Journal profile · PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY
Frontiers in Psychology
ISSN 1664-1078 · Frontiers Media S.A. · Switzerland
Frontiers in Psychology: CAS Zone 3 · Psychology (2025 upgraded edition); impact factor 3.77; fully open access; APC charged, amount not published; median 81 days to acceptance (196 articles, last 24 months); acceptance rate 37% (journal website); 4,277 articles in 2025; indexed in SSCI and Scopus; the journal's website says submissions are paused or closed.
The journal's website says submissions are paused or closed: After careful discussion with the Field Chief Editor of Frontiers in Psychology, the journal no longer accepts papers concerning simple bibliometric studies. Source ↗Publisher website ·
Scope
Aims, scope and focus
Frontiers in Psychology is published by Frontiers Media S.A. and is in Zone 3 of Psychology in the CAS Journal Ranking (2025 upgraded edition). By OpenAlex counts of its recent articles, its largest topics are Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies, Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development and Job Satisfaction and Organizational Behavior, together about 16.7% of its articles. Its main subfields are Social Psychology. (generated from OpenAlex topic counts and CAS ranking data)
Frontiers in Psychology is a multidisciplinary journal that publishes advances in psychological research. Led by Field Chief Editor Prof. Axel Cleeremans (Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium) Frontiers in Psychology is included in PubMed Central (PMC), Scopus, Web of Science (SSCI) and the DOAJ among others, and welcomes research contributions across the field. Topics include, but are not limited to: • health and clinical psychology • cognitive science • consciousness research • perception science • personality and social psychology. The journal welcomes submissions which support and advance the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), notably mental health outlined in SDG3, good health and well-being, its partial focus to address the rise of anxiety and depression, particularly among children and adolescents. The journal had an acceptance rate of 37% in 2024. Psychology is a highly interdisciplinary science, however, manuscripts that are related to pedagogy, linguistics, business, economics, management, artificial intelligence or environmental impacts without a fundamental psychological basis are not suitable for publication in this title. Research that is purely technological, such as digital technology or neural network analysis, without a foundation in psychology, is also outside the scope of this journal. After careful discussion with the Field Chief Editor of Frontiers in Psychology, the journal no longer accepts papers concerning simple bibliometric studies. Authors are still welcome to submit Systematic Reviews using publicly available data, but these must adhere to the PRISMA guidelines and have a conclusion related to psychology. Studies without any particular relevance to psychological phenomena will be transferred to a more applicable journal. Frontiers’ journals require that manuscripts primarily comprising computational studies of public data, must include appropriate validation. Please refer to the Frontiers Standards for research methodology policy, for more information. Manuscripts not adhering to these standards will not be considered. Frontiers in Psychology is committed to advancing developments in the field by allowing unrestricted access to articles, and communicating scientific knowledge to psychologists, researchers, academics and the public alike, to enable the scientific breakthroughs of the future. Frontiers in Psychology is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics.
From the journal's Aims & Scope
Research area (LetPub): PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY
Editorial board by country: none in mainland China; most named Italy 4, United States 3, United Kingdom 3, Belgium 3, Spain 1 (16 members with a country) Editorial board ↗Publisher website ·
Main research topics OpenAlex counts of recent articles; shares are approximate
- Neural and Behavioral Psychology StudiesNeuroscience6%
- Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional DevelopmentPsychology5.5%
- Job Satisfaction and Organizational BehaviorBusiness, Management and Accounting5.2%
- COVID-19 and Mental HealthPsychology5.2%
- Behavioral Health and InterventionsPsychology5.1%
- Motivation and Self-Concept in SportsPsychology5%
- Neurobiology of Language and BilingualismNeuroscience4.5%
- Psychological Well-being and Life SatisfactionPsychology4.4%
Rankings & indexing
CAS ranking and database indexing
CAS Journal Ranking
CAS Journal Ranking, upgraded edition (March 2025)Psychology Zone 3
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Psychology | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Psychology, Multidisciplinary | Zone 3 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
CAS Xinrui Journal Ranking (March 2026)Psychology Zone 3
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Psychology | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Psychology, Multidisciplinary | Zone 2 |
Top journal: noReview journal: not marked
CAS Journal Ranking, previous upgraded edition (December 2023)Psychology Zone 3
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Psychology | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Psychology, Multidisciplinary | Zone 3 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
Database indexing
SSCIScopusDOAJLetPub
International journal early-warning lists: not listed in any editionLetPub
Indexing the journal's website claims
SCIEWeb of SciencePMCPsycINFOPublisher website
Other: EBSCO, ProQuest, Dimensions, CNKI, CLOCKSS, Crossref
As the journal's website lists them, not checked against each database; for Web of Science editions the records above apply.
