apa format research paper psychology

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Writing Research Papers

• Formatting Research Papers

Research papers written in APA style should follow the formatting rules specified in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association .  Most research papers that are written for psychology courses at UCSD, including the B.S. Degree Research Paper and the Honors Thesis, have to follow APA format.  Here we discuss the formatting of research papers according to APA style.

How to Format a Research Paper in APA Style

For the most accurate and comprehensive information on formatting papers in APA style, we recommend referring directly to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. Reputable online sources (e.g., the official APA Style website and the Purdue University Online Writing Lab’s guide to APA style) are also recommended. 

According to the Publication Manual, the major sections and components of APA style research papers should adhere to the following guidelines.  Note that how closely these guidelines are followed may vary depending on the course and instructor.  

General Formatting Rules

• Papers should have at least 1-in. margins on all sides. 1
• All text should be double spaced . 1
• Times New Roman, 12 point font is preferred. 1
• All lines of text should be flush-left and should not be justified, except where noted in the Manual. 1
• The first line of every paragraph should be indented. Exceptions to the indenting rule are the Abstract, quotations, titles and headings, as well as Tables and Figures. 1
• Pages should be numbered at the top right, with the title page numbered page 1, the Abstract numbered page 2, and the text starting on page 3. 1
• An abbreviated title called the Running Head should be placed at the top of each page, flush-left in uppercase letters. 1
• Two spaces should be used after punctuation marks at the end of each sentence (in other words, there should be two spaces after the period that ends each sentence). 2

Formatting the Title Page

• The title should be typed in the upper half of the title page, centered, and with the first letters of all but minor words capitalized. 3
• The name(s) of the author(s) should be typed below the title and followed with the institutional affiliation(s) of the author(s). 3
• An Author Note should appear below the aforementioned items. The Author Note can have up to four paragraphs.  These respectively describe the author(s)’ departmental and institutional affiliation, any changes in affiliation, acknowledgments, and contact information. 3

Formatting the Abstract

• The Abstract typically should not exceed 250 words. 4
• The Abstract should be placed on a separate page, with the label Abstract appearing at the top center of that page and followed by the text of the Abstract. 4
• The Abstract should not be indented. 4

Formatting the Main Body of Text

• The main body of text should begin on a separate page after the Abstract. 5
• It should begin with the Introduction section. 5
• The Introduction section should be titled with the title of the research paper and not the word “Introduction.” The title should appear at the top of the page, centered, and should not be bolded. 5
• The remainder of the text should be flush-left, with each new paragraph indented except where noted above (see General Formatting Rules ). 5
• Each of the subsequent sections of the paper should be prefaced with a heading. APA guidelines specify different heading formats (for more information on Levels of Headings , see below). 5

Formatting References

• The references section should begin on a separate page after the main body of text. 6
• It should begin with the word “References” placed at the top of the page and centered. 6
• All references should be listed in alphabetical order by the last name of the first author of each reference. 6
• All references should be double-spaced and should use a hanging indent format wherein the first line of each reference is flush-left and all subsequent lines of that reference are indented (with that pattern repeating for each reference). 6
• All references should use the appropriate APA reference format (for more information, please see the Citing References section of this website). 6

Levels of Headings in APA Style

As of the sixth edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (released in 2010), the five possible levels of heading in APA-formatted manuscripts are: 7

• Level 1: centered, bold, on a separate line, and the first letters of all but minor words capitalized.
• Level 2: flush-left, bold, on a separate line, and the first letters of all but minor words capitalized.
• Level 3: indented, bold, as a paragraph heading (the first part of a paragraph; regular text follows on the same line), and in lowercase letters ending with a period.
• Level 4: indented, bold, italicized, as a paragraph heading (the first part of a paragraph; regular text follows on the same line), and in lowercase letters ending with a period.
• Level 5: indented, not bold, italicized, as a paragraph heading (the first part of a paragraph; regular text follows on the same line), and in lowercase letters ending with a period.

Depending on the structure of your research paper, some or all of the five levels of headings may be used.  The headings have a “hierarchical nested structure” where Level 1 is the highest and Level 5 is the lowest.  For example, you may have a research paper which uses all five levels of heading as follows:

Downloadable Resources

• How to Write APA Style Research Papers (a comprehensive guide) [ PDF ]
• Tips for Writing APA Style Research Papers (a brief summary) [ PDF ]
• Example APA Style Research Paper (for B.S. Degree – empirical research) [ PDF ]
• Example APA Style Research Paper (for B.S. Degree – literature review) [ PDF ]

Further Resources

How-To Videos     

• Writing Research Paper Videos

External Resources

• APA Style Guide from the Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL)
• APA Tutorial on the Basics of APA Style
• EasyBib Guide to Writing and Citing in APA Format
• Sample APA Formatted Paper
• Sample APA Formatted Paper with Comments
• Tips for Writing a Paper in APA Style

1 VandenBos, G. R. (Ed). (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.) (pp. 228-229).  Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

2 vandenbos, g. r. (ed). (2010). (pp. 87-88). , 3 vandenbos, g. r. (ed). (2010). (pp. 23-25). , 4 vandenbos, g. r. (ed). (2010). (pp. 25-27)., 5 vandenbos, g. r. (ed). (2010). (pp. 41-49). , 6 vandenbos, g. r. (ed). (2010). (pp. 37-38, 49-51). , 7 vandenbos, g. r. (ed). (2010). (p. 62). .

Back to top

• Research Paper Structure
• Using Databases and Finding References
• What Types of References Are Appropriate?
• Evaluating References and Taking Notes
• Citing References
• Writing a Literature Review
• Writing Process and Revising
• Improving Scientific Writing
• Academic Integrity and Avoiding Plagiarism
• Writing Research Papers Videos

• MJC Library & Learning Center
• Research Guides

PSYCH 122 - Research Methods

• APA Style, 7th Edition
• Select Your Topic
• Develop Your Topic
• Know Your Sources
• Finding Peer-Reviewed Articles
• How to Search the Literature

APA Tutorial

Formatting your paper, headings organize your paper (2.27), video tutorials, reference list format (9.43).

• Elements of a Reference

Reference Examples (Chapter 10)

Dois and urls (9.34-9.36), in-text citations.

• In-Text Citations Format
• In-Text Citations for Specific Source Types

NoodleTools

What is apa style.

APA style was created by social and behavioral scientists to standardize scientific writing. APA style is most often used in:

• psychology,
• social sciences (sociology, business), and

If you're taking courses in any of these areas, be prepared to use APA style.

For in-depth guidance on using this citation style, refer to Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association , 7th ed. We have several copies available at the MJC Library at the call number  BF 76.7 .P83 2020 .

APA Style, 7th ed.

In October 2019, the American Psychological Association made radical changes its style, especially with regard to the format and citation rules for students writing academic papers. Use this guide to learn how to format and cite your papers using APA Style, 7th edition.

You can start by viewing the  video tutorial .

For help on all aspects of formatting your paper in APA Style, see   The Essentials  page on the APA Style website.

• sans serif fonts such as 11-point Calibri, 11-point Arial, or 10-point Lucida Sans Unicode, or
• serif fonts such as 12-point Times New Roman, 11-point Georgia, or normal (10-point) Computer Modern (the default font for LaTeX)
• There are exceptions for the  title page ,  tables ,  figures ,  footnotes , and  displayed equations .
• Margins :  Use 1-in. margins on every side of the page.
• Align the text of an APA Style  paper to the left margin . Leave the right margin uneven, or “ragged.”
• Do not use full justification for student papers.
• Do not insert hyphens (manual breaks) in words at the end of line. However, it is acceptable if your word-processing program automatically inserts breaks in long hyperlinks (such as in a DOI or URL in a reference list entry).
• Indent the first line of each paragraph of text 0.5 in . from the left margin. Use the tab key or the automatic paragraph-formatting function of your word-processing program to achieve the indentation (the default setting is likely already 0.5 in.). Do not use the space bar to create indentation. 
• There are exceptions for the  title page ,  section labels ,  abstract ,  block quotations ,  headings ,  tables and figures ,  reference list , and  appendices .

Paper Elements

Student papers generally include, at a minimum: 

• Title Page (2.3)
• Text (2.11)
• References  (2.12)

Student papers may include additional elements such as tables and figures depending on the assignment. So, please check with your teacher!

Student papers generally  DO NOT  include the following unless your teacher specifically requests it:

• Running head
• Author note

For complete information on the  order of pages , see the APA Style website.

Number your pages consecutively starting with page 1. Each section begins on a new page. Put the pages in the following order:

• Page 1: Title page
• Page 2: Abstract (if your teacher requires an abstract)
• Page 3: Text 
• References begin on a new page after the last page of text
• Footnotes begin on a new page after the references (if your teacher requires footnotes)
• Tables begin each on a new page after the footnotes (if your teacher requires tables) 
• Figures begin on a new page after the tables (if your teacher requires figures)
• Appendices begin on a new page after the tables and/or figures (if your teacher requires appendices)

Sample Papers With Built-In Instructions

To see what your paper should look like, check out these sample papers with built-in instructions.

APA Style uses five (5) levels of headings to help you organize your paper and allow your audience to identify its key points easily. Levels of headings establish the hierarchy of your sections just like you did in your paper outline.

APA tells us to use "only the number of headings necessary to differentiate distinct section in your paper." Therefore, the number of heading levels you create depends on the length and complexity of your paper.

