Reviewer Guidelines

Thank you for your service to PHAIR! We are proud of our journal, its quality, and what it stands for, and we could not do it without your help. These are issues to think about as you handle manuscripts.

Generally speaking, manuscripts would not be sent to reviewers unless the Editorial Team felt that it could potentially meet our publication threshold (with revision). However, we also hope that all manuscripts we publish are of very high ethical and scientific quality, and thus the guidelines below provide some specific details in that regard. It may also be helpful to consult our Article Types, Submission Components, and especially the Author Guidelines and Open Science Practices pages.

General Issues

  • The manuscript should fit the scope of the journal.
  • The findings should be judged as important for the study of human-animal intergroup relations.
  • The findings should be solid, meaning that they would likely replicate if the study were repeated (e.g., based on power, preregistration, or other aspects of study design quality).
  • Novelty of findings should typically not be considered independent of importance of findings. This means both that a manuscript that provides solid new evidence regarding a previously reported (and cited) finding would not be rejected for lack of novelty, and conversely that a finding that is novel but not substantively important would generally not be considered worthy of publishing.
  • The writing should be of sufficient professional quality, be formatted according to the latest APA publication standards.
  • Study methods should meet the criteria set out in our Author Guidelines and on our Open Science Practices page.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

PHAIR seeks to promote diversity and inclusion whenever possible. Here are some examples to consider. 

Reviewers should:

  • Consider diversity and availability of resources when evaluating manuscripts.
  • Encourage authors to address the intersectional nature of study findings when relevant.
  • Encourage authors to sample from underrepresented populations, and to note limitations to generalizability when this was not done.
  • Avoid placing higher demands on research conducted in underrepresented populations (e.g., requests to compare to WEIRD samples that would not be made the other way around).
  • Alert the Editorial leadership of any unjust, unfair, or exclusionary behavior, or of ways that the Editorial leadership can support scholars from underrepresented or underprivileged backgrounds. This can be done with the assurance that this communication would be treated anonymously as appropriate to the situation.

Review Tone and Style

Reviews are most helpful when they have the following three characteristics (adapted from reviewer recommendations developed by Jon Adler at Personality and Social Psychology Review):

  • Kind. Whatever you want to say to the authors, you need to say it kindly.  Any message – including criticism and negative feedback - can be conveyed with kindness. Reviews deemed unkind will not be forwarded to authors and Reviewers will be notified by the Editor about this decision.
  • Constructive. Kindness does not need to conflict with constructiveness.  Reviews that are kind, but don’t offer any real feedback, are unhelpful.  We asked you to review this manuscript because we truly value your perspective.  So, please take the time to really think about this manuscript and to share your thoughts about how it could be improved.
  • Actionable. When reviewing theory manuscripts it can be easy to paint in very broad strokes. Your feedback for the authors needs to be specific and actionable.  What are the concrete steps the authors should take as they proceed with this work? This is important whether the manuscript is going to get accepted at PHAIR or not.