Policies and Publication Ethics

Open Access Policy

Social Psychological Bulletin (SPB) provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. SPB also charges no author fee for submission or publication of papers.

Permanency of Content

In accordance with generally accepted standards of scholarly publishing SPB does not alter articles after publication: "Articles that have been published should remain extant, exact and unaltered to the maximum extent possible" ( STM, 2006. Preservation of the objective record of science). In cases of serious errors or (suspected) misconduct SPB publishes corrections, expressions of concern and retractions (see below).

Corrections. In cases of serious errors that affect the article in a material way (but do not fully invalidate its results) or significantly impair the reader's understanding or evaluation of the article SPB publishes a correction note that is linked to the published article. The published article will be left unchanged.

Retractions and Expressions of Concern. In accordance with the "Retraction Guidelines" by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) SPB will retract a published article if

• there is clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g. data fabrication) or honest error (e.g. miscalculation),
• the findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper crossreferencing, permission or justification (i.e. cases of redundant publication),
• it constitutes plagiarism,
• it reports unethical research.

An article is retracted by publishing a retraction notice that is linked to or replaces the retracted article. SPB will make any effort to clearly identify a retracted article as such. If an investigation is underway that might result in the retraction of an article SPB may choose to alert readers by publishing an expression of concern.

Alerting Readers to Changes. SPB participates in the CrossMark scheme, a multi-publisher initiative that has developed a standard way for readers to locate the current version of an article. By applying the CrossMark policies, SPB is committed to maintaining the content it publishes and to alerting readers to changes if and when they occur. Clicking on the CrossMark logo (at the top of an SPB article or the article landing page) will give you the current status of an article and direct you to the latest published version; it may also give you additional information such as new peer review reports.

Allegations of Research Misconduct

Allegations of research misconduct should be address (anonymous or non-anonymous) to the editors-in-chief (editors@spb.psychopen.eu). If the Editors-in-Chief decide that there is sufficient evidence to support the claim they will investigate it following the appropriate guidelines from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). In any case, the Journal will protect the Whistleblower's identity.

Plagiarism Screening

This journal uses Similarity Check, a multi-publisher initiative to screen published and submitted content for originality. Similarity Check uses the iThenticate software, which checks submissions against millions of published research papers (the Similarity Check database), documents on the web, and other relevant sources. These submitted papers are not retained in the Similarity Check system after they have been checked. Read more at Crossresf's Similarity Check & Reseachers page.

Archiving

This journal ensures the long-term availability of its contents by partnering with CLOCKSS. CLOCKSS system has permission to ingest, preserve, and serve this Archival Unit.

Copyright

Authors who publish with SPB agree to the following terms: Articles are published under the  Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). Under the CC BY license, authors retain ownership of the copyright for their article, but authors grant others permission to use the content of publications in SPB in whole or in part provided that the original work is properly cited. Users (redistributors) of SPB are required to cite the original source, including the author's names, SPB as the initial source of publication, year of publication, volume number and DOI (if available).

Authors may publish the manuscript in any other journal or medium but any such subsequent publication must include a notice that the manuscript was initially published by SPB.

Authors grant SPB the right of first publication. Although authors remain the copyright owner, they grant the journal the irrevocable, nonexclusive rights to publish, reproduce, publicly distribute and display, and transmit their article or portions thereof in any manner.

Complaints and Appeals

Complaints, critisicm, or feedback about management, services, policies etc. should be send to the Editors-in-Chief (editors@spb.psychopen.eu). Complains against reviewers or handling editors and appeals against final editor decisions should also be send to the editors-in-chief (editors@spb.psychopen.eu). An editor-in-chief will consult the case with the reviewers and the handling editor and – if necessary – other members of the editorial team. Complains against editors-in-chief can be addressed to the president of the Polish Social Psychological Society (PSPS), Tomasz Grzyb (tgrzyb@swps.edu.pl). (SPB is the official academic journal of the PSPS.) The PSPS President can then set up a committee of inquiry that will analyse the case more carefully and make a final decision.