See the chart below for instructions on formatting your headings:

Use Word to Format Your Paper:

Use Google Docs to Format Your Paper:

Placement:  The reference list  appears at the end of the paper, on its own page(s). If your research paper ends on page 8, your References begin on page 9.

Heading:  Place the section label References  in bold at the top of the page, centered.

Arrangement:  Alphabetize entries by author's last name. If source has no named author, alphabetize by the title, ignoring A, An, or The. (9.44-9.48)

Spacing:  Like the rest of the APA paper, the reference list is double-spaced throughout. Be sure NOT to add extra spaces between citations.

Indentation:  To make citations easier to scan, add a  hanging indent  of 0.5 in. to any citation that runs more than one line. Use the paragraph-formatting function of your word processing program to create your hanging indent.  

See Sample References Page (from APA Sample Student Paper):

Elements of Reference List Entries: (Chapter 9)

References generally have four elements, each of which has a corresponding question for you to answer:

• Author:   Who is responsible for this work? (9.7-9.12)
• Date:   When was this work published? (9.13-9.17)
• Title:   What is this work called? (9.18-9.22)
• Source:   Where can I retrieve this work? (9.23-9.37)

By using these four elements and answering these four questions, you should be able to create a citation for any type of source.

For complete information on all of these elements, checkout the APA Style website.

This infographic shows the first page of a journal article. The locations of the reference elements are highlighted with different colors and callouts, and the same colors are used in the reference list entry to show how the entry corresponds to the source.

To create your references, you'll simple look for these elements in your source and put them together in your reference list entry.

American Psychological Association.  Example of where to find reference information for a journal article  [Infographic]. APA Style Center. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/basic-principles

Below you'll find two printable handouts showing APA citation examples. The first is an abbreviated list created by MJC Librarians. The second, which is more comprehensive, is from the APA Style website. Feel free to print these for your convenience or use the links to reference examples below:

• APA Citation Examples Created by MJC Librarians for you.
• Common References Examples (APA Handout) Printable handout from the American Psychological Association.
• Journal Article
• Magazine Article
• Newspaper Article
• Edited Book Chapter
• Webpage on a Website

Classroom or Intranet Sources

• Classroom Course Pack Materials
• How to Cite ChatGPT
• Dictionary Entry
• Government Report
• Legal References (Laws & Cases)
• TED Talk References
• Religious Works
• Open Educational Resources (OER)
• Archival Documents and Collections

You can view the entire Reference Examples website below and view a helpful guide to finding useful APA style topics easily:

• APA Style: Reference Examples
• Navigating the not-so-hidden treasures of the APA Style website
• Missing Reference Information

Sometimes you won't be able to find all the elements required for your reference. In that case, see the  instructions in Table 9.1 of the APA style manual in section 9.4 or the APA Style website below:

• Direct Quotation of Material Without Page Numbers

The DOI or URL is the final component of a reference list entry. Because so much scholarship is available and/or retrieved online, most reference list entries end with either a DOI or a URL.

• A  DOI  is a unique alphanumeric string that identifies content and provides a persistent link to its location on the internet. DOIs can be found in database records and the reference lists of published works.
• A  URL  specifies the location of digital information on the internet and can be found in the address bar of your internet browser. URLs in references should link directly to the cited work when possible.

When to Include DOIs and URLs:

• Include a DOI for all works that have a DOI, regardless of whether you used the online version or the print version.
• If an online work has both a DOI and a URL, include only the DOI.
• For works without DOIs from websites (not including academic research databases), provide a URL in the reference (as long as the URL will work for readers).
• For works without DOIs from most academic research databases, do not include a URL or database information in the reference because these works are widely available. The reference should be the same as the reference for a print version of the work.
• For works from databases that publish original, proprietary material available only in that database (such as the UpToDate database) or for works of limited circulation in databases (such as monographs in the ERIC database), include the name of the database or archive and the URL of the work. If the URL requires a login or is session-specific (meaning it will not resolve for readers), provide the URL of the database or archive home page or login page instead of the URL for the work. (See APA Section 9.30 for more information). 
• If the URL is no longer working or no longer provides readers access to the content you intend to cite, try to find an archived version using the Internet Archive , then use the archived URL. If there is no archived URL, do not use that resource.

Format of DOIs and URLs:

Your DOI should look like this: 

https://doi.org/10.1037/a0040251

Follow these guidelines from the APA Style website.

APA Style uses the  author–date citation system , in which a brief in-text citation points your reader to the full reference list entry at the end of your paper. The in-text citation appears within the body of the paper and briefly identifies the cited work by its author and date of publication. This method enables your reader to locate the corresponding entry in the alphabetical reference list at the end of your paper.

Each work you cite  must  appear in the reference list, and each work in the reference list must be cited in the text (or in a table, figure, footnote, or appendix) except for the following (See APA, 8.4):

• Personal communications (8.9)
• General mentions of entire websites, whole periodicals (8.22), and common software and apps (10.10) in the text do not require a citation or reference list entry.
• The source of an epigraph does not usually appear in the reference list (8.35)
• Quotations from your research participants do not need citations or reference list entries (8.36)
• References included in a statistical meta-analysis, which are marked with an asterisk in the reference list, may be cited in the text (or not) at the author’s discretion. This exception is relevant only to authors who are conducting a meta-analysis (9.52).

Formatting Your In-Text Citations

Parenthetical and Narrative Citations: ( See APA Section  8.11)

In APA style you use the author-date citation system for citing references within your paper. You incorporate these references using either a  parenthetical   or a  narrative  style.

Parenthetical Citations

• In parenthetical citations, the author name and publication date appear in parentheses, separated by a comma. (Jones, 2018)
• A parenthetical citation can appear within or at the end of a sentence.
• When the parenthetical citation is at the end of the sentence, put the period or other end punctuation after the closing parenthesis.
• If there is no author, use the first few words of the reference list entry, usually the "Title" of the source: ("Autism," 2008) See APA 8.14
• When quoting, always provide the author, year, and specific page citation or paragraph number for nonpaginated materials in the text (Santa Barbara, 2010, p. 243).  See APA 8.13
• For most citations, the parenthetical reference is placed BEFORE the punctuation: Magnesium can be effective in treating PMS (Haggerty, 2012).

Narrative Citations 

In narrative citations, the author name or title of your source appears within your text and the publication date appears in parentheses immediately after the author name. 

• Santa Barbara (2010) noted a decline in the approval of disciplinary spanking of 26 percentage points from 1968 to 1994.

In-Text Citation Checklist

• In-Text Citation Checklist Use this useful checklist from the American Psychological Association to ensure that you've created your in-text citations correctly.

In-Text Citations for Specific Types of Sources

Quotations from Research Participants

Personal Communications

Secondary Sources  

Use NoodleTools to Cite Your Sources  

NoodleTools can help you create your references and your in-text citations.

• NoodleTools Express No sign in required . When you need one or two quick citations in MLA, APA, or Chicago style, simply generate them in NoodleTools Express then copy and paste what you need into your document. Note: Citations are not saved and cannot be exported to a word processor using NoodleTools Express.
• NoodleTools (Login Full Database) This link opens in a new window Create and organize your research notes, share and collaborate on research projects, compose and error check citations, and complete your list of works cited in MLA, APA, or Chicago style using the full version of NoodleTools. You'll need to Create a Personal ID and password the first time you use NoodleTools.

See How to Use NoodleTools Express to Create a Citation in APA Format

Additional NoodleTools Help

• NoodleTools Help Desk Look up questions and answers on the NoodleTools Web site
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Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 and CC BY-NC 4.0 Licenses .

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

APA Sample Paper

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This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

Note:  This page reflects the latest version of the APA Publication Manual (i.e., APA 7), which released in October 2019. The equivalent resource for the older APA 6 style  can be found here .

Media Files: APA Sample Student Paper  ,  APA Sample Professional Paper

This resource is enhanced by Acrobat PDF files. Download the free Acrobat Reader

Note: The APA Publication Manual, 7 th Edition specifies different formatting conventions for student  and  professional  papers (i.e., papers written for credit in a course and papers intended for scholarly publication). These differences mostly extend to the title page and running head. Crucially, citation practices do not differ between the two styles of paper.

However, for your convenience, we have provided two versions of our APA 7 sample paper below: one in  student style and one in  professional  style.

Note: For accessibility purposes, we have used "Track Changes" to make comments along the margins of these samples. Those authored by [AF] denote explanations of formatting and [AWC] denote directions for writing and citing in APA 7. 

APA 7 Student Paper:

Apa 7 professional paper:.

• Olympic College
• Research Guides
• APA 7th Edition
• Researching Psychology
• Psychology News
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See also.....

• APA Academic Writer Tutorial: Basics of the APA 7th Edition
• APA Bias-Free Language Guidelines for writing about age, disability, gender, participation in research, racial and ethnic identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and intersectionality.
• APA How to Cite ChatGPT
• APA Instructional Handouts Free Instructional Aids in PDF.
• APA Sample Papers Several sample papers formatted in seventh edition APA style.
• APA Sample Student Paper with notes in MS Word format Use this example as a model for your own work to ensure your paper is properly formatted and cited.
• APA Style 7th Edition: The Changes You Need to Know Lists notable changes in 7th edition.
• APA Style and Grammar Guidelines Includes examples of in-text citations, references, formatting, bias-free language and much more.
• Citing ChatGTP and other AI Tools Citation guidance from the Library at University of Guelph-Humber, Toronto, CA
• Purdue Online Writing Lab APA Style Introduction Resources reflecting the seventh edition of the APA Manual.
• ZoteroBib ZoteroBib is a free AND ad-free citation and bibliography tool. One of the more accurate citation generators but you still need to check and correct citations.

