Submission Guidelines for "Journal of Psychological Science"
This journal is supervised by the China Association for Science and Technology and sponsored by the Chinese Psychological Society. It is an academic bimonthly journal published both domestically and internationally and is recognized as a core Chinese journal by the State Council Academic Degrees Committee. The journal features the following sections: "Fundamental, Experimental, and Ergonomics," "Development and Education," "Social, Personality, and Management," "Statistics, Measurement, and Methods," "Clinical and Counseling," "Chinese Characteristics in Psychological Research," "Theory and History," and "Academic Trends."
We welcome original research reports, papers, and reviews in all areas of psychology (including fundamental and experimental psychology, developmental and educational psychology, applied psychology, research methods, etc.). We do not accept general reviews, meta-analyses, or scale development submissions. Review articles should be on cutting-edge topics, novel in content, and present unique perspectives.
Submissions can be in Chinese or English.
The journal operates an online submission system (https://jps.ecnu.edu.cn/) and does not accept printed or email submissions. As of January 1, 2021, submissions must follow the 7th edition of the American Psychological Association (APA) Publication Manual.
Please complete a self-check report (available for download at the "Download Center") and paste the results on the title page of your article. If the primary author is a student, please indicate this in the self-check report and state whether there is a mentor among the authors. The mentor should email the editorial office to clarify their involvement, contributions, and review of the article. Submissions with mentor authorship but without mentor confirmation (via email) will not be accepted.
Materials used in the research (such as questionnaires, scales, images, stimuli, etc.) must be attached after the main text (uploaded in the same file). If the scales or questionnaires used have not been previously published, a written statement of permission from the original authors must be provided, scanned, and submitted alongside the copyright transfer agreement and ethical review documents.
This journal employs anonymous review; thus, all author information should be removed from the text, including affiliations, grant numbers, and author information in document properties. The editorial office will also handle any information inadvertently revealed through the article, such as participant institutions or references to unpublished articles by the authors. Please note that additional processing may delay the review of the manuscript.
Submissions must include a signed copyright transfer agreement and a manuscript quality assurance statement (available for download at the "Download Center"). The signed documents should be scanned and uploaded with the submission.
Authors are responsible for the content of their submissions. Duplicate submissions will be considered academic misconduct (submitting substantially similar Chinese and English versions to different journals will also be deemed duplicate submissions), and this will be recorded and addressed.
Authors should correctly use Gpower to estimate the sample size and describe the estimation process and rationale in the paper. Studies based on between-group comparisons should pay special attention to sample sizes, with a minimum of 35 participants per group. Studies with significant individual differences or easily obtainable data should aim for larger sample sizes. Generally, larger sample sizes are preferred; studies with small samples may be rejected or asked to recruit additional participants.
For submissions related to language cognition, authors must include original language stimulus materials for review by the reviewers and the editor.
Please follow the "Psychological Science Journal(心理科学杂志)" WeChat official account.
Submissions should reflect the latest progress and standards in the academic field. Titles must correspond with the content, arguments must be clear, evidence must be robust, data must be reliable, the structure should be logical, and the writing should be concise, adhering to the norms of scientific writing. Authors should thoroughly read and adhere to the points listed in these guidelines; papers that do not comply will not be sent for review and will be directly rejected. Specific requirements include:
Limited to 40 characters (including subtitles). The title should accurately reflect the main content of the article, generally consisting of keywords, avoiding redundancy.
Research reports and papers should include an abstract of no more than 300 words (for full English submissions, please provide a long Chinese abstract of 500-1,000 words), including the scientific question (research objectives and background), methods (study design), results, and conclusions. Do not confuse results with conclusions, and provide as much detail as possible about research methods (variables, materials, procedures, participant tasks) within the word limit. Use the 300-word limit effectively to create a standalone abstract. To enhance the journal's international academic influence, each paper or research report must also include a long English abstract of 600-1,000 words.
List 3-7 keywords after the abstract.
Clearly state the research question, the importance of this question, previous research on the topic, deficiencies or contradictions in that research, how this study addresses those issues, the rationale for the experimental design and variable manipulation, and the expected outcomes (hypotheses). In summary, clearly articulate the logical connections between the current research problem, the theoretical framework, and prior relevant studies, as well as the current experimental design and hypotheses. Key concepts must be well-defined or described, and abstract or complex concepts should be illustrated with examples.
Describe in clear language how participants were selected, what the manipulated variables were, the criteria for material selection, the nature of the materials (and predictions about the materials’ nature), the number of trials per condition, the presentation format and timing of stimuli in each trial, the experimental sequence, and the task requirements for participants. In essence, provide as much detail as possible to enable readers to replicate the experiment without difficulty.
Start by explaining how the data were pre-processed, what criteria were used to exclude data or participants, and how many data points were removed. Report the statistical analysis process and results according to the latest APA requirements; clearly describe the statistical methods used, effect sizes, confidence intervals, and provide brief textual interpretations of the statistical results. For questionnaire studies, common method bias must be reported.
If the experiment yielded substantial data, first summarize the findings and highlight the core conclusions. The discussion should closely relate to the experimental hypotheses and findings, comparing and analyzing these with the theoretical framework and prior studies discussed in the introduction. The content of the discussion should correspond to the review and problem statements in the introduction. Speculation or conjectures that exceed the findings of the experiment and cannot be logically inferred should be avoided; if included, they must be clearly stated. Discussing limitations of the study or areas for further exploration is also appropriate.
The conclusion can be a separate section or the last paragraph of the discussion. The content should be directly inferred from the experimental design and data, without further extended discussions or speculations.