Editions, and major and minor categories, are shown separately and never merged into one zone; check which edition your institution uses before you submit or report.
Metrics
Impact metrics and publication volume
Impact
- Impact factor
- 3.77LetPub ·
- Impact factor (publisher)
- 3.8Publisher website ·
- CiteScore 2026-06
- 7LetPub ·
- CiteScore (publisher)
- 7Publisher website ·
- SJR 2026-06
- 0.94LetPub ·
- SNIP 2026-06
- 1.45LetPub ·
- h-index
- 314OpenAlex ·
- i10-index
- 27,966OpenAlex ·
- 2-year mean citedness
- 3.72OpenAlex ·
- Self-citation rate
- 5.3%LetPub ·
- Share of gold OA articles
- 99.93%LetPub ·
Volume
- Articles per year
- 3,867LetPub ·
Articles by year OpenAlex count · 54,051 in total · the current year is incomplete
| Year | Articles | Open access | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 5,850 | 5,850 | 2,431 |
| 2025 | 4,277 | 4,277 | 17,578 |
| 2024 | 3,568 | 3,568 | 30,945 |
| 2023 | 5,010 | 5,010 | 67,098 |
| 2022 | 8,548 | 8,548 | 145,410 |
| 2021 | 6,449 | 6,449 | 163,113 |
Sources count differently and were observed at different times, so each source's own value is kept; "publisher" marks figures from the journal's website.
Review & acceptance
Review time and acceptance
Review time from article dates manuscript dates registered with PubMed · to
81 daysMedian, submission to acceptance · P25–P75 49 days – 117 days
- Acceptance to online
- median 21 days (196 articles)
- Submission to online
- median 107 days
- Sample
- 196 articles with submission and acceptance dates (10,529 in the window); the latest was accepted on
Only articles that were accepted and published are counted, not the time spent on rejected manuscripts, so this usually runs longer than a publisher's "time to first decision".
Other sources
- Average review time (community reports)
- about 14 weeksLetPub ·
- Acceptance rate (publisher)
- 37%Publisher website ·
- Submission to publication (journal-reported)
- about 14 weeksDOAJ ·
- Peer review
- Single anonymous peer reviewDOAJ
Community reports come from authors' own submissions (confidence 0.5) and are not a promise from the journal; for publisher figures, the journal's own definitions apply.
Fees & open access
APC and open-access policy
Fully open accessDOAJ
Every article is open access; authors usually pay an article processing charge (APC).
| Source | APC | Fee waiver | License | Observed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DOAJ | CHF 3,150 | Yes | CC BY | |
| OpenAlex | CHF 3,150 | — | — | |
| LetPub | USD 3,295 | Yes | — |
The journal's website is authoritative for fees; sources were observed at different times and each keeps its own value, without averaging.