Printable version of APA Documentation Style

• APA 7th Handout

General Guidelines

The authors of the 7th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (2020)   advise writers to:

• Cite the work of those individuals whose ideas, theories, or research have directly influenced your work.
• Provide documentation for all facts and figures that are not common knowledge.
• Use the author-date system to cite references. This means that works used in a paper have in-text citations and a corresponding reference list entry at the end of the paper. The in-text citation appears in the body of the paper (including a table, figure, footnote, or appendix) and identifies the cited work by its author and publication date. Each reference list entry provides the author, date, title, and source of the work cited in the paper and enables the reader to both identify and retrieve the work.
• Cite primary sources when possible and secondary sources sparingly.
• Cite both paraphrases and direct quotations. It is preferable to paraphrase sources rather than directly quoting them because paraphrasing allows you to fit material into the context and style of your paper. Include the author, year, and page number for direct quotations, and the author and year for paraphrasing.  
• If you reprint or adapt a table or figure, you may also need to seek permission from the copyright holder and provide a copyright attribution. 
• Avoid over-citation. When paraphrasing a key point in more than one sentence within a paragraph, cite the source in the first sentence in which it is relevant and do not repeat the citation in subsequent sentences as long as the source remains clear and unchanged.  
• Incorporate a short quotation (fewer than 40 words) into the text and enclose it within double quotation marks. For block quotations (40 words or more), start the quotation on a new line and indent the whole block 0.5 in. from the left margin. Please see section 8.26-8.27 for examples on how to cite short and block quotations respectively.
• Throughout your paper, use prescribed fonts (such as sans serif 11-point Calibri or serif 12-point Times New Roman) and bias-free language. See APA’s website for guidance on formatting, bias-free language and more, https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/citations/basic-principles .

For more detailed information, please see  Publication manual of the American Psychological Association : the official guide to APA style . (Seventh edition.). (2020). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, Chapters 8-10. 

This guide provides templates as well as examples for citing different types of sources in APA .  Use the tabs at the top of this guide to find general guidance and examples for:

• In-text citations
• Reference entries
• Paper formatting

APA Style (7th ed.) Introduction Videos

A  one-hour step-by-step tutorial in citation from APA . The annotated handouts are available here.

Introduction to Citation Styles: APA 7 th ,   by CSUDH University Library, is licensed under CC BY. 

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Chapter 11: Presenting Your Research

American Psychological Association (APA) Style

Learning Objectives

• Define APA style and list several of its most important characteristics.
• Identify three levels of APA style and give examples of each.
• Identify multiple sources of information about APA style.

What Is APA Style?

APA style  is a set of guidelines for writing in psychology and related fields. These guidelines are set down in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA, 2006) [1] . The  Publication Manual  originated in 1929 as a short journal article that provided basic standards for preparing manuscripts to be submitted for publication (Bentley et al., 1929) [2] . It was later expanded and published as a book by the association and is now in its seventh edition ( view the APA Style website online ). The primary purpose of APA style is to facilitate scientific communication by promoting clarity of expression and by standardizing the organization and content of research articles and book chapters. It is easier to write about research when you know what information to present, the order in which to present it, and even the style in which to present it. Likewise, it is easier to read about research when it is presented in familiar and expected ways.

APA style is best thought of as a “genre” of writing that is appropriate for presenting the results of psychological research—especially in academic and professional contexts. It is not synonymous with “good writing” in general. You would not write a literary analysis for an English class, even if it were based on psychoanalytic concepts, in APA style. You would write it in Modern Language Association (MLA) style instead. And you would not write a newspaper article, even if it were about a new breakthrough in behavioural neuroscience, in APA style. You would write it in Associated Press (AP) style instead. At the same time, you would not write an empirical research report in MLA style, in AP style, or in the style of a romance novel, an e-mail to a friend, or a shopping list. You would write it in APA style. Part of being a good writer in general is adopting a style that is appropriate to the writing task at hand, and for writing about psychological research, this is APA style.

The Levels of APA Style

Because APA style consists of a large number and variety of guidelines—the Publication Manual  is nearly 300 pages long—it can be useful to think about it in terms of three basic levels. The first is the overall  organization  of an article (which is covered in Chapter 2 “Manuscript Structure and Content” of the  Publication Manual ). Empirical research reports, in particular, have several distinct sections that always appear in the same order:

• Title page.  Presents the article title and author names and affiliations.
• Abstract.  Summarizes the research.
• Introduction.  Describes previous research and the rationale for the current study.
• Method.  Describes how the study was conducted.
• Results.  Describes the results of the study.
• Discussion.  Summarizes the study and discusses its implications.
• References.  Lists the references cited throughout the article.

The second level of APA style can be referred to as  high-level style  (covered in Chapter 3 “Writing Clearly and Concisely” of the  Publication Manual ), which includes guidelines for the clear expression of ideas. There are two important themes here. One is that APA-style writing is formal rather than informal. It adopts a tone that is appropriate for communicating with professional colleagues—other researchers and practitioners—who share an interest in the topic. Beyond this shared interest, however, these colleagues are not necessarily similar to the writer or to each other. A graduate student in British Columbia might be writing an article that will be read by a young psychotherapist in Toronto and a respected professor of psychology in Tokyo. Thus formal writing avoids slang, contractions, pop culture references, humour, and other elements that would be acceptable in talking with a friend or in writing informally.

The second theme of high-level APA style is that it is straightforward. This means that it communicates ideas as simply and clearly as possible, putting the focus on the ideas themselves and not on how they are communicated. Thus APA-style writing minimizes literary devices such as metaphor, imagery, irony, suspense, and so on. Again, humour is kept to a minimum. Sentences are short and direct. Technical terms must be used, but they are used to improve communication, not simply to make the writing sound more “scientific.” For example, if participants immersed their hands in a bucket of ice water, it is better just to write this than to write that they “were subjected to a pain-inducement apparatus.” At the same time, however, there is no better way to communicate that a between-subjects design was used than to use the term “between-subjects design.”

APA Style and the Values of Psychology

Robert Madigan and his colleagues have argued that APA style has a purpose that often goes unrecognized (Madigan, Johnson, & Linton, 1995) [3] . Specifically, it promotes psychologists’ scientific values and assumptions. From this perspective, many features of APA style that at first seem arbitrary actually make good sense. Following are several features of APA-style writing and the scientific values or assumptions they reflect.

Another important element of high-level APA style is the avoidance of language that is biased against particular groups. This is not only to avoid offending people—why would you want to offend people who are interested in your work?—but also for the sake of scientific objectivity and accuracy. For example, the term  sexual orientation  should be used instead of  sexual preference  because people do not generally experience their orientation as a “preference,” nor is it as easily changeable as this term suggests (APA Committee on Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Concerns Joint Task Force on Guidelines for Psychotherapy With Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Clients, 2000) [4] .

The general principles for avoiding biased language are fairly simple. First, be sensitive to labels by avoiding terms that are offensive or have negative connotations. This includes terms that identify people with a disorder or other problem they happen to have. For example,  patients with schizophrenia  is better than  schizophrenics . Second, use more specific terms rather than more general ones. For example,  Chinese Canadians  is better than  Asian Canadians  if everyone in the group is, in fact, Chinese Canadian. Third, avoid objectifying research participants. Instead, acknowledge their active contribution to the research. For example, “The  students completed  the questionnaire” is better than “The  subjects were administered  the questionnaire.” Note that this principle also makes for clearer, more engaging writing. Table 11.1 shows several more examples that follow these general principles.

The previous edition of the  Publication Manual  strongly discouraged the use of the term  subjects  (except for nonhumans) and strongly encouraged the use of participants  instead. The current edition, however, acknowledges that  subjects can still be appropriate in referring to human participants in areas in which it has traditionally been used (e.g., basic memory research). But it also encourages the use of more specific terms when possible:  university  students ,  children , respondents , and so on.

The third level of APA style can be referred to as  low-level style  (which is covered in Chapter 4 “The Mechanics of Style” through Chapter 7 “Reference Examples” of the  Publication Manual .) Low-level style includes all the specific guidelines pertaining to spelling, grammar, references and reference citations, numbers and statistics, figures and tables, and so on. There are so many low-level guidelines that even experienced professionals need to consult the  Publication Manual  from time to time. Table 11.2 contains some of the most common types of APA style errors based on an analysis of manuscripts submitted to one professional journal over a 6-year period (Onwuegbuzie, Combs, Slate, & Frels, 2010) [5] . These errors were committed by professional researchers but are probably similar to those that students commit the most too. See also Note 11.8 “Online APA Style Resources” in this section and, of course, the  Publication Manual  itself.

Online APA Style Resources

The best source of information on APA style is the Publication Manual itself. However, there are also many good websites on APA style, which do an excellent job of presenting the basics for beginning researchers. Here are a few of them.

Purdue Online Writing Lab

Douglas Degelman’s APA Style Essentials [PDF]

Doc Scribe’s APA Style Lite [PDF]

APA-Style References and Citations

Because science is a large-scale collaboration among researchers, references to the work of other researchers are extremely important. Their importance is reflected in the extensive and detailed set of rules for formatting and using them.

