Instructions for Authors

Aim and Fields of Interests

Providing and disseminating high-quality original articles and reviews in Poland and abroad by recognized, experience do researchers involved in theoretical analysis and research in many subdisciplines of psychology, including human development, education, socialpsychology, management psychology, health and illness, neuropsychology, psychological research methodology, and others. Creating opportunities for young, talented scientists, including students, to publish research results and improve their scientifics kills through expert reviewer opinions. Polish Psychological Forum is open to interdisciplinary discussion. We entourage researchers of different nationalities and international teams to publish in order to increase scientific cooperation and eliminate boundaries in science.

Languages

Polskie Forum Psychologiczne/Polish Psychological Forum published articles in Polishor in English.

Application

The process of submitting the application and preparing the text for printing is carried out electronically. The Authors Are Requested to create account PFP and read the instruction concerning the use of control panel for application procedure, reviewing and monitoring of the manuscript by the Authors. After Application, all Co-Authors Will be informed by email to the indicated e-mail address – failure to respond to the e-mail will be treated as confirmation of the lack of a conflict of interests.
The journal does not charge fees for processing, reviewing and publishing papers.

Reviews

Submitted Papers Are Peer Reviewed by two Reviewers (in special cases a third Reviewers called) and qualified for publication individually. In the reviewing process a rule of ‘double blind’ review has been adopted, however both the Authors and/or Reviewers can design from this rule on the basis of a written statement. In case the Author’names disclosed, the Reviewers Obliged to declare in e-mail sent to pfp@ukw.edu.pl that there is no conflict of interests with the Author (e.g. personal relationship, subordination, current collaboration etc.). The list of cooperating Reviewersis published once a year on the magazine website under the “Scientific Board” tab. The review form is available from the magazine website under the “Instructions for Authors” tab.

Publication Policy 

On submitting materials to the Editors the Authors declare that the work has not been published elsewhere and the application for publication is not being considered in other magazines. Please provide transparency on the re-use of material to avoid the hint of text-recycling (‘self-plagiarism’). A single study should not be split up into several parts to increase the quantity of submissions and submitted to various journals to one journal overtime (e.g.‘salami publishing’). Manuscripts are checked by an anti-plagiarism system. In the event of using someone else's works in the text (e.g. illustrations or photographs), the authors of the articles are solely responsible for observing the copyright in relation to the submitted lustration material.

PFP provides Readers with easy, permanent and free access to scientific publications along with their metadata. Using the content posted on the journal's website does not require creating an account. Articles are delivered as PDF files.

Copyrights and Sharing

Articles on the PFP websites are published in an open access model, which means that the are available free of charge to anyone interested under the Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0). 
According to the author's agreement, the authors of the texts grant the Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz a non-exclusive and free license and allow the use of the Creative Commons-license (CC BY) allowing copying and distribution of the work in any medium and format provided that the authorship acknowledged. The authors thusretain the right to further and freely dispose of their work.
Papers published in the journal until the end of 2024 are available under the Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND) (attribution - non-commercial - no derivative works).
More information about the license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.en. License content: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode.
Authors retain the copyright to their works.
Every article posted on the PFP website also receives a free DOI identifier.

Ethical Principles

Polish Psychological Forum is committed to upholding standards of ethical behaviour at all stages of the publication process. We follow closely the industry associations, such as the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and American Psychological Association (APA), that set standards and provide guidelines for best practices in order to meet these requirements. All articles should present clearly and concisely the matter related to the research subject. The Editors will turn down the workcontaining openly discriminating and unethical content as well as promoting unprofessional practices. Also manuscripts, which are not corresponding to “Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct” (APA), will not be published at Polskie Forum Psychologiczne/ Polish Psychological Forum. 

 Manuscript requirements

  1. The length of an empirical, theoretical, or review article should not exceed one publishing sheet (40,000 characters including spaces), including footnotes, references, tables, figures, and appendices. The editorial board may make exceptions to this rule, e.g., in the case of articles covering a series of studies. Reports, reviews, commentaries, and polemics should not exceed 10,000 characters including spaces.



