Prior to submission, please carefully read and follow the guidelines below. All manuscripts submitted for publication to Annals of Psychology must conform to the journal article reporting standards (JARS) included in the seventh edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA, 2020). The Publication Manual is the authoritative resource for APA Style, a set of guidelines for clear and precise scholarly communication. For more details, see the APA Style website here. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines will be returned.

 

1. Article types and length

Annals of Psychology accepts empirical, theoretical and review articles in various fields of psychology. Manuscripts should not exceed the word count provided below (including references, tables and figures). Three kinds of contributions are accepted:

1) Short Reports: These articles should not exceed a total of 3.500 words. The abstract should be no longer than 250 words.

2) Regular Articles: These articles should not exceed 6.000 words for single study research or 10.000 words for multiple study research. The abstract should be no longer than 250 words.

3) Theoretical and Review Articles: These articles should be in the 6.000 – 10.000 word range and should provide an influential theoretical contribution or critical review or meta-analysis of important topics. The abstract should be no longer than 250 words.

 

2. Peer review procedure

All submissions will be initially assessed by the Editors-in-Chief for suitability for the journal. Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope (and formal requirements) of Annals of Psychology will be sent onto an Associate Editor and then to a minimum of two independent and anonymous expert reviewers. The Associate Editor is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles.

The journal guarantees rigorous peer review and follows a double-blind reviewing procedure. The authors will therefore remain anonymous to the reviewers throughout the peer review process. Author names, affiliations and any other potential identifying information should be removed from the manuscript text and included in a separate Title Page. It is the responsibility of the authors to anonymize the manuscript.

 

3. Manuscript submission

By submitting a manuscript, the authors declare that the work is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere, that the submission is the authors’ original work and has been approved by all co-authors, and that permissions have been obtained for the use of copyrighted material from other sources.

Manuscripts should be submitted in docx format (Word 2007 or higher).

Please ensure that the text is written in good English and that language is of sufficient quality to be understood by editors and reviewers. If you need help with writing in English, you should consider using a professional language editing service.

 

4. Immediate Open Access without fees

There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this journal. All accepted manuscripts will be available online immediately upon publication, without subscription charges.

 

5. Preparing your manuscript

Please prepare and submit three separate files:

1) Cover letter. Please briefly describe your work and highlight what makes your research new and why it is important. Please explain why your article will be of interest to the readers of the journal and how it contributes to psychology.

2) Title Page. Please make sure that your title page contains the following information: title (concise and informative), author names and affiliations, the 16-digit ORCID of the authors (if available), disclosures and acknowledgments (e.g., study registration, open practices and data sharing, conflicts of interests, financial support and other assistance), full postal address and an active e-mail address of the corresponding author, authorship statements outlining individual contributions of all co-authors to the paper using the CRediT roles (more about CRediT can be found here). Title page templates can be found here (for one author only) and here (for multiple co-authors). Please provide a short title (a running head) at the top of the title page.

3) Manuscript. It must contain the essential elements: Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion, Tables and/or Figures, References. Please provide a short title (a running head) at the top of each page of the manuscript.

Please find the guidelines regarding each element of the manuscript below.

 

Abstract. Please provide a brief but comprehensive abstract (no longer than 250 words). Abstract should be unstructured (written as a continuous paragraph); it should state the purpose of the work, the most important results and main conclusions.

Keywords. Please provide 4 to 6 keywords which can be used for indexing purposes and reflect the essential topics of the article. Please separate keywords with semicolons.

Introduction. This part of the article should provide an adequate theoretical background and a concise review of relevant previous work, should highlight the importance of the problem, and should state specific hypotheses, aims, and objectives of your work. Introduction can by divided into clearly defined and numbered sections and subsections with brief headings. Please use no more than three levels of displayed headings (e.g., 1, 2, 3…; then 1.1, 1.2, 1.3…; then 1.1.1, 1.1.2, 1.1.3).

