Abstract
As many of you know, I have been serving as Co-Editor-in-Chief of Emotion Review for the last 2 years. As of this issue, I am honored to be transitioning to sole Editor-in-Chief. On behalf of the journal and myself, I offer special thanks to James Russell, cofounder of the journal, for his years of dedicated service. The journal has blossomed under his stewardship. This also seems a perfect opportunity to express appreciation to our stellar group of associate editors. Some have been with us since the journal began and others have only recently joined the board, but all have contributed to the journal’s success. We are also grateful to those who have served as guest editors on our special sections over the years.
This issue marks the beginning of our seventh year as a journal. Based on the most recent ratings, we have a 2-year impact factor of 2.9 (which is a 53% increase on the prior year and our highest impact factor to date). Emotion Review has a 5-year impact factor of 3.2 and ranks 18/127 in the category of multidisciplinary psychology. This level of success is phenomenal for a new journal and reflects the high quality of the papers we publish. Given this unusually fast rise in prominence, it seems clear that Emotion Review is already on a great course. Thus, I see little reason to change much about our journal and aim to carry on the unique strengths of Emotion Review with just a few subtle shifts.
Emotion Review is the official journal of the International Society for Research on Emotion (ISRE). As such our mission is very much like that of our society—to foster an understanding of emotion and affect that is informed by scholarship across many disciplines and from many nations. There is no doubt that emotion and affective phenomena are complex. The nature of emotion has been debated since at least the ancient Greeks and scholarly interest in it has burgeoned in the last 20 years. Emotion Review will continue to be a place that publishes quality reviews and theoretical pieces from all disciplines that bear on affect or emotion loosely defined.
One of our unique strengths has been our special sections, which consist of articles on a particular topic written by authors from a variety of disciplines, often accompanied by commentaries. Our series, A View From a Discipline, will continue to provide readers with the current status of research and theoretical issues from a discipline. The goal of this is to help foster understanding of the types of questions that disciplines other than one’s own tackle. These are just two ways that we will continue to advance the field of emotion by providing breadth of work as well as in-depth examination of research across areas.
What subtle shifts might appear in the next few years? In keeping with our cross-disciplinary focus, I encourage researchers from different disciplines to not only contribute to our special issues but to work together to coauthor papers. Adversarial collaborations are also encouraged, in which individuals from opposing theoretical camps work together to shed light on controversial topics. Such collaborations can provide us with a more sophisticated understanding of emotion. I also will be encouraging more submissions of work that uses quantitative methods to assess evidence (methods such as meta-analyses).
A current concern that has been at the forefront of many discussions in science from behavioral genetics and pharmaceuticals to social psychology surrounds issues of replicability of results (labeled the “replicability crisis of science” by some). Sometimes a body of empirical research supports existing theories as presently formulated, and sometimes it leads to adjustment of theory. On other occasions, however, a review may disclose that our understanding of basic phenomena is erroneous. All of these possible outcomes are important in advancing understanding and guiding subsequent research. Therefore, if careful reviews of a literature lead the authors to raise important doubts about particular findings or theories, they can find a home at Emotion Review just as readily as if they reach positive conclusions.
In sum, readers can expect to continue to see a combination of theoretical and review articles, special issues on a variety of topics with contributors from various disciplines, and lively discussions through commentaries and replies. We will continue to encourage controversial topics and novel theoretical pieces. Our goal is to have thought-provoking, informative articles that exhibit the highest level of academic scholarship while being readable to emotion researchers across disciplines.