Studies in Psychology

Studies in Psychology-Psikoloji Çalışmaları aims to be a platform that enables knowledge generated within the fundamental and applied fields of psychology support each other.

Studies in Psychology-Psikoloji Çalışmaları is an open access, peer-reviewed, scholarly, international journal published triannually in April, August and December. It has been an official publication of Istanbul University, Faculty of Letters, Department of  Psychology since 1956. The manuscripts submitted for publication in the journal must be scientific and original work in Turkish or English.

The journal welcomes both research articles from all sub fields of psychology and inter disciplinary studies covering fields such as cognitive sciences, neurology, genetics, psychiatry, geriatry, educationinal sciences, communication sciences and antropology.

The target group of the journal consists of academicians, researchers, professionals, students, related professional and academic bodies and institutions.

MANUSCRIPT ORGANIZATION AND FORMAT

Manuscpript is to be submitted online via http://sp.istanbul.edu.tr and it must be accompanied by a cover letter indicating that the manuscript is intended for publication, specifying the article category (i.e. research article, review etc.) and including information about the manuscript (see the Submission Checklist). In addition, Ethics Committee Approval Certificate, Copyright Agreement Form that has to be signed by all authors must be submitted.

1. The author who submitted the manuscript online becomes the corresponding author for the evaluation and publication process.

2. MS Office Word in either .doc or .docx file formats should be used for the manuscript preparation. Entire manuscript should be A4 paper sized with 3 cm page margins, 12 pt. Times New Roman and double spaced.

3. Manuscript that does not include any author information should be prepared as follows:

3.1. The first page should include a summary (at most 300 words) and 3-6 keywords beneath it.

3.2. The second page should be composed of the English translation of abstract and keywords.

3.3. The third page should include an extended abstract in English (1500-2000 words). Extended abstract in English is mandatory for the manuscripts in Turkish. It is not required for the manuscript is in English.

3.4. The main text with title of the manuscript should start on the page following the abstracts/extended abstract. Running head, in parentheses, should be written under title.

3.5. All articles should be no more than 8000 words, excluding abstracts, appendices and bibliography. If the article contains more than one study, the word count may increase.

3.6. Research articles should be composed of introduction, method, results and discussion sections. It is not necessary to put “introduction” heading in introduction section. Review papers should include an introduction section framing the issue (without an “introduction” heading) and a discussion section.

3.7. The author(s) may create additional sub/headings that they found useful. Letters or numbers must not be used for heading. APA Style 6th edition’s heading system should be utilized.

3.8. The placement of tables and figures should be stated in main text with specific mention to its number (For instance, “Figure 3 should be placed here.”). Tables should be prepared in line with the APA 7th edition guideline.

3.9. References section must start on a separate page following main text. References must be in line witht APA 7th editon guidelines and must be carefully checked. References must be ordered alphabetically by the author last names. Any reference in references section must have been mentioned in main text and any citation in main text must be mentioned in references section.

3.10. Figures and tables, respectively, should be placed on separate pages following references section with any titles and explanations if it exists.

4. Any text editing except MS Word auto-check must not be used throughout the manuscript preparation (especially automatic numbering must not be used).

5. The final edition of the manuscript after peer-review process must be organized for publication as explained above. A cover page having the fully descriptive title of the manuscript and, affiliation, title, e-mail address, postal address, phone and fax number of the author(s) must be added before abstract section. The note(s) of the author(s), such as aknowledgements, if any, should be added as a footnote as well. The resulting Word document should be directly sent to the editor-in-chief.

6. The pre-publish confirmation copy that was sent from the publisher is shared with the corresponding author. It is requested to be checked by author(s) within the highlighted timespan. Any possible typesetting errors should be reported. This latest copy that was checked by the author(s) is published after the correction of typesetting errors, if any, following the final confirmation of the editorial team.

7. Every academician who has studied in psychology or related fields may be a reviewer of the Studies in Psychology. You may send your academic CV to editor-in-chief (sp@istanbul.edu.tr) to apply to be a reviewer.

Publication Policy
The journal is committed to upholding the highest standards of publication ethics and pays regard to Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA), and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) on https://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines-new/principles-transparency-and-best-practice-scholarly-publishing
The subjects covered in the manuscripts submitted to the Journal for publication must be in accordance with the aim and scope of the Journal. Only those manuscripts approved by every individual author and that were not published before in or sent to another journal, are accepted for evaluation.
Changing the name of an author (omission, addition or order) in papers submitted to the Journal requires written permission of all declared authors.
Plagiarism, duplication, fraud authorship/denied authorship, research/data fabrication, salami slicing/salami publication, breaching of copyrights, prevailing conflict of interest are unethical behaviors. All manuscripts not in accordance with the accepted ethical standards will be removed from the publication. This also contains any possible malpractice discovered after the publication.

Plagiarism
Submitted manuscripts that pass preliminary control are scanned for plagiarism using iThenticate software. If plagiarism/self-plagiarism will be found authors will be informed. Editors may resubmit manuscript for similarity check at any peer-review or production stage if required. High similarity scores may lead to rejection of a manuscript before and even after acceptance. Depending on the type of article and the percentage of similarity score taken from each article, the overall similarity score is generally expected to be less than 15 or 20%.

Double Blind Peer-Review
After plagiarism check, the eligible ones are evaluated by the editors-in-chief for their originality, methodology, the importance of the subject covered and compliance with the journal scope. The editor provides a fair double-blind peer review of the submitted articles and hands over the papers matching the formal rules to at least two national/international referees for evaluation and gives green light for publication upon modification by the authors in accordance with the referees’ claims.

