How to Cite Psychology Sources in APA 7
Psychology papers fail citation checks when a correctly formatted journal article sits next to a DSM-5-TR chapter, a test manual, a PsyArXiv file, an APA Dictionary entry, or a textbook summary of Milgram treated as if they were the same object. APA 7th edition cites the work you actually retrieved. This guide follows the *Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association* (7th ed., 2020), the APA Style Common Reference Examples Guide (3 March 2026), the Creating an APA Style Reference List Guide (23 February 2022), and the live Psychological Science submission guidelines (updated 23 June 2026). It is the field workflow for psychology evidence, not a second copy of How to Cite a Journal Article in APA or How to Cite Books in APA.
By CitationEasy Editorial Team24 min read
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Quick Answer: How to Cite Psychology Sources in APA
Name the object in hand, then apply that object's APA 7 template. An empirical report is a journal article (§10.1). A diagnostic code is the DSM-5-TR or ICD-11 edition you opened. A named scale is the manual or the article that published it (§10.11), not the instrument name alone. A PsyArXiv file is a preprint (§10.8) until you switch to the journal of record. A definition from the APA Dictionary is a dictionary entry (§10.3). Open data you reanalyze is a data set (§10.9). The 2017 Ethics Code is a group-author report. In the text, use author–date: (Author, Year) or Author (Year). For three or more authors, write first author + et al. from the first citation; the reference list still names up to 20 authors.
APA 7 psychology templates
Journal article (§10.1):
Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of the article. Title of the Periodical, volume(issue), pages. https://doi.org/xxxxx
Diagnostic manual:
American Psychiatric Association. (Year). Title of the manual (edition). https://doi.org/xxxxx
Test manual (§10.11):
Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of the test: Technical manual. Publisher.
Preprint (§10.8):
Author, A. A. (Year). Title of the preprint. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/xxxxx
Dictionary entry (§10.3):
American Psychological Association. (Year). Term. In APA dictionary of psychology. https://dictionary.apa.org/term
Parenthetical in-text:
(Author, Year) or (Author et al., Year)
APA's own Creating an APA Style Reference List Guide (23 February 2022) states the decision rule before any template:
Official APA Style wording
Creating an APA Style Reference List Guide
Reference formats are based on the document type (e.g., journal article, report), not the retrieval method (e.g., online, in print).
Same handout, on webpages
Even if you retrieved a work online, determine what type of document it is. Only cite a work as a webpage or website if no other category fits.
Same handout, when author equals publisher
When the author and the publisher of a work are the same (as in many reports, books, and websites published by group authors), include the group name in the author element and omit it from the source element.
What This Guide Covers
APA Style exists because the American Psychological Association needed a shared author-date system for psychological science. Undergraduate methods courses, honors theses, and journals such as Psychological Science and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology expect that system. Use this page when the hard part is choosing the object: an empirical report versus a meta-analysis, the DSM-5-TR versus a textbook chapter about it, a test manual versus a PsycTESTS record, a PsyArXiv file versus the later journal version, or a classic study you have not opened. For the journal-article slot itself, including missing issue numbers and retracted-article punctuation, use How to Cite a Journal Article in APA. For authored books and edited chapters, use How to Cite Books in APA. For archived data, use How to Cite Data Sets in APA.
Start With the Evidence Type
Finding a PDF in APA PsycInfo or PubMed does not make the source a webpage or a database citation. Name the work a reader can retrieve.
| What you used | Cite this object | Do not cite |
|---|---|---|
| Empirical journal article | The article (authors, year, journal, volume, issue, pages, DOI) | PsycInfo, Google Scholar, or the PDF filename |
| Narrative review or meta-analysis | The review article you read, or the preprint if that is the only public version | Every primary study the review mentions, unless you also read those studies |
| Textbook summary of a classic experiment | The original article if you can retrieve it; otherwise a secondary citation | The textbook as if you had read Piaget, Milgram, or Bowlby |
| Diagnostic criteria | The DSM-5-TR or ICD-11 edition you opened | A lecture slide or a Quizlet list of criteria |
| A named test or scale | The manual or the article that published the measure | The instrument name alone, or a photocopy of the items |
| A definition from APA Dictionary | The dictionary entry (term, year on the entry, dictionary URL) | A paraphrase of the definition with no reference |
| An ethics standard | The 2017 Ethics Code (and the Standard number in the citation) | A methods-course handout that restates Standard 8.01 |
| Open data you reanalyzed | The archived data set (repository, version, DOI) | Only the paper that first mentioned the file |
Why Psychology Uses Author-Date
Author-date citations put the year next to the claim. In a field that revises diagnostic criteria, retires measures, and publishes replications, 1963 and 2025 are not interchangeable labels. APA 7 in-text citations are parenthetical—(Niepel et al., 2025)—or narrative—Niepel et al. (2025) found…. For three or more authors, APA 7 uses et al. from the first citation. The reference list still names up to 20 authors. Details live in How to Cite Multiple Authors.
