Editorial Report and Acknowledgement of Reviewers, 2024

Overview of the Journal in 2024

In 2024 we continued to work as a team of four co-Editors-in-chief and 22 Associate Editors, based in 17 different countries across the globe: Belgium, Chile, China, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Norway, Philippines, Portugal, South Africa, Switzerland, Turkey, the UK, and the U.S.

The journal published 18 articles in 2024: Issue No 1 of 2024 includes eight original research articles, one theoretical article, and our editorial report. Issue No 2 includes one theoretical article, one review article, and seven original research articles. Five additional manuscripts comprise our list of forthcoming articles (which authors can make available as author-accepted manuscript versions; see https://jspp.psychopen.eu/index.php/jspp/aam). The published articles represent a range of different topics, research methods, and contexts: They include research on various aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic, intergroup contact in the context of violent intergroup relations, media constructions of ceasefire, social representations of prisons, participation in the climate movement, affirmative action and identity processes, attitudes towards immigrants and refugees, identity claims of party leaders, constructive patriotism and voting intentions, active citizenship, misinformation, political extremism, populist attitudes, and ideology and affective polarization. Research methods represented in the published articles in 2024 include surveys (including several representative surveys and longitudinal surveys) and other correlational studies, experiments, interview research, several mixed-methods studies including ethnography, focus group interviews, qualitative survey questions, social media analysis, and qualitative evaluation of interventions, as well as discourse analysis and other qualitative approaches. The contexts (countries) represented in articles the journal published in 2024 include Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Israel/Palestine, the Netherlands, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, the UK, and the U.S.

Despite this relative diversity represented in the articles published in the Journal of Social and Political Psychology in 2024, we note that although a main aim of our journal is to publish more research from underrepresented contexts, several continents and regions in the world remain underrepresented in our journal. For example, we did not publish any articles in 2024 reporting research from South American countries, and there was only one article each from the MENA/WANA region, Asia, and Africa, respectively. We welcome and invite more submissions from these regions, and encourage authors to carefully consult our review criteria prior to submission, here: https://jspp.psychopen.eu/index.php/jspp/peer-review

Submission Numbers and Rejection Rate

In 2024, JSPP received 278 new submissions (compared to 244 in 2023, 271 in 2022, 290 in 2021, 235 in 2020, 186 in 2019, 148 in 2018, 101 in 2017, and 79 in 2016). 229 submissions (82.0%) were desk-rejected (compared to 83.6% in 2023 and 60.9% in 2022), due to not meeting one or more of our review criteria, which can be found here: https://jspp.psychopen.eu/index.php/jspp/peer-review. While we received more submissions from underrepresented countries, many were desk-rejected due to mismatches with our criteria, with submissions often being outside JSPP's focus and scope. Notably, our review criteria include several that are more specific to our journal and deviate from more general journals in the subdiscipline, to reserve journal space for manuscripts that include underrepresented methodological approaches, topics, and contexts in our field and encourage these submissions. To avoid delays and unnecessary labor for both editors and authors we urge authors to consult these criteria before submitting their manuscript to the journal. In the future, we are planning to offer an online workshop to address common issues that result in desk rejection of manuscripts, and how authors can avoid these.

The post-review rejection rate, in contrast, was merely 3.2%. The average number of days to reject a manuscript was 26, which is a considerable improvement compared to the previous year (where it was 50 days). The average number of days to accept (which can include multiple rounds of reviews and revisions) was 468 (compared to 500 days in 2023).

Publications, Citations, and Download Statistics

To date, JSPP has published (not including our editorial articles) 417 peer-reviewed articles (18 of which published in 2024). According to Google Scholar, these articles have been cited 13,132 times (as of January 31, 2025; see http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=knb2n1kAAAAJ).

The number of downloads of articles in JSPP has further increased, from 172,438 downloads in 2022 and 228,714 in 2023 (a 32.6% increase) to 282,402 in 2024 (a 23.5% increase). The top ten most frequently downloaded (as PDF) or viewed (as HTML) articles in 2024 (as of January 31, 2025) are listed in Tables 1 and 2.

Table 1 includes all articles that have been published so far in JSPP since its first issue; the list remains the same as last year in the top nine citations, with two pairs of articles swapping places, and a new tenth place. Table 2 shows only those articles published in 2024. While the overall top ten comprises almost exclusively (with one exception, from Somaliland) articles from Anglo-American authors, the top ten of 2024 includes several articles from authors in East and South European countries.

Acknowledgment of Reviewers

Finally, we are grateful for the reliable and helpful support that we have received from the following 81 colleagues, who provided peer reviews for JSPP in 2024: