Submissions

Author Guidelines

ARTICLE TYPES

The journal Československá psychologie accepts the following types of articles: empirical reports, brief reports, reviews, notes from practice, historical notes, as well as essays, discussions, and controversies.

Empirical reports are full empirical articles reporting on substantive and novel research performed in a replicable manner and contributing generalizable knowledge. Replication studies are welcome if they clearly contribute to establishing the status of important existing findings, i. e. have the potential to validate or disconfirm such findings. The maximum length of empirical reports is 8000 words. The papers must follow the general structure including an introduction, a methods section, results, and a discussion. The structure may be adjusted according to the needs and content but the content corresponding to these main sections must be present. Empirical reports should not contain more than 50 references.

Empirical reports may consist of reports on methods and their development. Note that we do not publish reports on the adaptation of methods to local languages and environments, unless these reports are directly relevant to the local context in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, or other Central European countries. Reports on methods should follow the standard structure of an empirical paper.

Authors of psychometric studies are encouraged to recognize that all psychometric properties of an instrument, as well as effect size estimates, are characteristics of the sample. If a submitted study does not adequately describe the sampling methods, or if data were collected using snowball or convenience sampling (e.g., online surveys via social media), it is highly likely that the manuscript will be rejected by editors without being sent for peer review. Authors are therefore encouraged to submit studies that employ rigorous and well-justified sampling procedures, allowing for valid inferences about the target population.

Manuscripts with mediation analyses based on cross-sectional data will not be considered for review unless they have robust theoretical justification and appropriate control for demographic variables. Cross-sectional designs do not establish temporal precedence, which is a basic assumption for mediation models. Submissions sent for consideration must demonstrate that the proposed mediation pathways are theoretically grounded and not merely exploratory. Additionally, demographic variables (e.g., age, gender, socioeconomic status and others) must be accounted for to mitigate potential confounding and enhance the validity and generalizability of the findings.

Manuscripts relying solely on college student samples without detailed information about sampling procedures will not be considered unless this population is central to the research question, rather than selected due to convenience in data collection.

Brief reports (or Preliminary reports) are empirical papers that report on smaller or preliminary studies. The maximum length is 4000 words, and the general structure of an empirical paper should be followed. Although brief reports may be preliminary in nature, they should contain novel empirical findings or provide an empirical test of a method or procedure. Brief or preliminary reports should not contain more than 25 references.

Reviews are reports summarizing the research literature on a particular topic. Reviews must focus on clearly defined and relevant topics and must be based on current international research. Systematic reviews using a replicable way of identifying the source literature are particularly welcome, as well as metanalytic studies.

Practice notes are shorter (max. 3000) contributions addressing a topic of practical relevance in any area of applied psychology, including but not limited to clinical, school, industrial/organizational, traffic, or forensic psychology. They may review an area of practical relevance, taking into account current international literature and the current practical, organizational or legal environment in Czechia, Slovakia or Central Europe. They may also present short empirical studies focusing on a practical issue. Note that we do not publish case studies (rigorous single-subject studies may be submitted as empirical reports).

History notes are papers on important and relevant historical topics. These topics should be relevant to Central European psychology and its development, or they should address historical topics of general relevance for various areas of psychology.

Essays, discussions, and controversies present opinion papers addressing various current topics. They should have clear relevance to research or practice in Central Europe or in general. The suitability of a particular topic or paper is at the discretion of the editorial team.

MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION

We accept manuscripts in Czech, Slovak, or English.

Empirical reports include an English-written abstract structured as follows: 1. Objectives, 2. Sample and settings, 3. Hypotheses, 4. Statistical analyses, 5. Results, 6. Limitations. For empirical articles, it is necessary to state in the Methods that the consent of the relevant ethics committee with the research project has been obtained. It ought to describe how study participants were recruited and how researchers obtained informed consent either from them or from their legal guardians.

Manuscripts are to be submitted in MS Word (text left-adjusted, lines double-spaced, font 12pt). Headings and subheadings are to be left-adjusted and not underlined: they should differ from the body of the text only by being followed by an empty line. In-text citations should follow the 7th edition of the APA Publication Manual. Footnotes should be designated with superscript Arabic numerals attached to the proper place in the text and numbered continuously throughout the work. 

Tables, graphs, and images are to be numbered separately using Arabic numerals. Preferred bitmap formats include TIFF or PNG at 300 DPI or EPS for vector format. PDF format is also permissible.

