Publication Games: Reflections on Reis and Stiller

Abstract

Reis and Stiller (this issue) present data on publication trends in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology for the past 25 years. They interpret these data as reflecting a greater complexity in the science of social psychology and argue that this greater complexity represents progress in scientific knowledge. Although it is hard to argue against the idea that our research papers are becoming more complex, it is by no means certain that complexity indicates progress or increase in knowledge. The Reis-Stiller data might better be interpreted as the result of publication games in which authors are pitted against editors and reviewers for use of journal pages. This argument leads to discussion of some misconceptions of the publication game and some problems that are produced when authors and reviewers and editors interpret the rules of the publication game differently.