Journal of Social and Personal Relationships
The Journal of Social and Personal Relationships (JSPR) is affiliated with the International Association for Relationship Research, and is an international and interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal. JSPR is one of the leading journals in the field of research on relationships, publishing the highest quality original empirical and theoretical research whose main focus is on social and personal relationships.
This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Submit your manuscript today at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jspr.
The Journal of Social and Personal Relationships (JSPR) is affiliated with the International Association for Relationship Research, and is an international and interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal. JSPR is one of the leading journals in the field of research on relationships, publishing the highest quality original empirical and theoretical research whose main focus is on social and personal relationships.
Studies published with JSPR center on relationships – including those that are romantic (e.g., dating, sexual, marital), platonic (e.g., friendships), and familial (e.g., parent-child, intergenerational households, siblings) in nature. Relationships’ processes and contexts should be the focus of the study. Published work has focused on individual partners, all life stages, relationship processes, mediated and face-to-face contexts, and the structure of dyads. Submissions can be quantitative or qualitative in nature; we also welcome meta-analyses, theoretical reviews, systemic reviews, and mixed-method approaches.
JSPR is multidisciplinary in scope, drawing material from the fields of social psychology, clinical psychology, communication, developmental psychology, human and family sciences, health, and sociology.
"This is the outstanding journal in personal relationships, clearly the most highly cited journal for articles on relationships and the one you most naturally pick up when you are researching a relational topic" Clyde Hendrick Texas Tech University, Lubbock, USA
Readership
Academics, researchers, psychologists, family scientists, communication scholars, lifespan development scholars, gerontologists, sociologists, social workers, couples therapists, and anthropologists
Requirements
Given the high-quality content of JSPR, all submitted manuscripts should be theoretically and empirically sound. This includes, but is not limited to: garnering the appropriate ethics approval and subsequently following the ethical methodologies, theoretical foundation, and use of guiding research questions and/or hypotheses. Manuscripts must also adhere to JSPR’s guidelines for submission, including proper APA formatting, word count, inclusion of appropriate content (e.g., title page, abstract, references), and inclusion of specific statements and declarations.
| Emily Scheinfeld | Kennesaw State University, USA |
| Simone Brock | Kennesaw State University, USA |
| Steve Duck | The University of Iowa, USA |
| Jennifer Bevan | Chapman University, USA |
| Kay Brauer | Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany |
| Lik Sam Chan | The University of Sydney, Australia |
| Tim Curran | Utah State University, USA |
| Tien Ee Dominic Yeo | Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong |
| Ashley Ermer | Montclair State University, USA |
| Andy High | Pennsylvania State University, USA |
| Samantha J. Shebib | The University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA |
| Pamela Lannutti | Widener University, USA |
| Nathan Leonhardt | Brigham Young University, USA |
| Yachao Li | The College of New Jersey, USA |
| Cliff McKinney | Mississippi State University, USA |
| Leslie Nelson | California Polytechnic State University, USA |
| Liesel Sharabi | Arizona State University, USA |
| Katarzyna Adamczyk | Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland |
| Hongjian Cao | Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China |
| Farid Pazhoohi | University of Plymouth, UK |
| Kenneth Tan | Singapore Management University, Singapore |
| Katherine Alexander | Utah State University, USA |
| Lindsey Aloia | University of Arkansas, USA |
| Cimmiarion Alvarez | Kean University, USA |
| Lida Anagnostaki | National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece |
| Fedd Andre | University of Alabama, USA |
| Levi Baker | University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA |
| Rhonda Balzarini | Texas State University, USA |
| Erin Basinger | University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA |
| Lindsey Beck | Emerson College, USA |
| Shuang Bi | Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, China |
| Geneviève Bouchard | Université de Moncton, Canada |
| Nicholas Brody | University of Puget Sound, USA |
| Suzanne Brown | Wayne State University, USA |
| Tricia Burke | Texas State University, USA |
| Tomás Cabeza de Baca | National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, USA |
| Alison Carey | Liverpool John Moores University, Ireland |
| John Caughlin | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA |
| William J. Chopik | Washington University in St. Louis, USA |
