This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License (Starting from 2022, we are taking over the role of Co-Editors-in-Chief of Social Psychological Bulletin. We are honored and delighted to serve the journal for the next five years, after the outstanding leadership of Michał Parzuchowski and Marcin Bukowski, outgoing Editors-in-Chief (2017–2021). Inspired by the vision of Maria Lewicka, who was the founding Editor-in-Chief (2006–2016), Michał and Marcin introduced far-reaching changes that have already produced visible results. In short, the previous team managed to successfully transform SPB from a solid but local Polish journal in social psychology to a truly international journal making it relevant to a global audience.
As a direct result of Marcin and Michał’s impressive efforts, fifteen issues that have been published since the transformation to an international journal included more than a hundred articles authored by 202 researchers from 24 countries. Thanks to the collaboration with Psychopen.eu and the help of generous sponsors (above all, the Polish Social Psychological Society, the founder and owner of the title), the journal is now fully open access and without any costs for readers and authors. As such, it satisfies the highest – diamond gold – Open Access model. Importantly, that was not the only change initiated by the previous team toward more open and transparent journal practices. Social Psychological Bulletin has been strongly engaged in promoting open science practices (e.g., pre-registration, open data, open materials) with the aim of implementing the highest standards from the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) guidelines (https://topfactor.org/).
We would like to thank Michał and Marcin and all past Editors of SPB for all the work they put in to turning the journal into a significant international outlet for important social psychological research. We are strongly committed to continuing their efforts with the goal of developing the journal in the direction they outlined to assure its highest quality. In what follows we want to highlight a few specific goals that we are particularly committed to.
1. Science should be accessible
We strongly believe that scientific outputs should be accessible to everyone regardless of their level of resources. The global pandemic of COVID-19 demonstrated once more that fast and open exchange of knowledge and equal access to scientific discoveries are vital not only for scientific progress but also for social advancement. In line with these observations, SPB aims to combine the highest scientific quality with publishing practices that are fair to authors, readers, and broader society. Moreover, starting from 2022, we will publish journal content on a rolling basis instead of compiling articles into issues. This means that each article accepted for publication will be immediately published, which should accelerate the distribution of knowledge. We are convinced that accessibility not only facilitates scientific progress but it also increases the visibility of individual work and increases its impact.
2. Science should be self-corrective and communal
Although some results of meta-scientific efforts conducted over the past several years (e.g., Open Science Collaboration, 2015) might be a cause of concern about whether science self-corrects as much as it should, we echo those with an optimistic view of the future of social psychology (Nelson et al., 2018). Social psychology as a field has transformed greatly over the past few years. We intend to continue implementing positive changes by encouraging as much transparency and openness in articles published in SPB as possible. We would also like SPB to be an outlet that facilitates continuous self-reflection and discussion over the state of our field. As such, we invite meta-scientific papers focused on the domain of social science hoping that this invitation will stimulate a fruitful exchange of ideas over the direction in which our field should be heading. We also strongly encourage authors to consider SPB as an outlet for their replication projects and registered reports. While criticism and skepticism play a central role in science, we think that scientific endeavor should be simultaneously collaborative and communal. We see the publishing process as one such collaboration – one that happens between authors, editors, reviewers, and readers. Maintenance of high standards and scientific rigor does not have to come at the expense of collegial dialogue and a supportive atmosphere. We recognize that the reviewing process often poses challenges for all parties involved. We aim at providing the authors with high quality and constructive feedback that can help them improve their work regardless of the final decision. An amazing team of editors agreed to our invitations and joined the SPB team. Thanks to their excellence and joint expertise, we intend to assure the highest standards when it comes to the quality of articles published in our journal. The Associate Editors are experts in various subfields of social psychology and we are confident that they will make a fair judgment and give supportive and constructive feedback regarding the future of submitted articles.
3. Science should be universal and diverse
The idea that science should be universal and inclusive was included in Thomas Merton’s (1942) early list of norms that should guide the scientific community. It referred to the notion that anyone can do science no matter what their background characteristics are. It also meant that everyone’s claims should be examined with equal scrutiny. We are committed to this goal. At the same time, we would like to extend this principle. We hope that research published in SPB will represent the full spectrum of psychological phenomena. It could mean – but is not limited to – a diversity of samples, authors, methods, or theoretical approaches. We believe that such a broad approach to diversity may help capture variability in human behavior and advance the development of psychological knowledge.
Over the next five years we intend to pursue these goals. We are grateful and delighted that outstanding researchers from diverse countries and representing various research areas in social psychology have kindly agreed to help us in these efforts and joined our Editorial Team. We would like to introduce the new Associate Editors: Štěpán Bahník (Prague University of Business and Economics, Prague, Czech Republic), Jocelyn Bélanger (New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates), Tomasz Besta (University of Gdansk, Gdansk, Poland), Konrad Bocian (University of Kent, Canterbury, United Kingdom), Katarzyna Byrka (SWPS University, Wroclaw, Poland), Aleksandra Cichocka (University of Kent, Canterbury, United Kingdom), Gabriela Czarnek (Jagiellonian University), Alejandra del Carmen Domínguez Espinosa (Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City, Mexico), Franziska Ehrke (University of Koblenz-Landau, Landau, Germany), Magdalena Formanowicz (SWPS University, Warsaw, Poland), Roland Imhoff (Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz, Mainz, Germany), Bastian Jaeger (Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, Netherlands), Małgorzata Kossowska (Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland), Clara Kulich (University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland), Nikhila Mahadevan (University of Essex, Colchester, United Kingdom), Paul Maher (University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland), David S. March (Florida State University, Tallahassee, United States), Joonha Park (NUCB Business School, Nagoya, Japan), Silvia Russo (University of Turin, Turin, Italy), Ewa Szumowska (Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland), Wijnand A.P. van Tilburg (University of Essex, Colchester, United Kingdom), Tanja Wingenbach (University of Zurich / University Hospital Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland), Piotr Winkielman (University of California, San Diego, United States), Adrian Wójcik (Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Torun, Poland), and Janis Zickfeld (Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark).
We believe that with this strong, international editorial team we will advance the development of the SPB journal and consolidate its position as a very good, international journal in social psychology. We invite everyone to join our goals and send their work to SPB. We particularly welcome and encourage early career researchers to submit their research to SPB. Every year SPB offers the Solomon Asch Prize to an early career researcher who has published their paper in Social Psychological Bulletin before or up to 3 years after completion of their Ph.D. The winner of the Asch Award is selected by the SPB Editorial Board on the basis of assessment of all eligible papers.