At the end of an APA-style article or book chapter is a list that contains references  to all the works cited in the text (and  only  the works cited in the text). The reference list begins on its own page, with the heading “References,” centred in upper and lower case. The references themselves are then listed alphabetically according to the last names of the first named author for each citation. (As in the rest of an APA-style manuscript,  everything  is double-spaced.) Many different kinds of works might be cited in APA-style articles and book chapters, including magazine articles, websites, government documents, and even television shows. Of course, you should consult the  Publication Manual  or Online APA Style Resources for details on how to format them. Here we will focus on formatting references for the three most common kinds of works cited in APA style: journal articles, books, and book chapters.

Journal Articles

For journal articles, the generic format for a reference is as follows:

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (year). Title of article.  Title of Journal, xx (yy), pp–pp. doi:xx.xxxxxxxxxx

Here is a concrete example:

Adair, J. G., & Vohra, N. (2003). The explosion of knowledge, references, and citations: Psychology’s unique response to a crisis.  American Psychologist, 58 (1), 15–23. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.58.1.15

There are several things to notice here. The reference includes a hanging indent. That is, the first line of the reference is not indented but all subsequent lines are. The authors’ names appear in the same order as on the article, which reflects the authors’ relative contributions to the research. Only the authors’ last names and initials appear, and the names are separated by commas with an ampersand (&) between the last two. This is true even when there are only two authors. Only the first word of the article title is capitalized. The only exceptions are for words that are proper nouns or adjectives (e.g., “Freudian”) or if there is a subtitle, in which case the first word of the subtitle is also capitalized. In the journal title, however, all the important words are capitalized. The journal title and volume number are italicized; however, the issue number (listed within parentheses) is not. At the very end of the reference is the digital object identifier (DOI), which provides a permanent link to the location of the article on the Internet. Include this if it is available. It can generally be found in the record for the item on an electronic database (e.g., PsycINFO) and is usually displayed on the first page of the published article.

For a book, the generic format and a concrete example are as follows:

Author, A. A. (year).  Title of book . Location: Publisher. Kashdan, T., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2014). The upside of your dark side. New York, NY: Hudson Street Press.

Book Chapters

For a chapter in an edited book, the generic format and a concrete example are as follows:

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (year). Title of chapter. In A. A. Editor, B. B. Editor, & C. C. Editor (Eds.),  Title of book  (pp. xxx–xxx). Location: Publisher. Lilienfeld, S. O., & Lynn, S. J. (2003). Dissociative identity disorder: Multiple personalities, multiple controversies. In S. O. Lilienfeld, S. J. Lynn, & J. M. Lohr (Eds.), Science and pseudoscience in clinical psychology (pp. 109–142). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Notice that references for books and book chapters are similar to those for journal articles, but there are several differences too. For an edited book, the names of the editors appear with their first and middle initials followed by their last names (not the other way around)—with the abbreviation “Eds.” (or “Ed.,” if there is only one) appearing in parentheses immediately after the final editor’s name. Only the first word of a book title is capitalized (with the exceptions noted for article titles), and the entire title is italicized. For a chapter in an edited book, the page numbers of the chapter appear in parentheses after the book title with the abbreviation “pp.” Finally, both formats end with the location of publication and the publisher, separated by a colon.

Reference Citations

When you refer to another researcher’s idea, you must include a reference citation  (in the text) to the work in which that idea originally appeared and a full reference to that work in the reference list. What counts as an idea that must be cited? In general, this includes phenomena discovered by other researchers, theories they have developed, hypotheses they have derived, and specific methods they have used (e.g., specific questionnaires or stimulus materials). Citations should also appear for factual information that is not common knowledge so that other researchers can check that information for themselves. For example, in an article on the effect of cell phone usage on driving ability, the writer might cite official statistics on the number of cell phone–related accidents that occur each year. Among the ideas that do not need citations are widely shared methodological and statistical concepts (e.g., between-subjects design,  t  test) and statements that are so broad that they would be difficult for anyone to argue with (e.g., “Working memory plays a role in many daily activities.”). Be careful, though, because “common knowledge” about human behaviour is often incorrect. Therefore, when in doubt, find an appropriate reference to cite or remove the questionable assertion.

When you cite a work in the text of your manuscript, there are two ways to do it. Both include only the last names of the authors and the year of publication. The first method is to use the authors’ last names in the sentence (with no first names or initials) followed immediately by the year of publication in parentheses. Here are some examples:

Burger (2008) conducted a replication of Milgram’s (1963) original obedience study.

Although many people believe that women are more talkative than men, Mehl, Vazire, Ramirez-Esparza, Slatcher, and Pennebaker (2007) found essentially no difference in the number of words spoken by male and female college students.

Notice several things. First, the authors’ names are treated grammatically as names of people, not as things. It is better to write “a replication of Milgram’s (1963) study” than “a replication of Milgram (1963).” Second, when there are two authors the names are not separated by commas, but when there are three or more authors they are. Third, the word  and  (rather than an ampersand) is used to join the authors’ names. Fourth, the year follows immediately after the final author’s name. An additional point, which is not illustrated in these examples but is illustrated in the sample paper in Section 11.2 “Writing a Research Report in American Psychological Association (APA) Style”, is that the year only needs to be included the first time a particular work is cited in the same paragraph.

The second way to cite an article or a book chapter is parenthetically—including the authors’ last names and the year of publication in parentheses following the idea that is being credited. Here are some examples:

People can be surprisingly obedient to authority figures (Burger, 2008; Milgram, 1963).

Recent evidence suggests that men and women are similarly talkative (Mehl, Vazire, Ramirez-Esparza, Slatcher, & Pennebaker, 2007).

One thing to notice about such parenthetical citations is that they are often placed at the end of the sentence, which minimizes their disruption to the flow of that sentence. In contrast to the first way of citing a work, this way always includes the year—even when the citation is given multiple times in the same paragraph. Notice also that when there are multiple citations in the same set of parentheses, they are organized alphabetically by the name of the first author and separated by semicolons.

There are no strict rules for deciding which of the two citation styles to use. Most articles and book chapters contain a mixture of the two. In general, however, the first approach works well when you want to emphasize the person who conducted the research—for example, if you were comparing the theories of two prominent researchers. It also works well when you are describing a particular study in detail. The second approach works well when you are discussing a general idea and especially when you want to include multiple citations for the same idea.

The third most common error in Table 11.2 has to do with the use of  et al.  This is an abbreviation for the Latin term  et alia , which means “and others.” In APA style, if an article or a book chapter has more than two authors , you should include all their names when you first cite that work. After that, however, you should use the first author’s name followed by “et al.” Here are some examples:

Recall that Mehl et al. (2007) found that women and men spoke about the same number of words per day on average.

There is a strong positive correlation between the number of daily hassles and the number of symptoms people experience (Kanner et al., 1981).

Notice that there is no comma between the first author’s name and “et al.” Notice also that there is no period after “et” but there is one after “al.” This is because “et” is a complete word and “al.” is an abbreviation for the word  alia .

Key Takeaways

• APA style is a set of guidelines for writing in psychology. It is the genre of writing that psychologists use to communicate about their research with other researchers and practitioners.
• APA style can be seen as having three levels. There is the organization of a research article, the high-level style that includes writing in a formal and straightforward way, and the low-level style that consists of many specific rules of grammar, spelling, formatting of references, and so on.
• References and reference citations are an important part of APA style. There are specific rules for formatting references and for citing them in the text of an article.
• Practice: Find a description of a research study in a popular magazine, newspaper, blog, or website. Then identify five specific differences between how that description is written and how it would be written in APA style.
• Walters, F. T., and DeLeon, M. (2010). Relationship Between Intrinsic Motivation and Accuracy of Academic Self-Evaluations Among High School Students. Educational Psychology Quarterly, 23, 234–256.
• Moore, Lilia S. (2007). Ethics in survey research. In M. Williams & P. L. Lee (eds.), Ethical Issues in Psychology (pp. 120–156), Boston, Psychological Research Press.
• Vang, C., Dumont, L. S., and Prescott, M. P. found that left-handed people have a stronger preference for abstract art than right-handed people (2006).
• This result has been replicated several times (Williamson, 1998; Pentecost & Garcia, 2006; Armbruster, 2011)
• Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.) (2010). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association. ↵
• Bentley, M., Peerenboom, C. A., Hodge, F. W., Passano, E. B., Warren, H. C., & Washburn, M. F. (1929). Instructions in regard to preparation of manuscript.  Psychological Bulletin, 26 , 57–63. ↵
• Madigan, R., Johnson, S., & Linton, P. (1995). The language of psychology: APA style as epistemology.  American Psychologist, 50 , 428–436. ↵
• American Psychological Association, Committee on Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Concerns Joint Task Force on Guidelines for Psychotherapy With Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Clients. (2000). Guidelines for psychotherapy with lesbian, gay, and bisexual clients . Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20081022063811/http://www.apa.org:80/pi/lgbc/guidelines.html ↵
• Onwuegbuzie, A. J., Combs, J. P., Slate, J. R., & Frels, R. K. (2010). Editorial: Evidence-based guidelines for avoiding the most common APA errors in journal article submissions. Research in the Schools, 16 , ix–xxxvi. ↵

A set of guidelines for writing in psychology and related fields.

A book produced by the APA containing standards for preparing manuscripts to be submitted for publication in order to facilitate scientific communication by promoting clarity of expression and standardizing the organization and content of articles and book chapters.

Referring to an article, the sections that are included and what order they appear in.

The second level of APA style which includes guidelines for the clear expression of ideas through writing style.