| Kathryn Coduto | Boston University, USA |
| R. Amanda Cooper | University of Connecticut, USA |
| Meghan Costello | Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital, USA |
| Anthony Coy | University of South Florida, USA |
| Maureen Coyle | Widener University, USA |
| Michael Criss | Oklahoma State University, USA |
| Jenny Crowley | University of Tennessee, USA |
| Rene Dailey | University of Texas at Austin, USA |
| Marco Dehnert | University of Arkansas, USA |
| Danielle DelPriore | Pennsylvania State University - Altoona, USA |
| Mary B. Eberly Lewis | Oakland University, USA |
| Sasaki Eri | Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Daniel Erickson | Arizona State University, USA |
| Matteo Angelo Fabirs | University of Turin, Italy |
| Shichen Fang | University of Lethbridge, Canada |
| Meara Faw | Colorado State University, USA |
| Alexandra Fisher | University of Edinburgh, Scotland |
| Kory Floyd | Washington State University, USA |
| Taranah Gazder | University of Edinburgh, UK |
| Julia Hammett | Arizona State University, USA |
| Cheryl Harasymchuk | Carleton University, Canada |
| Monika Olga Janczak | Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland |
| Jeremy Kanter | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA |
| Maria Kazmierczak | University of Gdansk, Poland |
| Dexia Kong | The Chinese University of Hong Kong, China |
| Christine Kunkle | West Virginia University, USA |
| Ashley Larsen Gibby | Brigham Young University, USA |
| Knobloch Leanne | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA |
| Chelom Leavitt | Brigham Young University, USA |
| Ashley LeBaron-Black | Brigham Young University, USA |
| Leah LeFebvre | University of Alabama, USA |
| Xiaomin Li | Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China |
| Yue Liang | Beijing Normal University, China |
| Laura Machia | Syracuse University, USA |
| Christina Marini | Adelphi University, USA |
| Bree McEwan | University of Toronto, Canada |
| Julianne McGill | Auburn University, USA |
| Kale Monk | University of Missouri, USA |
| Cope Morgan | Centre College, USA |
| Nina S. Mounts | Northern Illinois University, USA |
| Matthew Ogan | University of Tennessee, USA |
| Brian Ogolsky | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA |
| Yoobin Park | University of California San Francisco, USA |
| Natalie Pennington | Colorado State University, USA |
| Daniel Perlman | University of Winnipeg, Canada |
| Amy Rauer | University of Tennessee, USA |
| (Alannah) Shelby Rivers | Texas Woman's University, USA |
| David L. Rodrigues | Iscte-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, CIS-Iscte, Portugal |
| Mendez Murillo Roselia | University of Texas at Austin, USA |
| Erin Ruppel | University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA |
| Luke Russell | Illinois State University, USA |
| Matthew Saxey | Mississippi State University, USA |
| Rosie Shrout | University of British Columbia, Canada |
| Susan Sprecher | Illinois State University, USA |
| Jeffrey Stokes | University of Massachusetts Boston, USA |
| Charee Thompson | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA |
| Corinna Tucker | University of New Hampshire, USA |
| Betul Urganci | Koç University, Turkey |
| Laura Vowels | University of Roehampton, United Kingdom |
| David F. Warner | University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA |
| Rebekka Weidmann | Brigham Young University, USA |
| Dana Weiser | Texas Tech University, USA |
| Katharina Weitkamp | University of Zurich, Switzerland |
| Brooke Wolfe | Michigan State University, USA |
| E. Helin Yaban | FernUniversität Hagen, Germany |
| Suen Yiu Tung | The Chinese University of Hong Kong, China |
Manuscript Submission Guidelines: Journal of Social and Personal Relationships
This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics
This Journal recommends that authors follow the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals formulated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).
Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jspr to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.
Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Journal of Social and Personal Relationships will be reviewed.
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this journal.
As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you.
- What do we publish?
1.1 Aims & Scope
1.2 Article types
1.3 Writing your paper - Editorial policies
2.1 Peer review policy
2.2 Authorship
2.3 Acknowledgements
2.4 Declaration of conflicting interests - Publishing policies
3.1 Publication ethics
3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
3.3 Open access and author archiving - Preparing your manuscript
4.1 Formatting
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
4.3 Supplementary material
4.4 Reference style
4.5 English language editing services
4.6 Word Count - Submitting your manuscript
5.1 ORCID
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
5.3 Permissions - On acceptance and publication
6.1 SAGE Production
6.2 Online First publication
6.3 Access to your published article
6.4 Promoting your article - Further information
Before submitting your manuscript to Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.
