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Journal of Language and Social Psychology

Journal of Language and Social Psychology


eISSN: 15526526 | ISSN: 0261927X | Current volume: 43 | Current issue: 3 Frequency: Bi-monthly
The Journal of Language and Social Psychology (JLSP) publishes articles exploring the social psychological processes involved in language production, processing, and attendant outcomes. At the intersection of social psychology and language use are communication mechanisms surrounding how people create, send, receive, understand, recall, judge, and respond to messages. Thus, communication is a process at the core of language and social psychology. In other words, the JLSP publishes research that measures, manipulates, or otherwise empirically assesses language use and/or linguistic mechanisms, as well as work that focuses on communication or more macro-linguistic processes. The JLSP is interdisciplinary drawing from fields such as psychology, communication, linguistics, cognitive science, education, anthropology, computer science, sociology, health sciences, social justice, and data science.

The JLSP publishes theory driven research that thoroughly explicates the psychological mechanisms explaining how language functions in social interaction. The JLSP values well-articulated work that thoroughly deduces hypotheses and/or poses meaningful research questions. The JLSP aims to publish work with precisely detailed narratives that explain why causal connections exist among constructs. The JLSP publishes exploratory, descriptive, and pure replication work, primarily as Short Research Reports; at the same time, the Journal prioritizes full-length research reports that advance theory using sophisticated methods appropriate for the (causal, correlation, behavioral, cognitive, etc.) claims being tested.
Notwithstanding its history of publishing quantitative experimental social science, the JLSP accepts submissions employing any method or epistemology, as well as articles with pure theoretical agendas and no data. The JLSP values stimulus generalizability (especially for papers reporting a single study), as well as multi-study conceptual replications that operationally diversify efforts across studies within a single article. Multi-study articles may employ the same tool, such as a 3-experiment paper, or they can use diverse methods, such as a computational language model reported alongside a survey. Articles with methodological triangulation via diverse and/or mixed methods are effective means of theoretical advancement, particularly when authors directly discuss (in)consistencies and theoretical and operational implications across studies; and the JLSP aims to publish such efforts.

The JLSP aims to publish research on the social psychology of language use with social justice implications and practical utility whenever possible. The JLSP prioritizes work on the social psychological mechanisms of linguistically leveraged oppression, discrimination, and related processes. Publishing contextually consequential work with far reaching benefits for humanity and social change is an aim of the JLSP. Example contexts with strong social justice implications for language and social psychology and attendant fields include, but are not limited to: intimate partner abuse and violence, cyberbullying and mental health, hate graffiti, social media misinformation, elder abuse, political advertisements and polarization, charitable contributions, online dating and loneliness, sexual consent, collective action and organizing, environmental campaigns and preservation efforts, policy/law implementation, neo-pronouns, revisionist history, reproductive rights, health disclaimers and medical adherence, social and emotional support, music lyrics and well-being, and police brutality.
Regardless of the topic, the JLSP aims to publish articles that advance theory employing rigorous methods on fundamental processes of language and social psychology, such as communication, social cognition, message production and processing, power dynamics, intergroup vitality, ageing, ethnicity, bilingualism, discourse and conversation, person perception and message attitudes, digitally mediated social interaction, human-computer interaction, emotion and physiology, and gender and sexual identities. 

For more on aims and scope, consult Palomares (2024), A vision for the continued success of the JLSP, Vol. 43(1), p 9-13 (https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X231206337).

