Publication Policies

Contents

Editorial Responsibilities
Editorial Disclaimer

Author Responsibilities
Author and Contributor Acknowledgement
Changes to the Author Listing
Copyright
Data Availability
Ethical Misconduct
Generative AI Usage
Plagiarism
Preprints
Publication Costs
Fast Track Service
Withdrawals/Refunds

Editorial Responsibilities

SBP editors are committed to doing the following.

  • Process manuscript submissions in a timely fashion, approving those that meet journal standards for content, structure, presentation, and relevance. 
  • Invite suitable peer reviewers to comment on the manuscript, based on their expertise in the subject areas.
  • Provide authors with ongoing information about the manuscript submission, review, and production processes. 
  • Use reviewer feedback along with editorial consultation to make a fair, unbiased decision, and provide clear feedback to potential authors about required revisions to reach acceptance, or the reasons for rejection. 
  • Accept manuscripts of high quality and relevance in a timely and responsible manner.
  • Follow the ethics policy of the journal, in line with COPE guidelines and processes for dealing with questions of ethical conduct. 
  • Maintain good communication with authors, reviewers, and third parties. 
  • Keep publication workflows and systems working smoothly and up to date with the latest advances to ensure the best possible user experience.

Editorial Disclaimer

Social Behavior and Personality maintains an open editorial policy and may or may not endorse the conclusions made in its published articles. Neither the journal nor its publisher, editors or staff assume any responsibility for any material considered to be offensive or defamatory, or for obtaining any copyright permissions for third-party content in published articles.

Author Responsibilities

We ask our authors to commit to doing the following.

  • Submit work that is original, fully referenced, and that accurately reflects the contribution of all authors, including their names, affiliations, and contact information. 
  • Submit work that they believe reaches the SBP Journal standards for submission, in terms of content, structure, presentation, and relevance.
  • Declare that they have personally written the manuscript text, in line with accepted standards of authorship and research integrity.
  • Ensure that research is conducted in line with the Declaration of Helsinki for research involving human subjects and give confirmation in the cover letter and in the manuscript text that consent was obtained from participants if required. 
  • Submit a copy of ethical approval documentation relevant to the reported research.
  • Name all authors and list their specific contributions to the study and manuscript (see “Author and Contributor Acknowledgement” below).
  • Disclose any conflicts of interest and provide full funding information.
  • repository.
  • Understand that authors will hand over copyright to SBP Journal at the time of publication and show agreement by means of the copyright notice check box in the submission process.
  • Accept the final decisions of the editors regarding necessary revisions or rejection of a manuscript, although authors have the right to appeal a decision to the managing editor.
  • Maintain good communication with editors, copyeditors, and coauthors.
  • As corresponding author, pass on all communication between the editor and the paper’s authors. He or she will ensure that before submission the author list is accurate, complete, and that all coauthors approve the submission.
  • Ensure that the person submitting the manuscript through the SBP website is a listed author on the paper.

Author and Contributor Acknowledgement

  • Authorship definition (taken from ICMJE recommendations): 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; 3) final approval of the version to be published; AND 4) agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work’s accuracy and integrity.
  • All authors should be fully acknowledged, and no person should be included as an author who did not contribute meaningfully (in all four ways defined above).  
  • Use the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) to list all contributions (authors and anyone listed in acknowledgements) according to the 14 roles outlined. Each contributor can be assigned any number of roles, and any role could be held by more than one contributor.
  • Those who contributed to the manuscript but do not qualify as authors should be acknowledged in a note.

Changes to the Author Listing

Changes to the author list, whether the addition or deletion of an author or a change in the order of authors, will be accepted only until final revisions and transfer to copyediting. Changes must be confirmed in writing; all authors must read authorship definitions and sign a change of authorship form to confirm their agreement. No changes will be accepted after the revised manuscript is finalized.

Please find a link to the Change of Authorship form here.

Changes in author affiliations are discouraged. We follow the APA guideline that an affiliation identifies where the author worked or studied when the work was conducted. A listed institution must have contributed substantial support to the study. We will accept up to two affiliations maximum per author, and if the author has moved since completing the study, the new affiliation with be acknowledged in the author notes.

Copyright

Social Behavior and Personality: An international journal is a subscription-based scholarly journal and requires that authors transfer copyright of their work to the journal’s publisher (Scientific Journal Publishers Limited) when an article is published. This is done by the submitting author agreeing to the copyright notice during the submission process.

At submission, authors will be asked to check a box agreeing to the copyright notice, which states the following: “Author(s) agree that copyright of an article published in SBP Journal is transferred from the author(s) to the journal publisher (Scientific Journal Publishers Limited) upon publication.”

Our copyright statement is as follows: “Copyright [year], Scientific Journal Publishers Limited. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part of this publication, or by any means without the express written permission from the publisher, is prohibited.”

Learn more about copyright here.

Data Availability

SBP Journal recommends that authors share or make available any data supporting the findings presented in their paper. This may include providing a link or dataset at the time of submission. (Click on “when uploading files for this to be saved as supplementary content to your submission.) Data sharing benefits the research community and increases the discoverability and credibility of your work.

We may require that authors make their dataset available, upon request by reviewers or SBP editors, to assist with the review and evaluation of your manuscript.

We suggest authors deposit data in a recognized data repository (e.g., Open Science Framework, Figshare) that provides a DOI and has a long-term preservation plan. Authors are asked to provide a data availability statement in their manuscript submission – an example can be found in our template.