Journal of Social and Personal Relationships (JSPR) is an international and interdisciplinary peer reviewed journal that publishes empirical and theoretical papers on social and personal relationships. It is multidisciplinary in scope, drawing materials from, among others, the fields of social psychology, clinical psychology, communication, developmental psychology, family studies and sociology. The Journal considers the following kinds of article for publication:
- Research Reports, describing new empirical findings;
(a) Full papers
(b) Short reports - Review Articles. The Editor wishes to encourage the following types of review, but request that authors contact them in advance:
(a) general reviews that provide a synthesis of an area of social and personal relationships;
(b) critiques - focused and provocative reviews that are followed by a number of invited commentaries, with a concluding reply from the main author;
(c) Viewpoint article - a research-based commentary, preferably on a currently relevant issue, targeting either the research community, the political agenda or both. The emphasis is on policy recommendations, but the article should be based on a succinct and balanced summary of existing research on the issue. - Meta-analyses
Full papers and review articles are generally restricted to a maximum of 9,000 words including all elements (title page, abstract, notes, references, tables, biographical statement, etc.). Short reports are generally restricted to 3,000 words including all elements (title page, abstract, notes, references, tables, biographical statement, etc.). We are reluctant to burden our referees with very long manuscripts. Authors who suspect that their articles will have to be cut anyway should make the required deletions before submitting.
The SAGE Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources.
1.3.1 Make your article discoverable
When writing up your paper, think about how you can make it discoverable. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article through search engines such as Google. For information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords, have a look at this page on the Gateway: How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.
Journal of Social and Personal Relationships operates a strictly blinded peer review process in which the reviewer’s name is withheld from the author and, the author’s name from the reviewer. The reviewer may at their own discretion opt to reveal their name to the author in their review but our standard policy practice is for both identities to remain concealed. Each manuscript is reviewed by at least two (and generally three) referees. Papers from graduate students or recent PhDs are especially welcomed and will, if the authors explicitly request it, receive extra attention (i.e. one additional reviewer). All manuscripts are reviewed as rapidly as possible, and an editorial decision is generally reached within 3-4 months of submission.
All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.
Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.
2.4 Declaration of conflicting interests
Journal of Social and Personal Relationships encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the SAGE Journal Author Gateway.
SAGE is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the SAGE Author Gateway.
3.1.1 Plagiarism
Journal of Social and Personal Relationships and SAGE take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.
3.1.2 Prior publication
If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a SAGE journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the SAGE Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.
3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
Before publication, SAGE requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. SAGE’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants SAGE the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than SAGE. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the SAGE Author Gateway.
3.3 Open access and author archiving
Journal of Social and Personal Relationships offers optional open access publishing via the SAGE Choice programme. For more information please visit the SAGE Choice website. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit SAGE Publishing Policies on our Journal Author Gateway.
4. Preparing your manuscript for submission
Please format your manuscript according to the 6th edition of the APA Publication Manual outlined here. The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted.
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit the artwork guidelines section of SAGE’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines.
Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from SAGE after receipt of your accepted article.
This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplementary files.
Journal of Social and Personal Relationships adheres to the APA reference style. View the APA guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.
4.5 English language editing services
Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using SAGE Language Services. Visit SAGE Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.
Articles can be a maximum of 9,000 words (short reports - 3,000) including all elements such as title page, abstract, notes, references, tables, biographical statements etc.).
Journal of Social and Personal Relationships is hosted on SAGE Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jspr to login and submit your article online.
IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.
As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process SAGE is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities ensuring that their work is recognised.
We encourage all authors to add their ORCIDs to their SAGE Track accounts and include their ORCIDs as part of the submission process. If you don’t already have one you can create one here.
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).
Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the SAGE Author Gateway.
6. On acceptance and publication
Your SAGE Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be sent by PDF to the corresponding author and should be returned promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate. Please note that if there are any changes to the author list at this stage all authors will be required to complete and sign a form authorising the change.
Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the SAGE Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.
6.3 Access to your published article
SAGE provides authors with online access to their final article.
Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The SAGE Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice. In addition, SAGE is partnered with Kudos, a free service that allows authors to explain, enrich, share, and measure the impact of their article. Find out how to maximise your article’s impact with Kudos.
Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships editorial office as follows:
The Editor
Geoff MacDonald
Department of Psychology
University of Toronto
100 St George Street
Toronto, ON
M5S 3G3
email: gmacdonald@psych.utoronto.ca
phone: 416 978 3840