“Strong connections make strong publications”

Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, founded in 1973, publishes papers on all aspects of social, personality, and developmental psychology. Founding Editor Professor Robert A.C. (Bob) Stewart, has been a life-long specialist in social psychology research. The journal, now in its 51st year, represents his strong interest in encouraging this interest in others.

Bob launched this interest with the achievement of a post-graduate degree in Human Development from Harvard University and a PhD degree from Massey University in New Zealand. In his career in psychological research and teaching, he has been a Professor of Human Development and Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of the South Pacific, Fiji. He has held other senior university appointments in New Zealand and Canada, and is the author of six books and 61 book chapters/published articles.

Early in his career in 1973, with Bob then in his early 30’s, the step was taken to establish SBP Journal. To do so, he reached out to a group of the world’s most eminent social psychologists and invited them to join in this exciting and rewarding venture. Their positive response was immediate. Over the years others have also been chosen to join their ranks.

In founding the journal, Bob pictured the ideal place to submit his own research. He believed it was possible to combine uncompromising professional standards with courtesy and encouragement for new ideas. His goal was to provide excellent support to authors to assist them to bring their best work to life in published articles. These articles in social psychology intersect with other areas of human activity, for example education, management, leadership, healthcare, public policy and government.

Now after 50 years and 312 issues, 8,500 authors have published their articles in the journal. An Internet search for “social behavior” continually finds ‘SBP Journal’ on Google’s prized first page. Each month, visitors to the website are from between 140 and 180 countries.

Authors, reviewers, consulting editors, and readers make the journal possible. Authors who like SBP Journal's personal attention publish often and introduce their graduate students and colleagues to the journal community, he added.

Typically, the top readership countries have been (in order) The United States, China, Philippines, United Kingdom, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Australia, and Turkey.

The journal is indexed, abstracted and archived by organizations such as Ingenta Connect, CrossRef, Scopus, Hinari, Clarivate Analytics, CLOCKSS, LOCKSS, Portico, Thomson Reuters, EBSCO Host, and ScienceOpen.

Authors, reviewers, consulting editors, and readers all make the journal possible. Authors who like SBP Journal's personal attention publish often and introduce their graduate students and colleagues to the journal community.

Each issue is created by a team of 14 specialists, located in New Zealand, as well as in other countries around the world.

Looking to the future, the journal is considering the possibility of moving to open access. This would enable research that has been published to be freely available to anyone on the planet.

We anticipate that SBPJournal will go from strength to strength as it continues to work with its journal community, strengthening ties and publishing research in social, development and personality psychology.