University of Derby, United Kingdom

Nicola Bowes, PhD
Cardiff Metropolitan University, United Kingdom

Enrique Chaux, PhD
Universidad de los Andes, Colombia

David Chester, PhD
Virginia Commonwealth University, United States of America

Ilse Derluyn, PhD
Ghent University, Belgium

Nathan DeWall, PhD
University of Kentucky, United States of America

Hedwig Eisenbarth, PhD
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

Kostas A. Fanti, PhD
University of Cyprus, Cyprus

Ángel Gómez Jiménez, PhD
Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Spain

Thomas Gumpel, PhD
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Tobias Hecker, PhD
Bielefeld University, Germany

Jennifer A. Livingston, PhD
University at Buffalo, United States of America

Cindy Mels, PhD
Universidad Católica del Uruguay, Uruguay

Mirra N. Milla, PhD
Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia

Laura Miller-Graff, PhD
University of Notre Dame, United States of America

Lindsay Orchowski, PhD
Brown University, United States of America

Maria Papadakaki, PhD
Hellenic Mediterranean University, Greece

Daniel Romer, PhD
University of Pennsylvania, United States of America

Sebastian Scherr, PhD
University of Augsburg, Germany

Zhaojun Teng, PhD
Southwest University, China

Nicholas Thomson, PhD
Virginia Commonwealth University, United States of America

Carmen Vives-Cases, PhD
University of Alicante, Spain

Consulting editors

Erinn Acland, PhD
Université de Montréal, Canada

Amarnath Amarasingam, PhD
Queen’s University, Canada

Farida Anwar, PhD
Åbo Akademi University, Finland

John Archer, PhD
University of Central Lancashire, United Kingdom

Kathryn M. Bell, PhD
Acadia University, Canada

Prachi Bhuptani, PhD
Brown University, United States of America

Inti Brazil, PhD
Radboud University, The Netherlands

Paul Boxer, PhD
Rutgers University—Newark, United States of America

Carlos Iván Orellana Calderón, PhD
Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas, El Salvador

Julien Chopin, PhD
Université de Lausanne, Switzerland

Olivia Choy, PhD
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Kai Li Chung, PhD
University of Nottingham Malaysia, Malaysi

Skyler Cranmer, PhD
The Ohio State University, United States of America

Ashlee Curtis, PhD
Deakin University, Australia

Sarah DeGue, PhD
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, United States of America

Tom Denson, PhD
University of New South Wales, Australia

Kelly P. Dillon, PhD
Wittenberg University, United States of America

Bojana Dinić, PhD
University of Novi Sad, Serbia

Meagan Docherty, PhD
Bowling Green State University, United States of America

James Effiong, PhD
The University of Texas Permian Basin, United States of America

Faride Ensafdaran, PhD
Shiraz University of Medical Sciences and Pasargad Institute of Higher Education, Iran

Deinera Exner-Cortens, PhD
University of Calgary, Canada

Theresa Gannon, DPhil
University of Kent, United Kingdom

Oluf Gøtzsche-Astrup, PhD
Aarhus University, Denmark

Nicola (“Niki”) Graham-Kevan, PhD
University of Central Lancashire, United Kingdom

Jonathan Hall, PhD
Uppsala University, Sweden

Muhammad M. Haj-Yahia, PhD
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Eddie Harmon-Jones, PhD
University of New South Wales, Australia

Kathryn Holland, PhD
University of Nebraska—Lincoln, United States of America

Thormod Idsøe, PhD
University of Oslo, Norway

Ernest Jouriles, PhD
Southern Methodist University, United States of America

Sandy Jung, PhD
MacEwan University, Canada

Erika L. Kelley, PhD
University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center and Case Western Reserve University, United States of America

Sophie Kjærvik, PhD
Virginia Commonwealth University, United States of America

Chie Koga, PhD
University of Tokyo, Japan

Sander Koole, PhD
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Barbara Krahé, PhD
University of Potsdam, Germany

Ulrike Krämer, PhD
University of Lübeck, Germany

Dorottya Lantos, PhD
University of Technology Sydney, Australia

Ljiljana B. Lazarevic, PhD
Institute of Psychology, Serbia

Jill Lobbestael, PhD
Maastricht University, The Netherlands

Tailson E. Mariano, PhD
Universidade Católica de Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil

Cecilia Martinez-Torteya, PhD
University of Michigan, United States of America

Pam McAuslan, PhD
University of Michigan—Dearborn, United States of America

André Melzer, PhD
University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg

Franklin Moreno, PhD
Temple University, United States of America

Sophia Moskalenko, PhD
Georgia State University, United States of America

Christopher Murphy, PhD
University of Maryland, Baltimore County, United States of America

Roghieh Nooripour, PhD
Alzahra University, Iran

Raymond W. Novaco, PhD
University of California, Irvine, United States of America

Tochukwu Charles Orjiakor, PhD
University of Nigeria, Nigeria

Sarah Paquette, PhD
University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom

Dominic Parrott, PhD
Georgia State University, United States of America

Carlos E. Pimentel, PhD
Federal University of Paraíba, Brazil

Galina Portnoy, PhD
Yale School of Medicine, VA Connecticut Healthcare System, United States of America

Joanna Rajchert, PhD
Maria Grzegorzewska University, Poland

Joseph Richardson, PhD
University of Maryland, United States of America

Daniel Rijo, PhD
Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal

Paolo Riva, PhD
Università degli Studi di Milano—Bicocca, Italy

Eva M. Romera, PhD
Universidad de Córdoba, Spain

Reema Safadi, PhD
University of Jordan, Jordan

Esteban Eugenio Esquivel Santoveña, PhD
Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez, Mexico

Ryan Shorey, PhD
University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee, United States of America

Danique Smeijers, PhD
Radboud University, The Netherlands

Elizabeth Summerell, PhD
University of New South Wales, Australia

Jeff R. Temple, PhD
School of Behavioral Health Sciences, UTHealth, United States

Martie P. Thompson, PhD
Appalachian State University, United States of America

Tracy Vaillancourt, PhD
University of Ottawa, Canada

Eduardo A. Vasquez, PhD
University of Kent, United Kingdom

Anca Velicu, PhD
Institute of Sociology Romania Academy, Romania

Irene Vitoroulis, PhD
University of Ottawa, Canada

Ajwang' Warria, PhD
University of Calgary, Canada

Samantha Wells, PhD
Centre for Addiction & Mental Health, Canada

Jacqueline Woerner, PhD
University of Central Florida, United States of America

Anna Zajenkowska, PhD
The University of Economics and Human Sciences in Warsaw, Poland

Shaoling Zhong, PhD
Guangzhou Medical University, China

Abstracting and indexing services providing coverage of Psychology of Violence

• Cabell's Directory of Publishing Opportunities in Psychology
• Criminal Justice Abstracts
• Current Contents: Social & Behavioral Sciences
• Journal Citations Report: Social Sciences Edition
• OCLC
• PsycInfo
• SafetyLit
• SCOPUS
• Social Sciences Citation Index
• TOC Premier
• Violence & Abuse Abstracts

• We Can Do Better:

  Psychology of Violence special issue developing new paradigms for reducing violence.

• Police, Violence, and Social Justice:

  Special issue of the APA journal Psychology of Violence, Vol. 12, No. 4, July 2022. The goal of this special issue is to spotlight and encourage research that informs the development of effective policies and practices to reduce systemic violence and improve relationships between the police and the communities they serve.

• Global Perspectives on Sexual Violence:

  Special issue of APA’s journal Psychology of Violence, Vol. 11, No. 5, September 2021. This special issue consists of seven empirical and review articles that address sexual violence among marginalized populations including LGBQ+ individuals and Arab Americans; the role of factors at the macro/meso/exosystem levels in affecting sexual violence risk and recovery, including attitudes, laws, and environmental stressors; research assessing the prevalence of sexual violence in different global regions.

• Gun Violence:

  Special issue of APA’s Psychology of Violence, Vol. 11, No. 4, July 2021. This special issue is intended to spark greater interest in working to mitigate firearm violence and encourage researchers across scientific disciplines to collaboratively apply their theoretical perspectives and methodologies to reduce the devastating, but understudied, U.S. gun violence epidemic.

• Hate and Violence:

  Special issue of the APA journal Psychology of Violence, Vol. 8, No. 6, November 2018. Includes articles about violence and discrimination against racial, sexual, and religious minorities, as well as stigma, bullying, and mental illness.

• Situational Factors in Violence:

  Special issue of the APA journal Psychology of Violence, Vol. 8, No. 3, May 2018. The articles highlight innovative research using a range of methods and approaches that are designed to get closer to several forms of violence as objects of analysis.