Third level of APA style which includes all the specific guidelines pertaining to spelling, grammar, references and reference citations, numbers and statistic, figures and tables, and so on.

The source of information used in a research article.

The referral to another researcher’s idea that is written in the text, with the full reference appearing in the reference list.

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How to Write a Methods Section for a Psychology Paper

Tips and Examples of an APA Methods Section

Verywell / Brianna Gilmartin 

The methods section of an APA format psychology paper provides the methods and procedures used in a research study or experiment . This part of an APA paper is critical because it allows other researchers to see exactly how you conducted your research.

Method refers to the procedure that was used in a research study. It included a precise description of how the experiments were performed and why particular procedures were selected. While the APA technically refers to this section as the 'method section,' it is also often known as a 'methods section.'

The methods section ensures the experiment's reproducibility and the assessment of alternative methods that might produce different results. It also allows researchers to replicate the experiment and judge the study's validity.

This article discusses how to write a methods section for a psychology paper, including important elements to include and tips that can help.

What to Include in a Method Section

So what exactly do you need to include when writing your method section? You should provide detailed information on the following:

• Research design
• Participants
• Participant behavior

The method section should provide enough information to allow other researchers to replicate your experiment or study.

Components of a Method Section

The method section should utilize subheadings to divide up different subsections. These subsections typically include participants, materials, design, and procedure.

Participants 

In this part of the method section, you should describe the participants in your experiment, including who they were (and any unique features that set them apart from the general population), how many there were, and how they were selected. If you utilized random selection to choose your participants, it should be noted here.

For example: "We randomly selected 100 children from elementary schools near the University of Arizona."

At the very minimum, this part of your method section must convey:

• Basic demographic characteristics of your participants (such as sex, age, ethnicity, or religion)
• The population from which your participants were drawn
• Any restrictions on your pool of participants
• How many participants were assigned to each condition and how they were assigned to each group (i.e., randomly assignment , another selection method, etc.)
• Why participants took part in your research (i.e., the study was advertised at a college or hospital, they received some type of incentive, etc.)

Information about participants helps other researchers understand how your study was performed, how generalizable the result might be, and allows other researchers to replicate the experiment with other populations to see if they might obtain the same results.

In this part of the method section, you should describe the materials, measures, equipment, or stimuli used in the experiment. This may include:

• Testing instruments
• Technical equipment
• Any psychological assessments that were used
• Any special equipment that was used

For example: "Two stories from Sullivan et al.'s (1994) second-order false belief attribution tasks were used to assess children's understanding of second-order beliefs."

For standard equipment such as computers, televisions, and videos, you can simply name the device and not provide further explanation.

Specialized equipment should be given greater detail, especially if it is complex or created for a niche purpose. In some instances, such as if you created a special material or apparatus for your study, you might need to include an illustration of the item in the appendix of your paper.

In this part of your method section, describe the type of design used in the experiment. Specify the variables as well as the levels of these variables. Identify:

• The independent variables
• Dependent variables
• Control variables
• Any extraneous variables that might influence your results.

Also, explain whether your experiment uses a  within-groups  or between-groups design.

For example: "The experiment used a 3x2 between-subjects design. The independent variables were age and understanding of second-order beliefs."

The next part of your method section should detail the procedures used in your experiment. Your procedures should explain:

• What the participants did
• How data was collected
• The order in which steps occurred

For example: "An examiner interviewed children individually at their school in one session that lasted 20 minutes on average. The examiner explained to each child that he or she would be told two short stories and that some questions would be asked after each story. All sessions were videotaped so the data could later be coded."

Keep this subsection concise yet detailed. Explain what you did and how you did it, but do not overwhelm your readers with too much information.

Tips for How to Write a Methods Section

In addition to following the basic structure of an APA method section, there are also certain things you should remember when writing this section of your paper. Consider the following tips when writing this section:

• Use the past tense : Always write the method section in the past tense.
• Be descriptive : Provide enough detail that another researcher could replicate your experiment, but focus on brevity. Avoid unnecessary detail that is not relevant to the outcome of the experiment.
• Use an academic tone : Use formal language and avoid slang or colloquial expressions. Word choice is also important. Refer to the people in your experiment or study as "participants" rather than "subjects."
• Use APA format : Keep a style guide on hand as you write your method section. The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association is the official source for APA style.
• Make connections : Read through each section of your paper for agreement with other sections. If you mention procedures in the method section, these elements should be discussed in the results and discussion sections.
• Proofread : Check your paper for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors.. typos, grammar problems, and spelling errors. Although a spell checker is a handy tool, there are some errors only you can catch.

After writing a draft of your method section, be sure to get a second opinion. You can often become too close to your work to see errors or lack of clarity. Take a rough draft of your method section to your university's writing lab for additional assistance.

A Word From Verywell

The method section is one of the most important components of your APA format paper. The goal of your paper should be to clearly detail what you did in your experiment. Provide enough detail that another researcher could replicate your study if they wanted.

Finally, if you are writing your paper for a class or for a specific publication, be sure to keep in mind any specific instructions provided by your instructor or by the journal editor. Your instructor may have certain requirements that you need to follow while writing your method section.

Frequently Asked Questions

While the subsections can vary, the three components that should be included are sections on the participants, the materials, and the procedures.

• Describe who the participants were in the study and how they were selected.
• Define and describe the materials that were used including any equipment, tests, or assessments
• Describe how the data was collected

To write your methods section in APA format, describe your participants, materials, study design, and procedures. Keep this section succinct, and always write in the past tense. The main heading of this section should be labeled "Method" and it should be centered, bolded, and capitalized. Each subheading within this section should be bolded, left-aligned and in title case.

The purpose of the methods section is to describe what you did in your experiment. It should be brief, but include enough detail that someone could replicate your experiment based on this information. Your methods section should detail what you did to answer your research question. Describe how the study was conducted, the study design that was used and why it was chosen, and how you collected the data and analyzed the results.

Erdemir F. How to write a materials and methods section of a scientific article ? Turk J Urol . 2013;39(Suppl 1):10-5. doi:10.5152/tud.2013.047

Kallet RH. How to write the methods section of a research paper . Respir Care . 2004;49(10):1229-32. PMID: 15447808.

American Psychological Association.  Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association  (7th ed.). Washington DC: The American Psychological Association; 2019.

American Psychological Association. APA Style Journal Article Reporting Standards . Published 2020.

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

How to Write an APA Research Paper

Psychology/neuroscience 201, v iew in pdf format.

An APA-style paper includes the following sections: title page, abstract, introduction, method, results, discussion, and references. Your paper may also include one or more tables and/or figures. Different types of information about your study are addressed in each of the sections, as described below.

General formatting rules are as follows:

Do not put page breaks in between the introduction, method, results, and discussion sections.

The title page, abstract, references, table(s), and figure(s) should be on their own pages. The entire paper should be written in the past tense, in a 12-point font, double-spaced, and with one-inch margins all around.

(see sample on p. 41 of APA manual)

• Title should be between 10-12 words and should reflect content of paper (e.g., IV and DV).
• Title, your name, and Hamilton College are all double-spaced (no extra spaces)
• Create a page header using the “View header” function in MS Word. On the title page, the header should include the following: Flush left: Running head: THE RUNNING HEAD SHOULD BE IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. The running head is a short title that appears at the top of pages of published articles. It should not exceed 50 characters, including punctuation and spacing. (Note: on the title page, you actually write the words “Running head,” but these words do not appear on subsequent pages; just the actual running head does. If you make a section break between the title page and the rest of the paper you can make the header different for those two parts of the manuscript). Flush right, on same line: page number. Use the toolbox to insert a page number, so it will automatically number each page.

Abstract (labeled, centered, not bold)

No more than 120 words, one paragraph, block format (i.e., don’t indent), double-spaced.

• State topic, preferably in one sentence. Provide overview of method, results, and discussion.

Introduction

(Do not label as “Introduction.” Title of paper goes at the top of the page—not bold)

The introduction of an APA-style paper is the most difficult to write. A good introduction will summarize, integrate, and critically evaluate the empirical knowledge in the relevant area(s) in a way that sets the stage for your study and why you conducted it. The introduction starts out broad (but not too broad!) and gets more focused toward the end. Here are some guidelines for constructing a good introduction:

• Don’t put your readers to sleep by beginning your paper with the time-worn sentence, “Past research has shown (blah blah blah)” They’ll be snoring within a paragraph!  Try to draw your reader in by saying something interesting or thought-provoking right off the bat.  Take a look at articles you’ve read. Which ones captured your attention right away? How did the authors accomplish this task? Which ones didn’t?  Why not?  See if you can use articles you liked as a model. One way to begin (but not the only way) is to provide an example or anecdote illustrative of your topic area.
• Although you won’t go into the details of your study and hypotheses until the end of the intro, you should foreshadow your study a bit at the end of the first paragraph by stating your purpose briefly, to give your reader a schema for all the information you will present next.
• Your intro should be a logical flow of ideas that leads up to your hypothesis. Try to organize it in terms of the ideas rather than who did what when. In other words, your intro shouldn’t read like a story of “Schmirdley did such-and-such in 1991. Then Gurglehoff did something-or-other in 1993.  Then....(etc.)” First, brainstorm all of the ideas you think are necessary to include in your paper. Next, decide which ideas make sense to present first, second, third, and so forth, and think about how you want to transition between ideas. When an idea is complex, don’t be afraid to use a real-life example to clarify it for your reader. The introduction will end with a brief overview of your study and, finally, your specific hypotheses. The hypotheses should flow logically out of everything that’s been presented, so that the reader has the sense of, “Of course. This hypothesis makes complete sense, given all the other research that was presented.”
• When incorporating references into your intro, you do not necessarily need to describe every single study in complete detail, particularly if different studies use similar methodologies. Certainly you want to summarize briefly key articles, though, and point out differences in methods or findings of relevant studies when necessary. Don’t make one mistake typical of a novice APA-paper writer by stating overtly why you’re including a particular article (e.g., “This article is relevant to my study because…”). It should be obvious to the reader why you’re including a reference without your explicitly saying so.  DO NOT quote from the articles, instead paraphrase by putting the information in your own words.
• Be careful about citing your sources (see APA manual). Make sure there is a one-to-one correspondence between the articles you’ve cited in your intro and the articles listed in your reference section.
• Remember that your audience is the broader scientific community, not the other students in your class or your professor.  Therefore, you should assume they have a basic understanding of psychology, but you need to provide them with the complete information necessary for them to understand the research you are presenting.

