Editorial
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The Best of Times, the Worst of Times Christian Unkelbach Department of Psychology, Universität zu Köln, Germany
Charles Dickens started his novel A Tale of Two Cities with the words ‘‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, . . .’’ (Dickens, 1859). Looking back at the last year of Social Psychology, I believe this introduction could be the evaluation, rather than the introduction. It sums up everything in an eloquent clarity that most writers strive for, but hardly ever achieve. Luckily, scientific writing places a premium on content rather than style most of the time, so let me fill these broad evaluative strokes with some content.
The Best of Times Social Psychology’s impact factor has risen from 1.464 to 1.892 from 2011 to 2012, with a 5-year impact of 1.746, placing Social Psychology at rank 15 out of 60 journals categorized under ‘‘Psychology, Social’’ (Thomson Reuters, Journal Citation Reports, 2013). Figure 1 displays the journal’s impact factor for the last 5 years. The last 5 years is a natural interval, as 6 years ago, the journal switched from a solely German-language based outlet to English, making it accessible for an international audience. While impact factors are a volatile criterion for a journal’s quality, the linear trend over the last years shows that Social Psychology has not only become accessible, but that people cite the research published in Social Psychology. A more subjective indicator of quality is the composition of the editorial team, and I am happy and proud that Julia Becker (Universit t Osnabr ck), Eva Jonas (Universit t Salzburg), Michaela W nke (Universit t Mannheim), Malte Friese (Universit t des Saarlandes), and Ulrich K hnen (Jacobs University) have joined the editorial team as associate editors. I am sure the knowledge and expertise they bring to the task will help to ensure the continuing success of the journal. Social Psychology’s publisher Hogrefe has increased the journal’s output by 50%, meaning that as of 2013, Ó 2014 Hogrefe Publishing
the journal is being published bi-monthly instead of quarterly. This measure was designed to meet the increased demand for journal space, but it will also be a challenge to keep the quality constant given an increase in quantity. Given the continuing trend of increasing submissions, I am confident that we will have no trouble keeping the quality level as high as it is now. I am also very proud that Social Psychology has become a truly international journal – in 2013, we published research from Australia (e.g., Laham & Kashima, 2013), Austria (e.g., Greitemeyer, 2013), Belgium (e.g., De Houwer & Smith, 2013), China (e.g., Bi, Ybarra, & Zhao, 2013), France (e.g., Voisin & Fointiat, 2013), Germany (e.g., Nestler & Egloff, 2013), Israel (e.g., Tov-Nachlieli, Shnabel, & Nadler, 2013), Italy (e.g., Bertolotti, Catellani, Douglas, & Sutton, 2013), the Netherlands (e.g., IJzerman, Karremans, Thomsen, & Schubert, 2013), New Zealand (e.g., Osborne, Wootton, & Sibley, 2013), Norway (Phelps, Ommundsen, T rken, & Ulleberg, 2013), Poland (e.g., Wojciszke & Sobiczewska, 2013), Portugal (e.g., Alves & Correia, 2013), Spain (e.g., Herrera & Sani, 2013), Sweden (e.g., Agerstrçm, Bjçrklund, & Carlsson, 2013), UK (e.g., Viki, Abrams, & Winchester, 2013), and the USA (e.g., Zawadzki, Warner, & Shields, 2013). While more submissions come from within Europe compared to the rest of the world, the diversity of countries of origin of papers shows the international appeal of the journal. Finally, we have switched to online submissions based on the Editorial Manager (EM), and all submissions are now handled by this system (http://www.editorialmanager. com/sopsy/), which substantially facilitates work in the editorial process, and helps to manage the increasing number of submissions.
The Worst of Times We have switched to online submissions. Mentioning this topic twice might seem a little odd, but everybody who ever Social Psychology 2014; Vol. 45(2):71–73 DOI: 10.1027/1864-9335/a000194
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Editorial
Figure 1. Development of impact factors since Social Psychology switched to English as the primary language in 2008. registered with and used Editorial Manager knows that it is less straightforward than simply emailing manuscripts to the editorial office (i.e., our previous submission process). And as all journals of the American Psychological Association (APA) have switched to the Editorial Manager as well, many will be familiar with this experience. Thus, while the EM makes life a lot better from the editorial side, some authors do feel it makes their life more difficult. For the editorial team, the transition was also not easy and created substantial additional work, but the transition process was facilitated and strongly supported by our publisher Hogrefe in general, and by Juliane Munson and Regina Pinks-Freybott in particular. Also, I am sad to report that Juliane Degner, Margaret Shih, Roland Deutsch, Gerald Echterhoff, and Hans-Peter Erb have left the editorial team as their terms as associate editors have ended. I want to take this Editorial as an opportunity to thank them for their contributions to making Social Psychology a successful journal. Finally, despite our best efforts, the journal’s turnaround is not as fast as it should be. Figure 2 shows the average time from submission to first editorial decision. The ambitious goal was to provide authors with feedback within 6 weeks. As Figure 2 shows, we reach this goal on average, but only when we take desk rejections into account. That is, given that a MS entered the full review process, authors waited on average closer to 8–9 weeks. One might argue that the turn-around is still good and the trend is in the right direction, but there is room for improvement and so this might not be a true ‘‘worst.’’
