Reviews of Peer-Reviewed Journals in the Humanities and Social Sciences
We give you the scuttlebutt on academic journals—aiding you in selecting the right journal for publication—in reviews that are sometimes snarky, sometimes lengthy, always helpful. Written by Princeton University graduate students and Wendy Laura Belcher.
Psychological Bulletin
For those interested in publishing synthetic research and meta-analysis on psychological issues in the discipline’s top journal.
Psychological Bulletin is a disciplinary journal that specializes in publishing evidence syntheses of existing research in psychology. As the journal describes in its statement of scope, synthetic research in this field should satisfy three chief goals: it should (1) assess the state of knowledge concerning the particular research of interest; (2) critically assess strengths and weaknesses of past research; and (3) discuss gaps in the past research, “thereby directing future research so it can yield a maximum amount of new information.” That said, published articles in the journal take many forms, including systematic reviews, meta-analysis, meta-reviews, and so on. The editors place particular emphasis on methodological transparency. Furthermore, though the journal prioritizes synthetic research in scientific psychology, it does consider “rigorous and thorough qualitative reviews” as well as “expository reviews,” provided that the peer reviewers and editorial board deem them “transparent, accurate, broad, clear, and pertinent.”
Psychological Bulletin has a monthly publication schedule that produces nearly fifty articles annually, and with a very impressive five-year impact factor of 28.705 (as of September 2021), it is a worthy journal for junior and senior researchers alike.
Review: September 2021
Word count: None listed, though published articles average around 9,000 words
Issues per year: Twelve
Current volume number: 147
Articles per year: 48–50
Citation style: APA
Abstract length (if required): 250 words maximum
Upcoming special issues (if available): Check the “Call for Submissions” page on the journal’s website
Relevant editors: Blair T. Johnson
Open access? No
Online? Yes
Submission method: Online
Submission fee: None
Bibliography (articles in the journal consulted for this review)
No articles listed
About Wendy Belcher