Method. This part of the article should be divided into Participants, Measures (or Materials), Procedure and Data Analyses sections. Participants section should provide sufficient details regarding participants’ characteristics, procedures for selecting participants and the determination of sample size. For studies using no experimental manipulation, please include Measures section, which should define all measures collected and describe methods that were used to collect the data (including psychometric properties of instruments). For studies with an experimental manipulation, please include Materials section, which should provide description of apparatus and materials used and their function in the experiment. Procedure section should provide sufficient details of the non-experimental design or the content of the specific experimental manipulations that allow for replication. Data Analyses section should describe the analytic strategy for inferential statistics and statistical methods and software used to run the analyses.

Results. This part of the article should provide information detailing the statistical and data-analytic methods used and the results of these analyses. This includes frequency or percentages of missing data, descriptive statistics of each measure, inferential statistics (including results of all inferential tests conducted, effect-size estimates and confidence intervals), complex data analyses (e.g., structural equation modeling, factor analysis, multivariate analyses) and other data analyses performed (e.g., those that were not planned). Any problems with statistical assumptions that could affect the validity of findings should be reported. Results can be divided into clearly defined and numbered sections and subsections that follow the logic of the analytical and statistical approach.

Discussion. This part of the article should provide support or nonsupport for original hypotheses, discuss similarities and differences between reported results and the results that were previously reported by others, provide an interpretation of the findings (taking into account threats to internal and statistical validity), discuss generalizability and limitations of the study and implications for future research.

Tables and Figures. These should be constructed in accordance with the APA guidance on creating tables and figures which can be found here. Please design them with the purpose to facilitate readers’ comprehension of your work and do not reproduce the same information in both tables and figures. They should be integral to the text but designed so as to be understandable in isolation (without reference to this text). Formatting tables and figures should also comply with APA Style guidelines. Each table or figure should have a number (please use Arabic numerals), a title (caption), a body (for tables) or an image (for figures) and notes as needed. In the text, please refer to every table and figure by its number. Place all tables and figures on separate pages after the references (with each table on a separate page followed by each figure on a separate page). Within the text, please indicate the placement of each table and figure (they should be placed as near as possible to their first callout).

References. In-text citations and a reference list should also be prepared using the APA Style guidelines (which can be found here and here). Cite references in the text by name and year in parentheses (parenthetical citation) or as part of the sentence (narrative citation). Please note that in the 7th edition of APA Style guidelines, in-text citations have been simplified and for works with three or more authors are shortened to the name of the first author plus “et al.”.

The list of references should include entries with the four elements (author, date, title, and source) and should be alphabetized by the last name of the first author of each work. Only works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication can be included in a reference list. Full journal names, journal volume numbers, and book titles should be italicized. Please note that in the 7th edition of APA Style guidelines, the number of authors included in a reference entry has changed (up to 20 authors are now included before names are omitted with an ellipsis). If available, please include digital object identifiers (DOIs) and URLs as hyperlinks (the label “DOI:” is no longer used).

 

By submitting the paper the Authors declare that:

• The submission has not been previously published (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis or as an electronic preprint);
• The submission is not under consideration for publication in another journal;
• The submission is the Authors original work and no other parties or persons hold copyrights to any part of it; if there is more than one Author, they have to specify the input of each Co-author;
• The sources of financial support are acknowledged in the authors’ note and the Authors declare no competing financial interest;
• Permissions have been obtained for the use of copyrighted material from other sources;
• If accepted, the publication will be accessible though unrestricted access (i.e. free for all to view and download) via the journal's website;
• If accepted, the publication will not be published elsewhere including electronically in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the copyright holder;
• The text adheres to the ethical, stylistic and bibliographic requirements set out in the latest APA Publication Manual.

PUBLICATION ETHICS

Roczniki Psychologiczne / Annals of Psychology follows The APA Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct:

• 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). We expect authors to adhere to these standards.
• Authors are required to confirm that they have complied with APA ethical standards in the treatment of their sample, human or animal, or to describe the details of treatment.