AI tools

Authors must transparently disclose any use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools, such as language models or writing assistants, in the preparation of their manuscripts. This includes, but is not limited to, assistance with writing and editing, summarizing, data analysis, or figure generation. The disclosure should specify the tool used (e.g., ChatGPT, Grammarly, DALL-E), the version (if known), and the nature of its contribution. Authors are fully accountable for the accuracy, originality, and integrity of content generated or modified using AI. Any AI-assisted content must be critically reviewed and edited by the authors to ensure compliance with ethical and scientific standards. Disclosures should be included in the acknowledgments or a dedicated section of the manuscript.

References

Reference lists should be formatted according to the 7th edition of the APA Publication Manual. The relevant DOIs where available are to be included.

Electronic publishing system

Prepared article manuscripts are to be sent to the editors via an Open Journal System.
Kindly follow our online submission system. It will guide you through the particular steps of entering your article details and uploading your files. Make sure that your manuscript contains no identifiers and is ready for a blind review.

When submitting a new manuscript, the authors must submit at least the following three items:

1. The title page with the article title, authors, their affiliations (incl. all author's e-mails), contact information (email and address) of the corresponding author, and any funding acknowledgements. Please also include the ORCID of the authors, if available.
2. The anonymous manuscript (including the anonymized title page). The manuscript must not contain the names of the authors, and must avoid identifying the authors in the text: e.g., do not use We examined the issues previously (Smolík & Bláhová, 2019)…, but Smolík and Bláhová (2019) examined the issues previously… The manuscript must contain the title page including the title of the paper but not the authors’ identities. Further, the necessary components of the manuscript are the abstract, keywords, the main text, all figures and tables and the list of references. The abstract is placed before the text. Placement of the figures and tables in the manuscript (in text or after the reference list) is at the discretion of the authors but they must be present in the main manuscript file. The manuscript will be returned if they are not also included in the main manuscript file. Please refer to the detailed formatting instructions for authors.
3. Cover letter, which should briefly summarize the main contributions of the paper and confirm that it has not been published and is not under consideration elsewhere. The cover letter should also specify the article type. The cover letter may also suggest potential reviewers with their affiliation/contact information.

Files with high-quality figures in recommended formats will be needed for the final processing of the paper but do not have to be submitted for the first round of reviews.

REVIEW PROCESS

Submissions undergo a double-blind review process. Reviews are then sent to the corresponding author. All communication, including requests for revisions and notification of the editor-in-chief’s decision, takes place solely by e-mail. Editors reserve the right to request a shortening of manuscript length, suggest editorial changes, and request that the manuscript be proofread by a professional.

REVISED SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

When submitting a revised manuscript, the authors must submit the following:

1. The title page with the authors’ identification, if changes have been made.
2. The anonymous manuscript, as described above.
3. The manuscript with changes highlighted. This should highlight any substantive changes made against the original version highlighted (colour highlighting or different font colour). Do not use revision-tracking from your word processing software for this purpose.
4. Response to the reviewers that must address all points raised by the reviewers.
5. High-quality figures in recommended formats as separate files.

Revisions missing one of these components will be returned to the authors for completion.

SUBMISSION CHECKLIST

Before submitting your manuscript, make sure about the following points:

1. The new submission contains
- the title page with authors’ identities
- the anonymized manuscript including the title page, all figures, and all tables
- cover letter, including the suggested/desired article type (empirical report, brief report, etc.]

2. The revised submission contains
- the title page with authors’ identities, if changes have been made
- the anonymized manuscript including the title page, all figures, and all tables
- the anonymized manuscript with highlighted changes from the original submission, including the title page, all figures, and all tables
- a detailed response to reviewers addressing all points

3. The main manuscript file contains
- anonymized title page
- abstract
- text, typically consisting of an introduction, methods, results, and discussion
- references
- all tables and figures (either in text or at the end of the file)

4. The separate title page contains
- full title
- authors' identities, including affiliations; if the author is not affiliated with any relevant institution, this must be stated
- address and contact email for the corresponding author
- e-mail address of authors, incl. ORCIDs, if available
- acknowledgements including funding, if needed.

PROOF-READING

The corresponding author will be sent page proofs of the entire article electronically in PDF format. These will also be reviewed by our proof-reader at the same time, who will check for consistency, clarity and style in the text, as well as for any typesetting errors.

Please check these proofs carefully since this is the last chance to make any amendments before the journal goes to press. The corresponding author’s  response  should be sent within  a week of receipt of this material.