Confidential Data and Privacy

The Journal collects data only to fulfill the standard functioning of peer-reviewed journals. Read SPB's Privacy Statement

Authorship

Authorship policy based on: McNutta, M. K., Bradford, M., Drazen, J. M., Hanson, B., Howard, B., Jamieson, K. H., Kiermer, V., Marcus, E., Pope, B. K., Schekman, R., Swaminathan, S., Stang, P. J., & Verma, I. M. (2018). Transparency in authors’ contributions and responsibilities to promote integrity in scientific publication. PNAS. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1715374115

Authorship is an important concept in scholarly publishing implying credit and accountability. Therefore common and transparent standards for authorship are needed. It is expected that the following authorship standards will be met by submitters to SPB:

Responsibility of Each Author. Each author is expected

1. to have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or the creation of new software used in the work; or have drafted the work or substantively revised it;
2. to have approved the submitted version (and any substantially modified version that involves the author’s contribution to the study);
3. to have agreed both
   • to be personally accountable for the author’s own contributions
   • to ensure that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work, even ones in which the author was not personally involved, are appropriately investigated, resolved, and the resolution documented in the literature.

Author Contributions. Transparency about the specific contributions of each author is encouraged. This can be achieved by a CRediT author statement (assistence in creating such a statement is provided by the tenzing tool). Financial, professional, and personal relationships of any author with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence the work (conflicts of interest / competing interests) must be declared.

Acknowledgements. Any personal, non-financial support to the published work that do not quailfy an individual for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgements statement of the paper (provided that the individual agrees to be acknowledged).

Corresponding Author. For every submission one author has to be assigned as Corresponding Author. The responsibility of the Corresponding Author is:

1. ensuring that all listed authors have approved the manuscript before submission
2. ensuring that all authors receive the submission and all substantive correspondence with editors, as well as the full reviews
3. verifying that all data, materials, and code, even those developed or provided by other authors, comply with the transparency and reproducibility standards of both the field and journal.

Originality of Submissions and Related Publications of the Authors

SPB publishes original research which has not been previously published elsewhere. Previous or concurrent publications of the author(s) based on the same or closely related research must be properly acknowledged and cited. It is made clear in the manuscript in which way(s) it represents a novel contribution to warrant consideration for publication in SPB (no redundant or piecemeal publications). Note: Replications of previous work are explicitly welcomed if identified as such.

The authors acknowledge and properly cite all sources used in writing their paper and in conducting the research presented in the paper. SPB uses software to screen submitted content for originality (plagiarism check). 

Preprint Policy

Prior to submitting their article and prior to acceptance and publication in SPB, authors may make their submissions available as preprints on personal or public websites. Preprints are versions of the submitted article before peer-review (or other quality assurance procedure as part of the publication process). Published conference papers, presentations, posters etc. are considered preprints, provided they are not published in a peer-reviewed conference proceeding.

Transparency and Reproducibility

SPB takes transparent, reproducible, and open science very seriously. Therefore, SPB has committed itself to implement the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines comprising eight transparency standards. Upon submission of a paper, authors will have to confirm that they have included appropriate statements (e.g., about the availability of data, code, materials, other documents, preregistrations) within their papers, and all papers will be checked regarding their adherence to the journal's adopted TOP standards outlined above. For details visit our Open Science page including TOP Implementation Guidelines for Authors.

Financial or Non-Financial Support and Competing Interests

Competing Interests for Authors. Authors should disclose relevant financial and non-financial interests and relationships that might be considered likely to affect the interpretation of their findings or which editors, reviewers or readers might reasonably wish to know. This includes any relationship to the journal, for example if editors publish their own research in their journal. If no competing interests are declared, the authors agree to the following statement: "The authors have declared that no competing interests exist."

Funding/Financial Support. All sources of research funding should be disclosed. Authors should disclose the role of the research funder(s) or sponsor (if any) in the research design, execution, analysis, interpretation and reporting. If there are no funding/financial sources reported, the authors agree to the following statement: "The authors have no funding to report."

