Aims and scope

The International Journal of Applied Positive Psychology (IAPP) is a peer-reviewed journal devoted to promoting and integrating evidence into practice from the scientific field of positive psychology. The knowledge stemming from positive psychology can be applied across the lifespan in contexts such as health care, education, working life, communities and societies, and social relationships. The journal emphasizes the scientific understanding of flourishing and well-being and the theoretical and practical conditions that relate to and enhance well-being and flourishing.

We welcome studies that are conducted and reported according to well-accepted guidelines in the research community, such as the CONSORT statement (randomized controlled trials), the PRISMA statement (systematic reviews and meta-analyses), STROBE (observational studies), SRQR (qualitative research), and CARE (case reports). The journal strongly encourages open science practices and research transparency, including making the data, materials, and syntaxes underlying research available.  To prevent publication bias, we encourage the authors to preregister their study before execution, for example in http://www.controlled-trials.com/ or via the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/). At OSF researchers can register their research design and analysis plan (by ‘freezing’ the page, this page cannot be changed). The IAPP welcomes well-powered replication studies and reports of null findings.


Example topics for publication in the International Journal of Applied Positive Psychology include:
· Randomized controlled trials of positive psychological interventions (PPIs) that go beyond  common applications for psychology students or in laboratory settings (e.g. for chronically diseased groups, elderly, disabled youth, various cultural settings et cetera), and look beyond the overall effects of an intervention (dismantling designs, preference-based trials, adherence studies, moderation and mediation effects)
· Development and evaluation of innovation within PPIs or their implementation strategies, including the use of technology, social media and social innovation
· Pilot studies with process evaluation (using both quantitative as qualitative methods) to evaluate conditions for successful implementation of PPIs
· Large-scale implementation studies to evaluate the systematic implementation of a PPI that was already established to be effective
· Assessment of implementation methods. Scientific study of methods that promote the uptake of research findings from the field of positive psychology into educational, organizational, clinical, community or policy contexts
· Assessment of individual differences in variables of positive psychology (e.g., evaluation of measures by means of psychometric properties and measurement invariance analyses)
· Testing and evaluating associations between (potential) predictors of well-being with external variables to enhance the knowledge of the nomological net of flourishing and well-being
· How to imbed research findings from positive psychology into guidelines and clinical protocols
· To describe and evaluate the (participatory) process of development of a positive psychological intervention, implementation instrument, or policy paper
· Research that connects fundamental positive psychological concepts (such as well-being, flourishing, resilience, strengths, hope, optimism, positive health, et cetera) to certain target / patient groups or settings
· Theoretical and ethical questions that arise in the application of positive psychology research
· Meta-analyses and/or systematic reviews of the above-mentioned types of studies