COPE
Roczniki Psychologiczne / Annals of Psychology follows the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.

Publication and authorship
When submitting a paper for publication, the authors have to declare that:

• The submission has not been previously published (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis or as an electronic preprint).
• The submission is not under consideration for publication in another journal.
• The submission is the authors’ original work and no other parties or persons hold copyrights to any part of it.
• If accepted, the publication will not be published elsewhere, including electronically in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the copyright holder.
• The authors acknowledge the relevant published and unpublished work (e.g., articles in press) by referring to it and including it in the list of references.
• In case of any changes in authorship (addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the authorship of accepted manuscripts) before the accepted manuscript is published, the authors are obliged to submit a change request to the editor. Such a request must contain: (a) the reason the name should be added or removed, or the author names rearranged and (b) written confirmation (e-mail) from all authors that they agree with the changes.

Authors’ responsibilities and rights
When submitting a paper for publication, the authors have to declare that:

• All data described in the article are real and authentic.
• The sources of financial support are acknowledged in the authors’ note and the authors declare no competing financial interest.
• Permissions have been obtained for the use of copyrighted material from other sources.
• Permission is granted for the publication to be available through unrestricted access (i.e., free for all to view and download) via the Journal's website;
• The text adheres to the ethical, stylistic and bibliographic requirements set out in the latest APA Publication Manual.
• The authors have to specify the input of each co-author to the research and publication.
• In case the study requires ethical approval, the authors provide the approval.
• The authors will actively participate in peer review process and provide necessary retractions or corrections of mistakes.

The submission system provides a checklist of what is expected from authors and what standards of manuscript preparation are to be followed.

Authors’ rights:

• The author has the right to post their article published by the Journal on the department’s or personal website or professional profile.
• The author has the right to make printed copies of the article for non-commercial purposes.
• The author is allowed to use the material from the article for educational purposes.
• The author has the right to disseminate copies of the article for non-commercial purposes among colleagues.

The peer review process and the responsibilities of the reviewers
Roczniki Psychologiczne / Annals of Psychology guarantees a rigorous double-blind peer review process (see Submit review). The Journal has adopted a policy of masked review for all submissions (see Instructions to authors).

Guidelines for reviewers:

• Reviews should be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate.
• Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments and references as necessary and should not be defamatory or libelous.
• Reviewers should respect the confidentiality of the material supplied to them and should not discuss unpublished manuscripts with colleagues or use the information in their own work.
• If a reviewer wants to pass a review request on to a colleague, they should obtain the editor’s permission beforehand.
• Reviewers should point out relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors.

Editorial responsibilities
The Editorial Board follows the following rules:

• The editors have complete responsibility and authority to reject/accept an article.
• The editors’ decisions to accept or reject a paper for publication is based only on the paper’s importance, originality, clarity, and relevance to the scope of the Journal.
• The editors take on the responsibility for pursuing cases of suspected misconduct (e.g., plagiarism or fraudulent data) even in submissions they do not intend to publish.
• The editor responsible for a specific submission has no conflict of interest with respect to the article and to the author.
• The members of the editorial board can publish in the Journal, but they must not exploit their position; in such a case, the submission is handled by another editor and peer review is handled independently of the author/editor.
• The editorial system preserves anonymity of reviewers. The list of reviewers is published once a year (see: List of reviewers).
• The editors monitor the peer review process regularly, trying to increase its efficiency and prevent delays.

Publishing ethics issus

• The editorial board shall strive to meet the needs of readers and authors and constantly improve the Journal.
• The editors shall take all reasonable steps to ensure the quality of the material they publish and to avoid possible misconduct (e.g., plagiarism, fraudulent data).
• The editorial board shall constantly monitor and safeguard publishing ethics.
• The editorial board shall strive to prevent business considerations from compromising intellectual and ethical standards.
• The editors shall promote the publication of corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies always when needed.

Any corrections, complaints, and appeals should be sent to the editorial office: rpsych@kul.pl.

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.