Ethical Standards

1. Fundamental Principles NOUS: Journal of Theoretical Psychology is a peer-reviewed, open-access platform where theoretical issues in psychology are discussed in an academic style. NOUS adopts the principles of the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI); all content is freely available. Our publication process is based on the "Guidelines on Good Publication Practice" set by COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics).

2. Scope and Language The languages of the journal are Turkish and English. Our scope includes theoretical psychology studies intersecting with philosophy, neuroscience, psychiatry, and cognitive sciences. Empirical research articles based on quantitative datasets are outside the scope of NOUS.

3. Ethical Responsibilities of Authors

  • 3.1. Originality and Plagiarism: Authors guarantee that their submitted works are original. Citations from other sources must be complete and compliant with rules (APA 7).

  • 3.2. Intellectual Property and Conceptual Theft: As a theoretical journal, NOUS has zero tolerance for "theft of ideas." Presenting an original concept, model, or theory developed by someone else as "one's own idea" without citation (even if there is no textual similarity) is considered a severe ethical violation.

  • 3.3. Authorship Rights: Persons who have not made an intellectual contribution to the study cannot be listed as authors (Gift Authorship). Likewise, those who have contributed cannot be excluded (Ghostwriting).

  • 3.4. Translation Ethics: For translated articles, it must be documented that permission has been obtained from the original author and publisher. Intentional translation errors that distort the meaning of the original text are considered ethical violations.

4. Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers

  • 4.1. Confidentiality: Reviewers must treat the manuscript they review as a confidential document. They cannot use ideas from an unpublished manuscript for their own research.

  • 4.2. Conflict of Interest: If they guess the identity of the author and there is a competitive or close relationship, they must inform the editor and withdraw from the review.

  • 4.3. Intellectual Fairness: Evaluation should be based on the internal consistency and argumentative strength of the study, regardless of the theoretical school the author advocates.

5. Ethical Responsibilities of Editors

  • 5.1. Independence: Editors make acceptance or rejection decisions based solely on scientific quality, independent of the author's identity, institution, or political views.

  • 5.2. Double-Blind Review Assurance: Editors are responsible for operating the "Double-Blind Peer Review" process, ensuring that author and reviewer identities remain confidential.

6. Plagiarism Policy NOUS follows a strict policy regarding plagiarism.

  • Submitted works are audited by the editorial board, and when deemed necessary, plagiarism detection software reports (iThenticate, Turnitin, etc.) may be requested from the author.

  • All manuscripts submitted to the journal are screened for plagiarism using iThenticate software before the pre-review and peer-review processes begin. The overall similarity rate (excluding references) must be below 20%. Manuscripts exceeding this limit will be returned to the author and desk-rejected.

  • Articles found to contain plagiarism after publication will be retracted in accordance with COPE guidelines, and the author's institution will be informed.

7. Copyright and Licensing All content published in NOUS is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 International License. Copyright belongs to the author, but the first publication right is transferred to the journal.

8. Fee Policy NOUS does not demand any fees from authors at any stage of submission, evaluation, or publication.