Acknowledgements/Non-Financial Support. Any non-financial support (such as specialist statistical or writing assistance) from other persons or organizations that do not quailfy for authorship should be disclosed, including the supporter's identity or in an anonymized form (whichever is preferred by the supporter). If there are no such sources reported, the authors agree to the following statement: "The authors have no support to report."

Research Involving Human and Animal Participants

All manuscripts reporting studies that involve human or animal participants must include an ethics statement that provides the following information:

• Confirmation that the research adheres to recognized ethical standards (e.g., APA’s Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct, Declaration of Helsinki). The respective standard must be properly cited.
• Confirmation that guidelines are followed as required by the affiliated institution(s) in which any of the authors are affiliated with (this pertains to all authors). If these guidelines require approval by an Institutional Review Board (IRB) or by an equivalent ethics committee, confirmation that the study was approved by the respective committee (include the name of the awarding body and a reference number if available). If the study has been granted exemption from requiring ethics approval, indicate the committee that granted exception and clearly state the reasons.
• (Only in case of human participants.) Confirmation that participants were properly instructed and that they (or when appropriate, their parent or guardian) gave informed consent. If the study should be exempt from ethical review, please clearly state the reasons.

Competing Interests for Reviewers

Invited reviewers are asked to disclose potential competing interests before agreeing to review a paper. Sources of possible competing interests are manifold: personal, social, professional, or financial  (e.g., mentor-mentee relationships, research collaborations, working at the same institution, business relationships, competition for funding). But also political, religious or ideological reasons might impair an unbiased evaluation of the research. Even if author names are blinded, reviewers possibly know or guess who is doing this research which in turn could result in competing interests.

Confidentiality and Trustworthiness

Reviewers must treat any document and information obtained through peer review strictly confidential and must respect the intellectual property of the authors.

Principles of Good Practice

• Reliability. Reviewers should accept a reviewing request only if they are able to complete the review within the deadline set by the journal. If they need more time this should be clarified with the journal editors before accepting to review.
• Competency. Reviewers should accept an reviewing request only if they have the required expertise. If they think that they are qualified to review only some (substantial) parts of the paper this should be clearly indicated in the review.
• Respectfulness. Reviewer comments should be respectful, non-offensive, and focused on content. See the Reviewer Guidelines for suggestions on important aspects to consider when writing a review.

Competing Interests for Editors

Editors should not handle articles where financial or non-financial competing interests might influence their actions and decisions. Editors can publish articles in their own journal but should not be involved or intervened in any form in the peer review and decision-making process. If an SPB editor is an (co-)author of a submitted paper (that is subject to peer-review), then the editor-in-chief will ensure that the paper is assigned to a guest handling editor, i.e., a handling editor who is not an associate editor or editors-in-chief. In addition, this (co-)author's affiliation with the journal and his/her (lack of) involvement in the peer review of the submission will be disclosed in the declaration of Competing Interests.

Confidentiality and Trustworthiness

Editors must treat any document and information submitted to the journal strictly confidential and must respect the intellectual property of authors and reviewers.

Diversity and Inclusion

SPB recognizes that scientific innovation and quality of ideas benefit greatly from the inclusion of diverse perspectives representing both diversity in the world and in our field. In order to facilitate an open and inclusive community of researchers we implement several initiatives (and we invite suggestions for more improvement).

• First, monitoring the extent to which the composition of the editorial board and the reviewer pool reflects the diversity of perspectives in terms of gender and geographical region helps us evaluate the progress on the goal toward greater inclusiveness.
• In order to broaden the reviewer pool we invite researchers interested in joining us in this role to contact the journal (editors@spb.psychopen.eu).
• To create an inclusive and welcoming environment for everyone we ask authors, reviewers, and editors to pay attention to bias-free language. In doing so, we recommend following the Inclusive Language Guidelines and recommendations on Bias-Free Language by the American Psychological Association.
• Finally, we fully understand that communicating research becomes more challenging when using English as the second language. In order to support authors who are non-native English speakers we offer proofreading of the accepted papers. We hope that by doing so we can help researchers of various backgrounds overcome at least some of the barriers that might prevent them from sharing their research.