The Development of the Association's Publications

From the beginning the founders of the Association felt that creating publication outlets was an additional means to give the Association and European social psychology a face in the international community of social psychologists, but also to assist its members in getting their work recognized, allowing them thereby to gain the respect of their local colleagues in other fields. The European Journal of Social Psychology (EJSP) and the series of European Monographs in Social Psychology were the first products of this philosophy. Not only did the Journal and the Monographs survive, having to compete also with an ever growing number of journals and book series, they both grew out to acquire a prominent place in the world’s publication scene. Owing greatly to the efforts of successive editors, who at times had to engage in difficult negotiations with the publishers, and the efforts of authors submitting their work, they are now among the most popular journals and books in the field, attracting many high quality submissions and with high impact scores. As an illustration of the evolution over the years, whereas in the nineties the European Journal was attracting about 150 submissions a year and the Journal’s impact score was hovering around 1.00, the editors now have to process over 400 submissions per year and the published articles have an impact score of well over 1.50.

As the years went by, new publication outlets were set up, meeting with comparable levels of success. There is the European Review of Social Psychology (ERSP) with over 25 volumes published, and there is the more recently created Social Psychological and Personality Science journal (SPPS), published by a consortium that includes EASP, SPSP, SASP, ARP, and AASP), which receives over 500 submissions per year. The journal has an impact score of around 2.00. And, of course, there is the most recent addition: Comprehensive Results in Social Psychology (CRSP), the first EASP journal to publish pre-registered research.

All of the above have contributed greatly to give European social psychology a face, not only within Europe, but also beyond. As to the latter, it should also be noted that nowadays a sizeable proportion of the articles and chapters published are contributions of non-Europeans. In addition the group of (associate) editors and reviewers of the Association’s journals and series are recruited from all over the world. Conversely, members of our Association function as editors and reviewers of non-European journals and series. The Executive Committee of the Association often plays an active role in trying to ensure that this is the case.