• Gender-Based Violence:

  Special issue of the APA journal Psychology of Violence, Vol. 7, No. 3, July 2017. The articles illustrate the range of European research reflecting the very different levels of gender equality, violence awareness, and policy and service development across the continent.

• Interventions for Violence:

  Special issue of the APA journal Psychology of Violence, Vol. 6, No. 3, July 2016. The articles focus on the generalized effects of violence prevention and intervention, the processes whereby intervention exerts behavioral change, and the challenges of conducting rigorous research in violence-exposed populations.

• Protective Factors, Resilience, and Violence:

  Special issue of the APA journal Psychology of Violence, Vol. 5, No. 4, October 2015. The articles showcase new ways of measuring aspects of resilient outcomes and protective factors, explore resilience in relation to a variety of forms of violence across the life span, and illustrate prevention and intervention efforts that promote resilience and may lead both to violence prevention as well as to effective intervention to promote recovery among victims.

• The Measurement of Violence and Victimization:

  Special issue of the APA journal Psychology of Violence, Vol. 4, No. 4, October 2014. The articles include both conceptual and empirical studies and examine a range of methodological issues in researching violence, organized around three key challenges: defining constructs precisely, accurately capturing disclosures of violence, and diversifying measurement strategies.

• Adolescents and Violence:

  Special issue of the APA journal Psychology of Violence, Vol. 3, No. 4, October 2013. In helping to fill gaps in knowledge about the nature and processes by which violence develops, and how violence experiences affect adolescents, these articles as a group also offer direction for future research.

• Technology and Violence:

  Special issue of the APA journal Psychology of Violence, Vol. 3, No. 1, January 2013. Includes articles about cyber-aggression, victimization, and social information processing; perceived distress; differentiating cyberbullying from non-physical bullying; intimate partner violence; and stereotypes.

• Interconnections Among Different Types of Violence:

  Special issue of the APA journal Psychology of Violence, Vol. 2, No. 2, April 2012. Articles examine links between sexual and physical abuse, intimate partner violence, teen dating violence, community violence, and violent media.

• Theories of Violence:

  Special issue of the APA journal Psychology of Violence, Vol. 1, No. 3, July 2011. Articles discuss interpersonal violence conceptualization, theoretical integration, modeling, and prevention and intervention.

Journal equity, diversity, and inclusion statement

Psychology of Violence recognizes that members of marginalized and minoritized groups experience extremely high levels of violence due to a host of legal, social, cultural, economic, and other structural factors. These marginalized and minoritized groups include (but are not limited to) women, individuals who are LGBTQIA2S+, individuals who are members of marginalized ethnic/racial groups, individuals who are low income, individuals with disabilities, individuals from religious minority groups, and individuals who are impacted by privilege and oppression at the intersection of their identities.

We are committed to reducing biases within violence research and ourselves. Psychology of Violence is also committed to recruiting a diverse editorial team and publishing articles authored by individuals from marginalized and minoritized groups. Psychology of Violence encourages scholarship that uses theoretical perspectives, study designs, study samples, and analytical methods that promote equity by representing diversity and inclusion of marginalized and minoritized groups in the United States and internationally. Authors are encouraged to consider system-level factors that influence individuals' behavior.

Inclusive study designs

• Collaborative research models
• 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)
• Data sharing and data availability statements (recommended)
• Impact statements (required)
• Sample justifications (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.

Editorial mentorship

Psychology of Violence ensures that guest editors for special issues are mentored by an associate editor.

Other EDI offerings

ORCID reviewer recognition

Open Research and Contributor ID (ORCID) Reviewer Recognition provides a visible and verifiable way for journals to publicly credit reviewers without compromising the confidentiality of the peer-review process. This journal has implemented the ORCID Reviewer Recognition feature in Editorial Manager, meaning that reviewers can be recognized for their contributions to the peer-review process.

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).

Resources

• Guidelines for reviewers

Announcements

• Editors of the year

Editor Spotlight

• Read an interview with Editor Brad Bushman, PhD

From APA Journals Article Spotlight^®

• What is the role of economic insecurity in health? The unequal burden of sexual assault among women
• Connecting the dots: Identifying suspected serial sexual offenders through forensic DNA evidence
• Can moral judgment, critical thinking, and Islamic fundamentalism explain ISIS and Al-Qaeda's armed political violence?
• The kids are alright (mostly): An empirical examination of Title IX knowledge in institutions of higher education
• Predicting and preventing sexual aggression by college men