Submission
Article types and submission policies (journal website)
Policy excerpts from the journal's websiteAI use, Conflicts of interest, License & copyright, Open access, Peer review
- AI use Use of AI to create written or visual content
Authors should not list a generative AI technology as a co-author or author of any submitted manuscript. Generative AI technologies cannot be held accountable for all aspects of a manuscript and consequently do not meet the criteria required for authorship. If the author of a submitted manuscript has used written or visual content produced by or edited using a generative AI technology, this use mu…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Conflicts of interest Safeguards against financial conflicts of interest
Only leading researchers acting as Associate Editors, who are not part of Frontiers' staff, can make acceptance decisions based on reviews performed by external experts acting as Community Reviewers or Reviewers. None have a financial incentive to accept articles, i.e. they are not paid for their role as Associate Editor or community Reviewer, and any award scheme is not linked to acceptances of m…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- License & copyright Open access and copyright
Figures, tables, and images published under CC-BY; permission required for copyrighted third-party material. Model summary
All Frontiers' articles from July 2012 onwards are published with open access under the Creative Commons CC-BY license (the current version is CC-BY, version 4.0). This means that the author(s) retains copyright, but the content is free to download, distribute, and adapt for commercial or non-commercial purposes, given appropriate attribution to the original article. Upon submission, the author(s)…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Open access Open access and copyright
Open access under CC-BY v4.0; authors retain copyright. Model summary
All Frontiers' articles from July 2012 onwards are published with open access under the Creative Commons CC-BY license (the current version is CC-BY, version 4.0). This means that the author(s) retains copyright, but the content is free to download, distribute, and adapt for commercial or non-commercial purposes, given appropriate attribution to the original article. Upon submission, the author(s)…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Peer review Peer review
CrossMark policy for versioning and content maintenance. Model summary
Our rigorous, transparent peer review process combines expert review and constructive dialogue to strengthen your manuscript.
Source ↗Publisher website ·
Excerpts are quoted from the journal's website; "model summary" lines are written by Workers AI and checked against the text. The journal's website is authoritative.
Profile
Publication details and official links
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media S.A.
- Country or region
- Switzerland
- Language
- English
- ISSN
- 1664-1078
- Official links
- Journal homepage ↗DOAJ
- Submission system ↗Publisher website
- Author guidelines ↗LetPub
- Aims & Scope ↗LetPub
- Special issues ↗Publisher website
- APC information ↗DOAJ
- Fee waivers ↗DOAJ
- Open access statement ↗DOAJ
- License & copyright ↗DOAJ
- Peer review process ↗DOAJ
- Editorial board ↗LetPub
- Plagiarism policy ↗DOAJ
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about Frontiers in Psychology
What CAS zone is Frontiers in Psychology in?
In the 2025 upgraded edition of the CAS Journal Ranking, Frontiers in Psychology is in Zone 3 of Psychology, and in Zone 3 of the minor category Psychology, Multidisciplinary. In the 2026 Xinrui edition it is in Zone 3 of Psychology. Zones from different editions, and from major and minor categories, are not interchangeable.
What is the impact factor of Frontiers in Psychology?
The latest impact factor listed by LetPub is 3.77; CiteScore 7, h-index 314.
How long does peer review take at Frontiers in Psychology?
Based on the dates recorded on 196 articles published between October 2024 and October 2026 (the last 24 months), the median time from submission to acceptance is 81 days (interquartile range 49–117 days); authors report an average review time of about 14 weeks; the journal's website gives an acceptance rate of 37%. Article statistics cover accepted papers only, publisher figures follow the journal's own definitions, and community reports come from authors' own submissions; none is a promise from the journal.
Where are the editorial board members of Frontiers in Psychology based?
Of the 16 board members whose country the journal's board page names, none are in mainland China; the countries named most often are Italy (4), United States (3) and United Kingdom (3). Counted from the institutions listed on the board page; for reference only.
Which databases index Frontiers in Psychology?
According to LetPub and DOAJ records, Frontiers in Psychology is indexed in SSCI, Scopus and DOAJ. The journal's website also lists SCIE, Web of Science, PMC and PsycINFO; that list has not been checked against each database.
Is Frontiers in Psychology open access, and what is the APC?
Frontiers in Psychology is a fully open-access journal. APC charged, amount not published.
Sources and updates
The facts on this page come from LetPub, Publisher website, OpenAlex, DOAJ; every figure is tagged with its source and the date it was observed, and conflicting values are kept per source. LetPub source page: view ↗ (archived 2026-08-24). Last updated: .