Method (labeled, centered, bold)

The Method section of an APA-style paper is the most straightforward to write, but requires precision. Your goal is to describe the details of your study in such a way that another researcher could duplicate your methods exactly.

The Method section typically includes Participants, Materials and/or Apparatus, and Procedure sections. If the design is particularly complicated (multiple IVs in a factorial experiment, for example), you might also include a separate Design subsection or have a “Design and Procedure” section.

Note that in some studies (e.g., questionnaire studies in which there are many measures to describe but the procedure is brief), it may be more useful to present the Procedure section prior to the Materials section rather than after it.

Participants (labeled, flush left, bold)

Total number of participants (# women, # men), age range, mean and SD for age, racial/ethnic composition (if applicable), population type (e.g., college students). Remember to write numbers out when they begin a sentence.

• How were the participants recruited? (Don’t say “randomly” if it wasn’t random!) Were they compensated for their time in any way? (e.g., money, extra credit points)
• Write for a broad audience. Thus, do not write, “Students in Psych. 280...” Rather, write (for instance), “Students in a psychological statistics and research methods course at a small liberal arts college….”
• Try to avoid short, choppy sentences. Combine information into a longer sentence when possible.

Materials (labeled, flush left, bold)

Carefully describe any stimuli, questionnaires, and so forth. It is unnecessary to mention things such as the paper and pencil used to record the responses, the data recording sheet, the computer that ran the data analysis, the color of the computer, and so forth.

• If you included a questionnaire, you should describe it in detail. For instance, note how many items were on the questionnaire, what the response format was (e.g., a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree)), how many items were reverse-scored, whether the measure had subscales, and so forth. Provide a sample item or two for your reader.
• If you have created a new instrument, you should attach it as an Appendix.
• If you presented participants with various word lists to remember or stimuli to judge, you should describe those in detail here. Use subheadings to separate different types of stimuli if needed.  If you are only describing questionnaires, you may call this section “Measures.”

Apparatus (labeled, flush left, bold)

Include an apparatus section if you used specialized equipment for your study (e.g., the eye tracking machine) and need to describe it in detail.

Procedure (labeled, flush left, bold)

What did participants do, and in what order? When you list a control variable (e.g., “Participants all sat two feet from the experimenter.”), explain WHY you did what you did.  In other words, what nuisance variable were you controlling for? Your procedure should be as brief and concise as possible. Read through it. Did you repeat yourself anywhere? If so, how can you rearrange things to avoid redundancy? You may either write the instructions to the participants verbatim or paraphrase, whichever you deem more appropriate. Don’t forget to include brief statements about informed consent and debriefing.

Results (labeled, centered, bold)

In this section, describe how you analyzed the data and what you found. If your data analyses were complex, feel free to break this section down into labeled subsections, perhaps one section for each hypothesis.

• Include a section for descriptive statistics
• List what type of analysis or test you conducted to test each hypothesis.
• Refer to your Statistics textbook for the proper way to report results in APA style. A t-test, for example, is reported in the following format: t (18) = 3.57, p < .001, where 18 is the number of degrees of freedom (N – 2 for an independent-groups t test). For a correlation: r (32) = -.52, p < .001, where 32 is the number of degrees of freedom (N – 2 for a correlation). For a one-way ANOVA: F (2, 18) = 7.00, p < .001, where 2 represents the between and 18 represents df within Remember that if a finding has a p value greater than .05, it is “nonsignificant,” not “insignificant.” For nonsignificant findings, still provide the exact p values. For correlations, be sure to report the r 2 value as an assessment of the strength of the finding, to show what proportion of variability is shared by the two variables you’re correlating. For t- tests and ANOVAs, report eta 2 .
• Report exact p values to two or three decimal places (e.g., p = .042; see p. 114 of APA manual).  However, for p-values less than .001, simply put p < .001.
• Following the presentation of all the statistics and numbers, be sure to state the nature of your finding(s) in words and whether or not they support your hypothesis (e.g., “As predicted …”). This information can typically be presented in a sentence or two following the numbers (within the same paragraph). Also, be sure to include the relevant means and SDs.
• It may be useful to include a table or figure to represent your results visually. Be sure to refer to these in your paper (e.g., “As illustrated in Figure 1…”). Remember that you may present a set of findings either as a table or as a figure, but not as both. Make sure that your text is not redundant with your tables/figures. For instance, if you present a table of means and standard deviations, you do not need to also report these in the text. However, if you use a figure to represent your results, you may wish to report means and standard deviations in the text, as these may not always be precisely ascertained by examining the figure. Do describe the trends shown in the figure.
• Do not spend any time interpreting or explaining the results; save that for the Discussion section.

Discussion (labeled, centered, bold)

The goal of the discussion section is to interpret your findings and place them in the broader context of the literature in the area. A discussion section is like the reverse of the introduction, in that you begin with the specifics and work toward the more general (funnel out). Some points to consider:

• Begin with a brief restatement of your main findings (using words, not numbers). Did they support the hypothesis or not? If not, why not, do you think? Were there any surprising or interesting findings? How do your findings tie into the existing literature on the topic, or extend previous research? What do the results say about the broader behavior under investigation? Bring back some of the literature you discussed in the Introduction, and show how your results fit in (or don’t fit in, as the case may be). If you have surprising findings, you might discuss other theories that can help to explain the findings. Begin with the assumption that your results are valid, and explain why they might differ from others in the literature.
• What are the limitations of the study? If your findings differ from those of other researchers, or if you did not get statistically significant results, don’t spend pages and pages detailing what might have gone wrong with your study, but do provide one or two suggestions. Perhaps these could be incorporated into the future research section, below.
• What additional questions were generated from this study? What further research should be conducted on the topic? What gaps are there in the current body of research? Whenever you present an idea for a future research study, be sure to explain why you think that particular study should be conducted. What new knowledge would be gained from it?  Don’t just say, “I think it would be interesting to re-run the study on a different college campus” or “It would be better to run the study again with more participants.” Really put some thought into what extensions of the research might be interesting/informative, and why.
• What are the theoretical and/or practical implications of your findings? How do these results relate to larger issues of human thoughts, feelings, and behavior? Give your readers “the big picture.” Try to answer the question, “So what?

Final paragraph: Be sure to sum up your paper with a final concluding statement. Don’t just trail off with an idea for a future study. End on a positive note by reminding your reader why your study was important and what it added to the literature.

References (labeled, centered, not bold)

Provide an alphabetical listing of the references (alphabetize by last name of first author). Double-space all, with no extra spaces between references. The second line of each reference should be indented (this is called a hanging indent and is easily accomplished using the ruler in Microsoft Word). See the APA manual for how to format references correctly.

Examples of references to journal articles start on p. 198 of the manual, and examples of references to books and book chapters start on pp. 202. Digital object identifiers (DOIs) are now included for electronic sources (see pp. 187-192 of APA manual to learn more).

Journal article example: [Note that only the first letter of the first word of the article title is capitalized; the journal name and volume are italicized. If the journal name had multiple words, each of the major words would be capitalized.] 

Ebner-Priemer, U. W., & Trull, T. J. (2009). Ecological momentary assessment of mood disorders and mood dysregulation. Psychological Assessment, 21, 463-475. doi:10.1037/a0017075

Book chapter example: [Note that only the first letter of the first word of both the chapter title and book title are capitalized.]

Stephan, W. G. (1985). Intergroup relations. In G. Lindzey & E. Aronson (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (3 rd ed., Vol. 2, pp. 599-658). New York: Random House.

Book example: Gray, P. (2010). Psychology (6 th ed.). New York: Worth

Table There are various formats for tables, depending upon the information you wish to include. See the APA manual. Be sure to provide a table number and table title (the latter is italicized). Tables can be single or double-spaced.

Figure If you have more than one figure, each one gets its own page. Use a sans serif font, such as Helvetica, for any text within your figure. Be sure to label your x- and y-axes clearly, and make sure you’ve noted the units of measurement of the DV. Underneath the figure provide a label and brief caption (e.g., “Figure 1. Mean evaluation of job applicant qualifications as a function of applicant attractiveness level”). The figure caption typically includes the IVs/predictor variables and the DV. Include error bars in your bar graphs, and note what the bars represent in the figure caption: Error bars represent one standard error above and below the mean.

In-Text Citations: (see pp. 174-179 of APA manual) When citing sources in your paper, you need to include the authors’ names and publication date.