Use legal measurement units, symbols, and standardized terminology. Common statistical symbols are as follows: total sample size is N, sample size is n, mean is M, standard deviation is SD, t-test is t, F-test is F, chi-square test is χ2, correlation coefficient is r, significance is p. All symbols should be italicized.
Use "1" for first-level headings, "1.1" for second-level headings, "1.1.1" for third-level headings, and so on. Headings are limited to three levels.
Avoid using tables and figures for information already explained in text. If tables or figures are used, do not repeat their data in the text; instead, summarize key points. The titles and legends of tables and figures should be as self-explanatory as possible.
Tables should be scientifically designed and clearly presented. Typically, use three-line tables without vertical lines. Independent variables should be columns, and dependent variables should be rows.
Figures must be clear and legible. If copying or using figures from other sources, include written permission from the copyright holder. Ensure that coordinate labels, characters, and numeric indicators in figures are clear, and indicate the figure number and name below the figure. Use Chinese for figure labels. Since this journal primarily uses black and white printing, ensure that color usage does not hinder content expression in black and white.
References should follow the 7th edition of the APA Publication Manual (2019). We recommend using reference management software such as EndNote or NoteExpress.
Use the author-year citation method in the text (for English literature, only the English last name; for Chinese literature, use the full name). Authors may flexibly arrange citations based on context, either as a component of a sentence or in parentheses at the end of a quote. For one or two authors, provide both names; for three or more, list the first author's name followed by "et al." or "等," ensuring it points to a specific reference in the reference list without ambiguity.
List Chinese references first, followed by English references. References should be arranged alphabetically by the authors' last names; if authors are the same, sort by publication year; if both are the same, arrange by the first letter of the title, adding a, b, c, etc., after the publication year. Refer to the APA Publication Manual 7th edition.
Use Songti font, size 5, with 1.5 line spacing for the main text.
The final accepted manuscript should be arranged in the following order: (1) Chinese title; (2) author names; (3) author affiliations, city, and postal code; (4) Chinese abstract; (5) Chinese keywords; (6) classification number; (7) main text; (8) references; (9) appendix; (10) English title; (11) author names in Pinyin; (12) author affiliations in English; (13) English abstract; (14) English keywords.
Research reports, papers, and reviews should generally not exceed 12,000 words (including abstracts and references).
This journal employs anonymous peer review. A complete manuscript review process consists of four steps: 1) initial review by the editorial office; 2) initial review by the associate editor; 3) expert external review under the responsibility of the associate editor (which may involve multiple rounds); 4) final review by the editor-in-chief recommended by the associate editor.
The editorial office's preliminary screening primarily checks for obvious academic misconduct, adherence to writing standards (including the requirements for the title, abstract, introduction, methods, figures, and discussions), and whether the content falls within the scope of the journal. The editorial office will perform a plagiarism check; manuscripts with a similarity rate above 10% (excluding the author’s thesis; previously published articles are included) will be rejected, and the first and corresponding authors will be blacklisted. The first author will be prohibited from submitting to the journal for ten years, while the corresponding author (supervisor) will be banned for three years. This misconduct will also be formally reported to the author's institution. Manuscripts with a similarity rate between 5%-10% will also be directly rejected, although the authors will not be blacklisted. The editorial office will also conduct an initial review of the writing quality (including the quality of figures and reference formatting).
Manuscripts that pass the initial review are categorized by the editor-in-chief and distributed to relevant associate editors. The associate editor further determines whether the manuscript is worth sending for external review. If the associate editor identifies fundamental flaws, a complete lack of innovation, or writing that does not meet acceptable standards, the manuscript will be directly rejected. If the associate editor believes the manuscript may have some value, it will be sent for peer review by at least two experts selected from the editorial board and the national psychology community. The external review cycle generally lasts 30 days, while editorial board reviews last about 60 days, barring exceptional circumstances. Manuscripts will only be sent for external review after the editorial office has received signed copyright transfer agreements and quality assurance statements from all authors.
Manuscripts that pass external review and are deemed acceptable by the associate editor will undergo final review by the editor-in-chief, who will decide whether to accept the submission. Manuscripts that fail at any stage of the review process will be rejected and cannot be resubmitted unless explicitly invited (if resubmitted, this must be clearly stated along with the original manuscript number). The journal generally does not accept appeals regarding rejected manuscripts.
Once a manuscript is registered by the editorial office, the author will receive a manuscript number. Authors can track their submissions via "Author Inquiry." The general process is: registration → initial review → editor-in-chief review → associate editor pre-review → external review → associate editor re-review → revision → associate editor final review → editor-in-chief final review → publication (proofs) → typesetting (three rounds of proofreading). The stages of "external review," "revision," and "re-review" may occur multiple times.
For manuscripts that require modification following expert review and associate editor re-review, authors must submit a revised manuscript along with a detailed explanation of the modifications. The modification statement should address each reviewer’s comments, and changes in the manuscript should be marked in different colors. Manuscripts that have undergone multiple revisions should retain all prior modification statements.Peer review comments and revisions will be anonymously posted on the official website. Revised manuscripts must include the manuscript number and contain no author information; this applies to the revised manuscript for editorial board re-review as well, and only electronic documents should be uploaded. The final accepted manuscript should include author names, affiliations, grant numbers, and contact information for the corresponding author.
Authors bear full responsibility for their manuscripts. According to copyright laws, the editorial office may make textual modifications, deletions, and edits to submissions. The editorial office will contact authors regarding any content modifications.
Once a manuscript is published, the author automatically transfers the copyright for both disk and online versions to the editorial office, which will not provide separate notification.
This journal does not charge page fees or review fees, nor does it provide honoraria for submissions.
Address: Editorial Office of "Psychological Science," East China Normal University, 3663 Zhongshan North Road, Shanghai, Postal Code: 200062.
Email: xinlikexue@vip.163.com