Editor
Nicholas A. Palomares University of Texas at Austin, USA
Founding and Consulting Editor
Howard Giles University of California, Santa Barbara, USA; The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
Editorial Board
John A. Banas University of Oklahoma, USA
Ali H. Al-Hoorie Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu, Saudi Arabia
Martha Augoustinos University of Adelaide, Australia
Natalie N. Bazarova Cornell University, USA
Quinten S. Bernhold University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA
Megan E. Birney Staffordshire University, UK
Kate G. Blackburn University of Texas, Austin, USA
David E. Clementson University of Georgia, USA
Brandon Van Der Heide Michigan State University, USA
William A. Donohue Michigan State University, USA
Marko Dragojevic University of Kentucky, USA
Norah E. Dunbar University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
John R.. Edwards St Francis Xavier University and Dalhousie University, Canada
Susan R. Fussell Cornell University, USA
Jessica Gasiorek University of Hawaii, Manoa, USA
Cynthia Gordon Georgetown University, USA
Pascal Gygax University of Fribourg, Switzerland
Jeffrey A. Hall University of Kansas, USA
Mark Hamilton University of Connecticut, USA
Karolina Hansen University of Warsaw, Poland
Jake Harwood University of Arizona, USA
Andrew C. High Pennsylvania State University, USA
Tom Holtgraves Ball State University, USA
Nicholas S. Holtzman Southeastern Louisiana University, USA
Kokil Jaidka National Singapore University, Singapore
Janice L. Krieger University of Florida, USA
Hans J. Ladegaard The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China
Timothy R. Levine University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA
Wang Liao University of Washington, USA
David M. Markowitz Michigan State University, USA
Matthew S. McGlone University of Texas-Austin, USA
Joann M. Montepare Lasell College, USA
Silvia Moscatelli University of Bologna, Italy
Margaret J. Pitts University of Arizona, USA
Scott A. Reid University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
Kim Serota Oakland University, USA
Lijiang Shen Pennsylvania State University, USA
Natasha Shrikant University of Colorado, Boulder, USA
Hillary C. Shulman Ohio State University, USA
Anna Stefaniak St. Andrews University, UK
Robbie M. Sutton University of Kent, UK
Karen Tracy University of Colorado, Boulder, USA
Joseph B. Walther University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
Kevin A. Whitehead University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
Sally Wiggins Linköping University, Sweden
Steven R. Wilson University of South Florida, USA
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  • Full paper manuscripts should not exceed 11,000 words (including abstract [no more than 150 words], keywords, title, text, references [with DOIs], endnotes, tables, figures, and appendices) on double-spaced pages using 12-point font. For Short Research Reports, manuscripts should not exceed 4,000 words (including everything). Online only supplementary material do not count toward word limits. Authors should double-check text-to-references for accuracy and presence. Manuscripts should be anonymized in document attributes and in text for double-blind peer review. Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with the American Psychological Association (APA) current edition guidelines (https://apastyle.apa.org/). Authors may consult the sample articles below as an example for guidance on formatting headings, subheadings, tables, figures, and acknowledgments. 

    JLSP FORMATTING EXAMPLES: 

    Successful submissions to the JLSP will a) test and advance theory focused on the social psychology of language use, b) employ rigorous and appropriate methods, c) be well-written and concisely articulated, and d) demonstrate theoretical and practical implications to language and social psychology and related fields. Short Research Reports should focus more on b) method, c) clear writing, and d) implications and less on a) theory advancement, given the word limit. Short Research Reports can pursue pure replication agendas (with no or minimal extensions) as well. Submissions with pure theoretical and non-empirical pursuits are also welcome, though their novelty and utility must be thoroughly justified; likewise, articles with methodological goals are encouraged with proper justification. Quantitative research should be clear and thorough about reliability and validity of measures and manipulations; report effect sizes, central tendency, and variability, a priori power estimates for sample sizes; be cognizant of generalizability limits; and attend to effect sizes as well as statistical significance when discussing conclusions and implications of results. Computational research should be clear in the source of data, as well as how various filtering and algorithmic decision were made computationally and how those computational choices align with conceptual ones. Meta-analyses should be clear regarding how the study advances theory, which articles in their references were employed for tests, and how inclusion decisions were made. Qualitative work should be clear about the procedures used to check the validity of conclusions, such as negative case analysis or member-checking, and explicitly articulate how empirical observations led to conclusions.

    Authors must maintain publication ethics. Data fabrication/falsification, multiple publication of uncited author work, plagiarism, and other unethical conduct will not be tolerated and will be handled according to current practices (see:https://publicationethics.org/).

    Writing should be clear and concise, avoiding redundancies when possible. For instance, multiple experiment submissions should be super-efficient when methods are identical or very similar to streamline methods and results for experiments. Likewise, descriptive and inferential statistics reported in tables should not also be reported in the text. Authors should aim for cogent arguments that explicate processes and mechanisms germane to the social psychology of language use. When discussing conclusions, claims should align with tests of hypotheses and answers to research questions.

    Authors are encouraged to use Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/) or other pre-registration and open science platforms when possible for submissions in the design and reporting stages of research. Materials and data should be made available when ethically possible. 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 unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, 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 recognized.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

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