You should use the following formats:

• When including the citation as part of the sentence, use AND: “According to Jones and Smith (2003), the…”
• When the citation appears in parentheses, use “&”: “Studies have shown that priming can affect actual motor behavior (Jones & Smith, 2003; Klein, Bailey, & Hammer, 1999).” The studies appearing in parentheses should be ordered alphabetically by the first author’s last name, and should be separated by semicolons.
• If you are quoting directly (which you should avoid), you also need to include the page number.
• For sources with three or more authors, once you have listed all the authors’ names, you may write “et al.” on subsequent mentions. For example: “Klein et al. (1999) found that….” For sources with two authors, both authors must be included every time the source is cited. When a source has six or more authors, the first author’s last name and “et al.” are used every time the source is cited (including the first time). 

Secondary Sources

“Secondary source” is the term used to describe material that is cited in another source. If in his article entitled “Behavioral Study of Obedience” (1963), Stanley Milgram makes reference to the ideas of Snow (presented above), Snow (1961) is the primary source, and Milgram (1963) is the secondary source.

Try to avoid using secondary sources in your papers; in other words, try to find the primary source and read it before citing it in your own work. If you must use a secondary source, however, you should cite it in the following way:

Snow (as cited in Milgram, 1963) argued that, historically, the cause of most criminal acts... The reference for the Milgram article (but not the Snow reference) should then appear in the reference list at the end of your paper.

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Reporting Research Results in APA Style | Tips & Examples

Published on December 21, 2020 by Pritha Bhandari . Revised on January 17, 2024.

The results section of a quantitative research paper is where you summarize your data and report the findings of any relevant statistical analyses.

The APA manual provides rigorous guidelines for what to report in quantitative research papers in the fields of psychology, education, and other social sciences.

Use these standards to answer your research questions and report your data analyses in a complete and transparent way.

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Table of contents

What goes in your results section, introduce your data, summarize your data, report statistical results, presenting numbers effectively, what doesn’t belong in your results section, frequently asked questions about results in apa.

In APA style, the results section includes preliminary information about the participants and data, descriptive and inferential statistics, and the results of any exploratory analyses.

Include these in your results section:

• Participant flow and recruitment period. Report the number of participants at every stage of the study, as well as the dates when recruitment took place.
• Missing data . Identify the proportion of data that wasn’t included in your final analysis and state the reasons.
• Any adverse events. Make sure to report any unexpected events or side effects (for clinical studies).
• Descriptive statistics . Summarize the primary and secondary outcomes of the study.
• Inferential statistics , including confidence intervals and effect sizes. Address the primary and secondary research questions by reporting the detailed results of your main analyses.
• Results of subgroup or exploratory analyses, if applicable. Place detailed results in supplementary materials.

Write up the results in the past tense because you’re describing the outcomes of a completed research study.

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Before diving into your research findings, first describe the flow of participants at every stage of your study and whether any data were excluded from the final analysis.

Participant flow and recruitment period

It’s necessary to report any attrition, which is the decline in participants at every sequential stage of a study. That’s because an uneven number of participants across groups sometimes threatens internal validity and makes it difficult to compare groups. Be sure to also state all reasons for attrition.

If your study has multiple stages (e.g., pre-test, intervention, and post-test) and groups (e.g., experimental and control groups), a flow chart is the best way to report the number of participants in each group per stage and reasons for attrition.

Also report the dates for when you recruited participants or performed follow-up sessions.

Missing data

Another key issue is the completeness of your dataset. It’s necessary to report both the amount and reasons for data that was missing or excluded.

Data can become unusable due to equipment malfunctions, improper storage, unexpected events, participant ineligibility, and so on. For each case, state the reason why the data were unusable.

Some data points may be removed from the final analysis because they are outliers—but you must be able to justify how you decided what to exclude.

If you applied any techniques for overcoming or compensating for lost data, report those as well.

Adverse events

For clinical studies, report all events with serious consequences or any side effects that occured.

Descriptive statistics summarize your data for the reader. Present descriptive statistics for each primary, secondary, and subgroup analysis.

Don’t provide formulas or citations for commonly used statistics (e.g., standard deviation) – but do provide them for new or rare equations.

Descriptive statistics

The exact descriptive statistics that you report depends on the types of data in your study. Categorical variables can be reported using proportions, while quantitative data can be reported using means and standard deviations . For a large set of numbers, a table is the most effective presentation format.

Include sample sizes (overall and for each group) as well as appropriate measures of central tendency and variability for the outcomes in your results section. For every point estimate , add a clearly labelled measure of variability as well.

Be sure to note how you combined data to come up with variables of interest. For every variable of interest, explain how you operationalized it.

According to APA journal standards, it’s necessary to report all relevant hypothesis tests performed, estimates of effect sizes, and confidence intervals.

When reporting statistical results, you should first address primary research questions before moving onto secondary research questions and any exploratory or subgroup analyses.

Present the results of tests in the order that you performed them—report the outcomes of main tests before post-hoc tests, for example. Don’t leave out any relevant results, even if they don’t support your hypothesis.

Inferential statistics

For each statistical test performed, first restate the hypothesis , then state whether your hypothesis was supported and provide the outcomes that led you to that conclusion.

Report the following for each hypothesis test:

• the test statistic value,
• the degrees of freedom ,
• the exact p- value (unless it is less than 0.001),
• the magnitude and direction of the effect.

When reporting complex data analyses, such as factor analysis or multivariate analysis, present the models estimated in detail, and state the statistical software used. Make sure to report any violations of statistical assumptions or problems with estimation.

Effect sizes and confidence intervals

For each hypothesis test performed, you should present confidence intervals and estimates of effect sizes .

Confidence intervals are useful for showing the variability around point estimates. They should be included whenever you report population parameter estimates.

Effect sizes indicate how impactful the outcomes of a study are. But since they are estimates, it’s recommended that you also provide confidence intervals of effect sizes.

Subgroup or exploratory analyses

Briefly report the results of any other planned or exploratory analyses you performed. These may include subgroup analyses as well.

Subgroup analyses come with a high chance of false positive results, because performing a large number of comparison or correlation tests increases the chances of finding significant results.

If you find significant results in these analyses, make sure to appropriately report them as exploratory (rather than confirmatory) results to avoid overstating their importance.

While these analyses can be reported in less detail in the main text, you can provide the full analyses in supplementary materials.

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To effectively present numbers, use a mix of text, tables , and figures where appropriate:

• To present three or fewer numbers, try a sentence ,
• To present between 4 and 20 numbers, try a table ,
• To present more than 20 numbers, try a figure .

Since these are general guidelines, use your own judgment and feedback from others for effective presentation of numbers.

Tables and figures should be numbered and have titles, along with relevant notes. Make sure to present data only once throughout the paper and refer to any tables and figures in the text.

Formatting statistics and numbers

It’s important to follow capitalization , italicization, and abbreviation rules when referring to statistics in your paper. There are specific format guidelines for reporting statistics in APA , as well as general rules about writing numbers .

If you are unsure of how to present specific symbols, look up the detailed APA guidelines or other papers in your field.

It’s important to provide a complete picture of your data analyses and outcomes in a concise way. For that reason, raw data and any interpretations of your results are not included in the results section.

It’s rarely appropriate to include raw data in your results section. Instead, you should always save the raw data securely and make them available and accessible to any other researchers who request them.

Making scientific research available to others is a key part of academic integrity and open science.

Interpretation or discussion of results

This belongs in your discussion section. Your results section is where you objectively report all relevant findings and leave them open for interpretation by readers.

While you should state whether the findings of statistical tests lend support to your hypotheses, refrain from forming conclusions to your research questions in the results section.

Explanation of how statistics tests work

For the sake of concise writing, you can safely assume that readers of your paper have professional knowledge of how statistical inferences work.

In an APA results section , you should generally report the following:

• Participant flow and recruitment period.
• Missing data and any adverse events.
• Descriptive statistics about your samples.
• Inferential statistics , including confidence intervals and effect sizes.
• Results of any subgroup or exploratory analyses, if applicable.

According to the APA guidelines, you should report enough detail on inferential statistics so that your readers understand your analyses.

• the test statistic value
• the degrees of freedom
• the exact p value (unless it is less than 0.001)
• the magnitude and direction of the effect

You should also present confidence intervals and estimates of effect sizes where relevant.

In APA style, statistics can be presented in the main text or as tables or figures . To decide how to present numbers, you can follow APA guidelines:

• To present three or fewer numbers, try a sentence,
• To present between 4 and 20 numbers, try a table,
• To present more than 20 numbers, try a figure.

Results are usually written in the past tense , because they are describing the outcome of completed actions.

The results chapter or section simply and objectively reports what you found, without speculating on why you found these results. The discussion interprets the meaning of the results, puts them in context, and explains why they matter.

In qualitative research , results and discussion are sometimes combined. But in quantitative research , it’s considered important to separate the objective results from your interpretation of them.

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The top 10 journal articles from 2023 examined the effects of social media, CBT for substance use, and the psychology of gig work

APA’s 89 journals published more than 5,500 articles in 2023. Here are the top 10 most read

Vol. 55 No. 1 Print version: page 22

1. Looking through a filtered lens: Negative social comparison on social media and suicidal ideation among young adults.

Spitzer, E. G., et al.