Ethical Misconduct

  • In cases of suspected misconduct, SBP editors will follow the processes laid out by COPE in its “Publication Code of Conduct flowcharts.” http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts 
  • When a concern comes to light during the manuscript review period, the review will be suspended while the editors conduct a brief investigation. 
  • When problems of plagiarism in published papers are discovered, SBP Journal will follow COPE guidelines to resolve issues, and publish errata or retractions as required. 
  • In other cases of ethical misconduct, such as authorship inconsistencies, funding concerns, or conflicts of interest, COPE guidelines will also be followed. 
  • Authors will always be given an opportunity to respond to any concern, and no action will be taken without serious investigation.
  • In extreme cases of ethical misconduct, the author’s institution may be informed, future submissions banned for some period of time, and the public record corrected to show that the published work was unethical.

Generative AI Usage

We acknowledge the growing use of large language models (LLMs) and generative AI (artificial intelligence) chatbots in all spheres of life. We also recognize the value they can add in speeding up workflows, generating ideas or innovation, or facilitating clear writing. This should only be done, however, in a transparent and ethical manner.

Our policy on AI use in research that is published in Social Behavior and Personality is to follow current best practice for this relatively new technology. In general, we follow COPE’s position statement on the use of AI and authorship.

  1. AI/chatbots cannot be listed or credited as authors as they hold no accountability for the work and cannot answer for it as human authors must do.
  2. AI should not be used in peer review or editorial evaluation processes, one reason being that it is unvalidated for critical appraisal.
  3. AI should not be used to generate reference lists or citations, as not only is this the responsibility of authors, but also can result in fabricated/nonsense references.
  4. Where AI has been used in the preparation, execution, or analysis of research, this should be disclosed and explained in the Method section of a submitted paper.
  5. Where AI has been used to assist the writing or editing of a manuscript, this should be disclosed and fully explained in the Acknowledgements of a submitted manuscript.

There may be legitimate uses for AI in preparing a manuscript for submission, but we strongly emphasize the requirement for authors to write up their own research in their own words. Authors must take full responsibility for the work that is submitted to SBP. See our editorial on this topic published in Volume 52, Issue 7 (Segal & Cheyne, 2024).

Plagiarism

All accepted manuscripts will be checked for originality using iThenticate plagiarism software. At the editor’s discretion, manuscripts will be rejected if they record high similarity to other published work. Authors may be required to perform major revisions if the manuscript has concerning sections of copied text.

When iThenticate reveals significant self-plagiarism or text recycling, the authors will be required to remove these copied passages. Duplicate publication is not permitted in SBP Journal. We will not publish work that already appears in the scholarly record. When a paper has appeared in conference proceedings or has been published in a draft form in another language, we will allow for a revised and strengthened paper to be submitted, as long as there is acknowledgement of the earlier version, and significant difference between versions.

Preprints

SBP allows submission of papers that have already been posted to preprint servers, such as Research Square or Medrxiv. Please acknowledge preprints in your cover letter at the time of submission, and, if your work is published, ensure that the preprint server promptly links your paper to the published version of record.

Publication Costs

Part of the cost of papers accepted for publication in SBP Journal (i.e., manuscript processing, comprehensive copyediting and proofreading, formatting and layout, and digital archiving) is shared with the author(s). The author share of the publication cost is US$569 per 500 words (or part thereof). The word count includes the title, abstract, keywords, article highlights, author information, main text, references, and tables/figures. Payment is required within 4 weeks of final acceptance to ensure prompt processing.

We value our long-term connections with authors and mark collaboration milestones by applying a 5% discount to the publication costs for an author’s fifth paper, a 10% discount upon publication of a tenth paper, and so on for each subsequent paper in multiples of five. Unclaimed discounts are applicable retroactively to new submissions by authors who have already published five or more papers; contact [email protected] to inquire. This discount will be applied to the invoice total after any journal subsidies are approved.

It is always to the advantage of authors to achieve a concise and direct writing style. This increases the article’s impact in the scientific world and can minimize the author publication cost requirement. Authors are advised to carefully edit their articles to reduce repetitive and unnecessary material that can otherwise impact on readability. Substantial reductions in length (and associated cost) can often be achieved without any loss of scientific rigor.

Immediately following publication, all authors receive 6 months of complimentary access to our database so that they can download and share their own article, as well as searching our full 50+ year archive.

Fast Track Service

If authors would like advance online publication of their manuscript, we offer this service through Ingenta Connect Fast Track. A PDF proof can be finalized and available to view on Ingenta within two months of acceptance. These articles are available open access and have active DOIs that transfer automatically to the later official publication within a journal issue. Authors can request this at any time after acceptance by writing to the editors.

Please note the following:

  • The publication invoice must be paid in full, as well as a US$500 administration fee.
  • Using this service does not result in early publication on Clarivate/SSCI.

On occasion, it is possible to accelerate publication when earlier spaces appear in the publication schedule. This can be requested after acceptance by writing to the editors. There is an associated US$500 administration fee.

Withdrawals/Refunds

Social Behavior and Personality charges article publication charges (APCs) to authors after a manuscript is accepted for publication. There are no fees for earlier stages of submission or review. Once the APCs are paid and the manuscript has been sent to copyediting and scheduled for publication in an issue, authors are strongly encouraged not to withdraw manuscripts without cause. If a withdrawal is required, SBP will provide a refund of half the APCs if the request is made before the final PDF proof is sent to authors. Once the PDF proof is sent, no refund will be given, even if withdrawal is decided upon.

If a published article is retracted, SBP will not provide a refund of the APCs.