Additionally, Ethics Codes of Turkish Psychological Association is taken into consideration. Authors who are members of Turkish Psychological Association are accountable to the Ethical Committee of Turkish Psychological Association.

Research Ethics

Studies in Psychology - Psikoloji Çalışmaları adheres to the highest standards in research ethics and follows the principles of international research ethics as defined below. The authors are responsible for the compliance of the manuscripts with the ethical rules.
• Principles of integrity, quality and ransparency should be sustained in designing the research, reviewing the design and conducting the research.
• The research team and participants should be fully informed about the aim, methods, possible uses and requirements of the research and risks of participation in research.
• The confidentiality of the information provided by the research participants and the confidentiality of the respondents should be ensured. The research should be designed to protect the autonomy and dignity of the participants.
• Research participants should participate in the research voluntarily, not under any coercion.
• Any possible harm to participants must be avoided. The research should be planned in such a way that the participants are not at risk.
• The independence of research must be clear; and any conflict of interest or must be disclosed.
• In experimental studies with human subjects, written informed consent of the participants who decide to participate in the research must be obtained. In the case of children and those under wardship or with confirmed insanity, legal custodian’s assent must be obtained.
• If the study is to be carried out in any institution or organization, approval must be obtained from this institution or organization.
• In studies with human subject, it must be noted in the method’s section of the manuscript that the informed consent of the participants and ethics committee approval from the institution where the study has been conducted have been obtained.


Author Responsibilities

It is authors’ responsibility to ensure that the manuscript is in accordance with scientific and ethical standards and rules. Submitting their manuscripts, authors are deemed to ensure that submitted work is original and certify that the manuscript has not previously been published elsewhere or is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere, in any language.
Copyright material (e.g. tables, figures or extensive quotations) must be reproduced only with appropriate permission and acknowledgement. It is authors’ responsibility to get necessary permissions. Applicable copyright laws and conventions must be followed.
The author(s) of the original research articles is defined as a person who is significantly involved in “conceptualization and design of the study”, “collecting the data”, “analyzing the data”, “writing the manuscript”, “reviewing the manuscript with a critical perspective” and “planning/conducting the study of the manuscript and/or revising it”. All the authors of a submitted manuscript must have direct scientific and academic contribution to the manuscript. The author(s) must meet all these criteria described above.
Fund raising, data collection or supervision of the research group are not sufficient roles to be accepted as an author. The individuals who do not meet the authorship criteria but contributed to the study must take place in the acknowledgement section. Individuals providing technical support, assisting writing, providing a general support, providing material or financial support are examples to be indicated in acknowledgement section.
The order of names in the author list of an article must be a co-decision and it must be indicated in the signed Copyright Transfer Form. If not indicated, alphabetical order according to surnames is used. All authors must disclose all issues concerning financial relationship and conflict of interest that may potentially influence the results of the research or scientific judgment.
Author(s) are to take into consideration the required revisions in accordance with the review reports sent by the editor. Author(s) must send the rearranged article to the editor togather with the list of done/undone revisions writing the reasons.
When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published paper, it is the author’s obligation to promptly cooperate with the Editor-in-Chief to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes.

Responsibility for the Editor and Reviewers

Editors evaluate manuscripts for their scientific content without regard to all kinds of discrimination and prejudice. They are responsible for providing a fair double-blind peer review of the submitted articles for publication.
Editor(s) ensures that all the information related to submitted manuscripts is kept as confidential before publishing. Editor(s) is obliged to keep the unaccepted manuscripts, the decisions about the manuscripts and the reports providing the basis for the decisions, confidential, and not to disclose to anybody, except the board members of Studies in Psychology, these information.
Editor(s) has the full authority to assign a reviewer and is responsible for final decision for publication of the manuscripts in the Journal. Editor(s) does not allow any conflicts of interest between the authors, and reviewers.
In case that the manuscript is in line with the general scientific and formal principles, editor(s) presents the submitted manuscript to at least two national and/or international reviewers. If the reviewers have conflict of judgement, the editor(s) assigns a third reviewer. Editor(s) accepts the manuscript for publication after author(s) does the revisions considered necessary by the reviewers. In case that there is conflict between the revisions suggested by the reviewers, the editor(s) carries the authority to make the final decision taking into consideration the reasoned explanations of the authors.
Reviewers evaluate manuscripts based on content without regard to all kinds of discrimination and prejudice. They must reach an objective judgment as a result of their reviews and justify it. They must be careful that their reports include constructive criticism and review for authors.
They must ensure that all the information related to submitted manuscripts is kept as confidential and must report to the Editor if they are aware of copyright infringement and plagiarism on the author’s side.
A reviewer who feels unqualified to review the topic of a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the Editor and excuse himself from the review process.
The reviewers cannot discuss the manuscripts with other persons.The reviewers are not allowed to have copies of the manuscripts for personal use and they cannot share manuscripts with others without permission of the editor.
Unless the authors and editor permit, the reviews of referees cannot be published or disclosed.
In particular situations, the editor may share the review of one reviewer with other reviewers to clarify a particular point. The anonymity of the referees is important.

All expenses of the journal are covered by the Istanbul University. Processing and publication are free of charge with the journal. There is no article processing charges or submission fees for any submitted or accepted articles.