ARP Publications Committee Report

Katie Corker (Chair) Gina Sutin, John Rauthmann, Jon Adler, Erik Noftle

The ARP publication committee is charged with overseeing the journal that we co-sponsor, SPPS, as well as exploring other opportunities for ARP members to disseminate results of research. This column reports on activities in both streams.

  1. SPPS: Katie Corker has assumed duties as liaison to the SPPS publication consortium (replacing Dan Ozer who stepped down in February 2019). The consortium has representatives from SPSP, EASP, and SESP. ARP has a 4% stake in SPPS. Margo Monteith took over as editor for the journal in July, 2019, following Simine Vazire’s four-year long tenure at the journal. ARP thanks Simine (a longstanding ARP member) for her long and dedicated service to the journal.

    Things appear to be running well at SPPS through the transition from the Vazire team to the Monteith team. There is currently about a one year publication lag due to a sizable accepted paper queue. In 2019, SPPS received 501 new submissions plus 164 revisions. About half of the submissions came under the new team. The journal can publish approximately 120 papers per year. The acceptance rate seems to be holding steady at just under 20%.

    The SPPS consortium recently met several times to discuss a proposal advanced by SPSP (and led by Rich Lucas) to adopt a higher level of transparency standards for SPPS. Specifically, the proposal called for the adoption of Level 2 of the TOP (Transparency and Openness Promotion) Guidelines across eight different transparency standards (see the COS TOP Guidelines for more information about this community run initiative).

    The ARP publication committee was unanimously in favor of the proposal. The consortium met virtually several times to discuss the proposal, but was not able to come to consensus on it and consequently did not adopt the proposal. ARP intends to continue to advocate for higher transparency standards at SPPS within the consortium.

    Notably, effective January 1, 2020, SPPS does have some new policies regarding transparency. Readers are encouraged to consult the revised author submission guidelines and Margo Monteith’s editorial. In particular, study materials are now required to be submitted as supplementary materials along with new manuscripts, and authors must “confirm that your manuscript indicates whether data are available, and, if so, where to access them” as well as “confirm that your manuscript indicates whether code is available, and, if so, where to access it.” Thus, even though the journal will not be a TOP signatory at this time, we have already made some progress toward achieving higher levels of transparency at the journal.

  2. Collabra: Psychology partnership and other journal possibilities: Last year, the ARP executive board agreed to partner with Collabra: Psychology, specifically in overseeing the personality section. This partnership affords ARP the opportunity to partner with an existing journal that shares its values (prioritizing high quality, transparent science). The partnership gives ARP the ability to select the editor for the personality section of the journal, to establish policies for that section that support personality research, and to innovate in helping taking personality research dissemination in new and exciting directions.

    Collabra: Psychology is published by the University of California Press (a non-profit publisher), and it is a fully open access journal. Many ARP members have already published articles in Collabra on a range of topics from narcissism to planfulness to relationship satisfaction and more (browse articles here). Collabra has just announced a recently restructured it’s senior editorial team. The journal has seven sections including separate social and personality psychology sections. Simine Vazire is moving from senior editor of social psychology to editor-in-chief of the journal. Brent Donnellan remains senior editor of personality psychology.

    Journal expenses at Collabra are supported by article processing charges (APCs), but the fees are relatively low compared to similar outlets. However, the journal also has a unique community support mechanism in which reviewers and editors for the journal receive a portion of APC funds (read more here). This portion may be retained by the individual, or it may be paid forward to support the APC waiver fund. The APC waiver fund covers APC charges for any authors who do not have institutional or grant funds to cover the APC. Additionally, the journal is committed to reducing costs and is exploring options that may allow the journal to reduce or eliminate the APC charges.

    Although the ARP membership previously expressed a desire to support a new, standalone personality journal, the ARP executive board determined that the benefits of supporting an existing, if fledgling, personality outlet had lower costs, and potentially higher upside, than beginning a new journal from scratch. However, the desire to create a fee-free publishing option for ARP members remains, and the publication committee (together with the executive board) will be exploring possibilities for this in 2020. (Members might also consider the new Personality Science journal, sponsored by EAPP and ZPID, which we assume will be quite excellent.) The publication committee looks forward to working with Rich Lucas during his term as ARP president to continue working to establish and promote our partnership with Collabra: Psychology, as well as to exploring other journal possibilities (including some of the innovative publishing experiments that were discussed at the ARP 2019 meeting).

  3. P Newsletter is currently being assembled by Kathryn Bollich-Ziegler and John Rauthmann. The newsletter recently welcomed Sara Masland to the team to assist in its online publication. They aim for an annual release in the late winter. Publication of the current edition of the newsletter was understandably delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.