  1. Texts should be prepared in MS Word, using 12-point font with double line spacing. Pages should be numbered and include a header containing the title or a key part of it.



  1. An abstract/abstracts of the article must be included in a separate file. For articles in Polish, abstracts should be provided in both Polish and English (max. 300 words each), along with keywords in both Polish and English (max. 5 keywords). For articles in English, an abstract in English (max. 300 words) and keywords in English (max. 5 keywords) are required. Abstracts of empirical articles should include essential information regarding the presented study, indicating the aim, sample, research tools, main results, and conclusions. This structure is not required for theoretical, review, or polemical articles.



  1. The structure of the article should be organized using headings and subheadings. The structure of the different types of articles is contained in the templates available for download on the page of the Polish Psychological Forum in the “Guidelines for authors” section. Please use these templates, i.e., submit manuscripts written in the appropriate templates.

  1. Tables and figures, formatted according to APA 7th edition standards, should be included in the appropriate place within the text (not as separate attachments).



  1. When presenting the results of statistical analyses, the names of the statistical tests used and the significance level should be provided, along with all necessary parameters (depending on the technique applied).

Exact p-values should be reported to three decimal places; for values less than 0.001, use p < .001.

(Additional note: In English-language texts (a) use periods, not commas, as decimal separators; (b) use a leading zero before the decimal point only if the number could exceed 1. In Polish: (a) commas are used instead of periods in decimals, (b) a leading zero is used even when the number cannot exceed 1.)

Correlations, proportions, and inferential test statistics such as t, F, and χ² should be rounded to two decimal places. Group means and standard deviations from total scales (with a fixed range, e.g., 1–5, as in most questionnaires) should be rounded to one decimal place. Other means and standard deviations (e.g., reaction times in ms, physiological measurements) should be reported to two decimal places. Population parameters should be denoted using Greek letters, and estimators using Latin letters in italics.



  1. Use formatting standards commonly accepted in the psychological literature as defined by the current edition of the American Psychological Association (APA) Manual. From 2025, manuscripts must comply with APA 7th edition. These standards are used in prestigious psychological journals and textbooks. We recommend using the freely available guide at the website https://apastyle.apa.org/ or using a reference generator.

In-text citations should include the author(s)’ surname(s), year of publication, and page number(s) in the case of direct quotations, e.g., (Smith, Jankowski, 2006, p. 16).

References should be listed in alphabetical order. For publications with three or more authors, use the abbreviated form: (Stevenson et al., 2009). The reference list at the end of the text should follow a consistent format and include all cited sources. Examples:

  • Oleszkowicz, A., & Senejko, A. (2011). Dorastanie [Adolescence]. In J. Trempała (Ed.), Psychologia rozwoju człowieka [Psychology of human development] (pp. 259–286). Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.

  • Cheng, J., Zhao, Y. Y., Wang, J., & Sun, Y. H. (2019). Academic burnout and depression of Chinese medical students in the pre-clinical years: The buffering hypothesis of resilience and social support. Psychology Health & Medicine, 25(9), 1094–1105. https://doi.org/10.1080/13548506.2019.1709651

  • Rostowska, T. (2008). Małżeństwo, rodzina, praca a jakość życia [Marriage, family, work and the quality of life]. Oficyna Wydawnicza Impuls.

  • Zeigler-Hill, V., & Marcus, D. K. (Eds.). (2016). The dark side of personality: Science and practice in social, personality, and clinical psychology. American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/14854-000

The reference list must be complete and consistent with the required format.



  1. A separate file with author notes must include the full names and affiliations of the authors (without academic degrees or titles), their email addresses, author contribution notes, and ORCID numbers for each author.



The author notes should disclose the percentage and substantive contribution of each author to the publication (e.g., who was responsible for the concept, assumptions, research methods, data collection, analysis, etc.). Acknowledgments should also indicate sources of funding and assistance from any specialized entities (individuals or institutions).

This file should also include a signed statement by the first/corresponding author.



If the manuscript does not meet the submission requirements, it will be returned for revision.

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