Young adults who engage in comparisons to others on social media and thus feel bad about themselves are more likely to think about suicide, this research in Psychology of Popular Media (Vol. 12, No. 1) suggests. Researchers surveyed 456 college students about their frequency of social media use and used scales to assess participants’ tendency to engage in negative social comparison on Instagram and Facebook, suicidal ideation, and thwarted belongingness (i.e., feeling as if lacking connections or meaningful relationships with others). Results indicated that participants who engaged in negative social comparisons were more likely to report suicidal ideation than those who did not. Specifically, on Instagram, those who negatively compared themselves to others the most also showed the highest levels of association between thwarted belongingness and suicidal ideation. These findings suggest the need for limits on social media use and education around its mental health effects. DOI: 10.1037/ppm0000380

2. Self-compassion and women’s experience of social media content portraying body positivity and appearance ideals.

Rutter, H., et al.

The type of social media content women view can affect their self-compassion—how kind to themselves and accepting of their flaws they are—suggests this study in Psychology of Popular Media (advance online publication). In two experiments, a total of 247 women viewed content consistent with appearance ideals (fitspiration body photos; faces with makeup), appearance-neutral content (landscapes), or body-positive content (body-positive body photos, body-positive quotes, faces without makeup). In both experiments, women who viewed content consistent with appearance ideals reported a state of worse self-compassion and worse thoughts about themselves than those who viewed body-positive or appearance-neutral content. Women who already had daily low self-compassion or high disordered-eating symptoms were the most affected by viewing content consistent with appearance ideals. On the contrary, viewing body-positive content increased the state of self-compassion relative to viewing appearance-neutral content. DOI: 10.1037/ppm0000453

3. Reducing social media use improves appearance and weight esteem in youth with emotional distress.

Thai, H., et al.

Reducing smartphone social media use to 1 hour per day might improve body image and weight esteem in youth with emotional distress who are heavy social media users, this study in Psychology of Popular Media (advance online publication) suggests. The researchers randomly assigned 220 participants (ages 17 to 25 who used social media at least 2 hours per day) to either a 4-week intervention in which they limited their social media use to 1 hour per day or to a control condition with unrestricted access to social media. After the 4-week intervention, the group with restricted social media use felt better about their appearance and weight relative to before the intervention, whereas the other group showed no changes. Thus, reducing smartphone social media use appears to be a good method to improve how youths feel about their appearance and weight and could become a component in the prevention and treatment of body image-related disturbances. DOI: 10.1037/ppm0000460

4. Interventions to reduce the negative impact of online highly visual social networking site use on mental health outcomes: A scoping review.

Herriman, Z., et al.

In this review, published in Psychology of Popular Media (advance online publication), researchers identified 39 studies published between 2011 and 2022 that examined how interventions designed to reduce the negative impact of online highly visual social networking site (e.g., Facebook, Instagram) use impact mental health. Most of the studies were conducted on Western adults younger than age 35 and varied widely in terms of the variables assessed, making it difficult to highlight overall conclusions. Nevertheless, results indicate that interventions focused on reducing the exposure to highly visual social media platforms benefited well-being but may also reduce social connectedness. Interventions focused on social media literacy programs may reduce addiction and improve body image. Other interventions that adopted varied psychological approaches did not appear to lead to significant results. The researchers also highlighted the gaps in research that should be addressed to improve the efficacy of such interventions, including a need for interventions that are more guided by psychological theories and assessments of these interventions that are rigorous and include diverse populations. DOI: 10.1037/ppm0000455

5. On the outside looking in: Social media intensity, social connection, and user well-being: The moderating role of passive social media use.

Roberts, J. A., & David, M. E.

According to this study in the Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science (Vol. 55, No. 3) , heavy passive social media use may be linked with a weaker sense of social connection and well-being. In two survey-based studies with 226 participants in the United States, researchers found that passive engagement with social media (viewing social media but not regularly posting or interacting through the platform) was associated with less social connection, lower well-being, and higher stress. In a third, experimental study, with 160 participants, the researchers asked participants to use social media heavily (10 minutes) or lightly (5 minutes) and engage with it actively or passively. The results indicated that heavy social media use had a negative impact on feelings of social connection when used passively but a positive effect when used actively. DOI: 10.1037/cbs0000323

6. Social media usage is associated with lower knowledge about anxiety and indiscriminate use of anxiety coping strategies.

Wolenski, R., & Pettit, J. W.

Social media might not be the best source to learn about anxiety and how to reduce it, this study in Psychology of Popular Media (advance online publication) suggests. Young adults (N=250) responded to an online survey in which they reported their sources of information about anxiety, the strategies they use to cope with anxiety, and their anxiety symptoms and severity. The researchers also tested participants’ knowledge about anxiety. Participants rated the internet (e.g., Wikipedia, medical websites) as their most used information source, followed by friends and family, therapy, and social media. Participants with an anxiety diagnosis or severe symptoms sought information on social media more frequently than the other participants. Across all participants, those who sought information on social media more frequently showed a lower knowledge about anxiety and were more likely to report using both adaptive and maladaptive strategies to reduce anxiety. On the contrary, using the internet was associated with more knowledge about anxiety. These findings suggest the need to promote the dissemination of accurate information about anxiety on social media. DOI: 10.1037/ppm0000456

7. The psychological scaffolding of arithmetic

Grice, M., et al.

In this article in Psychological Review (advance online publication), the authors propose that arithmetic has a biological origin, rather than philosophical, logical, or cognitive basis. This assertion rests on four principles of perceptual organization—monotonicity, convexity, continuity, and isomorphism—that shape how humans and other animals experience the world. According to the authors, these principles exclude all possibilities except the existence of arithmetic. Monotonicity is the idea that things change in the same direction, so that approaching objects appear to expand, while retreating objects appear to shrink. Convexity deals with betweenness, such that the four corners of a soccer pitch define the playing field even without boundary lines connecting them. Continuity describes the smoothness with which objects appear to move in time and space. Isomorphism is the idea of analogy, allowing people to recognize that cats are more similar to dogs than rocks. The authors’ analysis suggests that arithmetic is not necessarily an immutable truth of the universe but rather follows as a natural consequence of our perceptual system. DOI: 10.1037/rev0000431

8. An evaluation of cognitive behavioral therapy for substance use disorders: A systematic review and application of the society of clinical psychology criteria for empirically supported treatments.

Boness C. L., et al.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is an empirically supported treatment for substance use disorder (SUD), is the conclusion of this review in Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice (Vol. 30, No. 2) . The researchers reviewed five meta-analyses of the effect of CBT on SUD, but only one had sufficient quality for inclusion to evaluate the size of the effects of CBT. This meta-analysis found that CBT produced small to moderate effects on SUD when compared with minimal treatment (e.g., waitlist, brief psychoeducation) and nonspecific treatment (e.g., treatment as usual, drug counseling). These effects were smaller in magnitude when compared with other active treatments (e.g., motivational interviewing, contingency management). The effects of CBT on SUD tended to diminish over time (i.e., CBT was most effective at early follow-up of 1 to 6 months posttreatment compared with late follow-up of at least 8 months posttreatment). The researchers recommend CBT to be used as an evidence-based approach to SUD but highlight the need for more research to identify patient characteristics that might moderate response to CBT and the best deployment of CBT (e.g., as a standalone or an adjunct intervention). DOI: 10.1037/cps0000131

9. A network approach to understanding parenting: Linking coparenting, parenting styles, and parental involvement in rearing adolescents in different age groups.

Liu, S., et al.

Mothers’ and fathers’ behaviors that promote a sense of family integrity (i.e., coparenting integrity), warmth, and emotional involvement are central components of the parenting network in two-parent families, according to this study in Developmental Psychology (Vol. 59, No. 4) . Researchers used network analysis to explore different facets of maternal and paternal coparenting (e.g., integrity, conflict), parenting styles (e.g., rejection, warmth), and parental involvement (e.g., emotional support, discipline) in two-parent families in China with a total of 4,852 adolescents at different stages of adolescence. They found that maternal and paternal coparenting integrity, warm parenting style, and emotional involvement were key to the parenting network, as indicated by the central spot they occupied in the network analysis. They also found that the expected influence of these characteristics varied for adolescents in different developmental stages—maternal integrity, warmth, and emotional involvement were important throughout adolescence, but paternal integrity, warmth, and emotional involvement were particularly important in early adolescence. The results suggest that supportive parenting might be a prime target for enhancing parenting systems. DOI: 10.1037/dev0001470

10. Seeking connection, autonomy, and emotional feedback: A self-determination theory of self-regulation in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Champ, R.E., et al.

In this article in Psychological Review (Vol. 130, No. 3) , the authors propose a new framework on the basis of self-determination theory (SDT) for understanding attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and developing treatment approaches. The researchers suggest that using SDT, which proposes that humans have a natural tendency toward growth and self-actualization, supporting intrinsic motivation and self-organization, can offer a new positive understanding of ADHD and its symptoms. This approach counters the negative characterizations of ADHD; moves beyond symptom reduction and the focus on how ADHD presents motivation, engagement, and self-regulation issues; and instead focuses on potential positive aspects of ADHD and well-being. In addition, the framework highlights the need to help individuals with ADHD better understand how they function, tell the difference between biological and individual needs, and develop self-autonomy and self-regulation skills. According to this SDT approach, treatments that are autonomy supportive and increase self-determination could improve the functioning of individuals with ADHD. DOI: 10.1037/rev0000398

PsycArticles is available by subscription to institutions throughout the world. These are the articles published this year that were downloaded most often between January and September 2023.

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