Conclusion: The Age of Wisdom or the Age of Foolishness? We have implemented many changes within the last year (e.g., online submission, accepting replications, more content) but also kept many things constant (e.g., double-blind
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Figure 2. Development of turn-around (i.e., days from submission to first editorial decision) for 2011–2013. review, special issues). Subjectively, I classified events and statistics within a best/worst dichotomy, which, obviously, does not reflect their complexity. The double classification of online submission shows this clearly. Yet, other points in my short report might have similar ambivalent implications. For example, increasing output will in all statistical likelihood lower the journal’s impact factor – but this drawback is outweighed by the chance to publish more of the well-done research submitted to Social Psychology, rather than to increase our rejection rate. Social Psychology clearly had a greater share of the best than the worst of times. The journal’s success over recent years shows that, 5 years ago, the former editor-in-chief Gerd Bohner and his team were living in an age of wisdom. The question whether the same is true for us or whether we are in an age of foolishness, that is, whether our current decisions are wise or foolish, will and can only be answered by the coming years.
References Agerstrçm, J., Bjçrklund, F., & Carlsson, R. (2013). Look at yourself! Visual perspective influences moral judgment by level of mental construal. Social Psychology, 44, 42–46. doi: 10.1027/1864-9335/a000100 Alves, H., & Correia, I. (2013). The buffering-boosting hypothesis of the expression of general and personal belief in a just world for successes and failures. Social Psychology, 44, 390–397. doi: 10.1027/1864-9335/a000151 Bertolotti, M., Catellani, P., Douglas, K. M., & Sutton, R. M. (2013). The ‘‘Big Two’’ in political communication: The effects of attacking and defending politicians’ leadership or morality. Social Psychology, 44, 117–128. doi: 10.1027/ 1864-9335/a000141 Bi, C., Ybarra, O., & Zhao, Y. (2013). Accentuating your masculine side: Agentic traits generally dominate selfevaluation, even in China. Social Psychology, 44, 103–108. doi: 10.1027/1864-9335/a000144 De Houwer, J., & Tucker Smith, C. (2013). Go with your gut! Effects in the affect misattribution procedure become stronger when participants are encouraged to rely on their gut feelings. Social Psychology, 44, 299–302. doi: 10.1027/ 1864-9335/a000115
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Editorial
Dickens, C. (1859). A Tale of Two Cities. London: Chapman & Hall. Greitemeyer, T. (2013). Playing video games cooperatively increases empathic concern. Social Psychology, 44, 408– 413. doi: 10.1027/1864-9335/a000154 Herrera, M., & Sani, F. (2013). Why does ingroup identification shield people from death anxiety? The role of perceived collective continuity and group entitativity. Social Psychology, 44, 320–328. doi: 10.1027/1864-9335/a000128 IJzerman, H., Karremans, J. C., Thomsen, L., & Schubert, T. W. (2013). Caring for sharing: How attachment styles modulate communal cues of physical warmth. Social Psychology, 44, 160–166. doi: 10.1027/1864-9335/a000142 Laham, S. M., & Kashima, Y. (2013). Narratives and goals: Narrative structure increases goal priming. Social Psychology, 44, 303–310. doi: 10.1027/1864-9335/a000116 Nestler, S., & Egloff, B. (2013). The stigma of being overweight: When do attributions to discrimination protect self-esteem? Social Psychology, 44, 26–32. doi: 10.1027/ 1864-9335/a000098 Osborne, D., Wootton, L. W., & Sibley, C. G. (2013). Are liberals agreeable or not? Politeness and compassion differentially predict political conservatism via distinct ideologies. Social Psychology, 44, 354–360. doi: 10.1027/1864-9335/ a000132 Phelps, J. M., Ommundsen, R., T rken, S., & Ulleberg, P. (2013). Intergroup perception and proactive majority integration attitudes. Social Psychology, 44, 196–207. doi: 10.1027/1864-9335/a000104 Siman Tov-Nachlieli, I., Shnabel, N., & Nadler, A. (2013). Individuals’ and groups’ motivation to restore their impaired identity dimensions following conflicts: Evidence and implications. Social Psychology, 44, 129–137. doi: 10.1027/1864-9335/a000148
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Thomson Reuters. (2013). Journal Citation Reports. Available at http://wokinfo.com/products_tools/analytical/jcr/ Viki, G. T., Abrams, D., & Winchester, L. (2013). Ingroup identification and evaluations of confessions from ingroup and outgroup members. Social Psychology, 44, 256–263. doi: 10.1027/1864-9335/a000110 Voisin, D., & Fointiat, V. (2013). Reduction in cognitive dissonance according to normative standards in the induced compliance paradigm. Social Psychology, 44, 191–195. Wojciszke, B., & Sobiczewska, P. (2013). Memory and selfesteem: The role of agentic and communal content. Social Psychology, 44, 95–102. doi: 10.1027/1864-9335/a000149 Zawadzki, M. J., Warner, L. R., & Shields, S. A. (2013). Sadness is believed to signal competence when displayed with passionate restraint. Social Psychology, 44, 219–230. doi: 10.1027/1864-9335/a000106
Christian Unkelbach Department of Psychology Universit t zu Kçln Immermannstr. 49–51 50931 Cologne Germany Tel. +49 221 470-2001 E-mail christian.unkelbach@uni-koeln.de
Social Psychology 2014; Vol. 45(2):71–73