The live Psychological Science Submission Guidelines (opened for this rewrite; updated 23 June 2026) require APA 7 for invited revisions and final manuscripts, and they tell authors not to treat the reference list as a reading list:
Official Psychological Science wording (23 June 2026)
Manuscript style
Manuscripts published in Psychological Science must follow the style of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th edition, with respect to handling of the order of manuscript sections, headings and subheadings, references, abbreviations, and symbols.
How many sources to list
Authors are encouraged to cite only the sources that bear on the point directly, and to refrain from extensive parenthetical lists of related materials, keeping in mind that citations are meant to be supportive and not exhaustive.
The same page says that as a general rule, 40 citations should be sufficient for most Research Articles, that invited revisions must follow APA style even if the first upload did not, and that test statistics take two decimal places with exact p values to three decimals when p is greater than .001. That is journal policy on top of APA 7, not a substitute for it. Course papers still follow the syllabus.
Empirical Articles, Reviews, and Meta-Analyses
Most psychology assignments want primary empirical reports: Method, Results, and a DOI you can resolve. The Common Reference Examples Guide (3 March 2026) is the current slot template for §10.1. Its journal-article example is this educational-psychology paper:
Official Common Reference Examples journal article (3 March 2026):
Niepel, C., Hausen, J. E., Weber, A. M., & Möller, J. (2025). Understanding mean-level and intraindividual variability in state academic self-concept: The role of students’ trait expectancies and values. Journal of Educational Psychology, 117(5), 772–788. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000946
In-text (3+ authors, first and later citations):
(Niepel et al., 2025)
Official APA Style website journal example (Psychological Review):
McCauley, S. M., & Christiansen, M. H. (2019). Language learning as language use: A cross-linguistic model of child language development. Psychological Review, 126(1), 1–51. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000126
Parenthetical:
(McCauley & Christiansen, 2019)
Narrative:
McCauley and Christiansen (2019) modeled child language as language use.
Those pairs share the same punctuation: sentence-case article title, italic journal and volume, issue in roman parentheses, en dash in the page range, and a https://doi.org/ link with no period after it. The Creating an APA Style Reference List Guide is explicit: "Do not add a period after the DOI or URL." If you need the DOI itself, see How to Use DOIs or How to Find a DOI.
A meta-analysis is still a journal article in the reference list. What changes is how you talk about it: name the synthesis, not a single experiment inside it, unless you also retrieved that experiment. If the only public version is a preprint, cite the preprint repository—not a journal that has not published it yet.
PsyArXiv and Other Preprints
APA treats a preprint as a work of limited circulation (Publication Manual §10.8). The repository name—PsyArXiv or OSF Preprints—belongs in the source element. The APA Style preprint page is the authority:
Official APA Style wording
APA Style, Preprint article references
Ideally, use and cite the final, published version of a work. However, if you used the preprint version of a work, cite that version, as shown in the examples.
The 3 March 2026 Common Reference Examples Guide uses this PsyArXiv meta-analysis. The same paper later appeared in Educational Psychology Review. Cite the version you read:
Official Common Reference Examples preprint (cite only if this is the file you read):
Latimier, A., Peyre, H., & Ramus, F. (2020). A meta-analytic review of the benefit of spacing out retrieval practice episodes on retention. PsyArXiv. https://psyarxiv.com/kzy7u/
Parenthetical for that preprint:
(Latimier et al., 2020)
Later journal of record (cite this instead once you read the article):
Latimier, A., Peyre, H., & Ramus, F. (2021). A meta-analytic review of the benefit of spacing out retrieval practice episodes on retention. Educational Psychology Review, 33(3), 959–987. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-020-09572-8
Do not keep the PsyArXiv URL after you have switched to the journal of record. The 2020 preprint and the 2021 article are different objects. An older APA Style website example, Hampton, Rabagliati, Sorace, and Fletcher-Watson (2017), is the same kind of trap: the PsyArXiv record and the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research article share a title, but once you read the journal you cite the journal.
Books, Chapters, and the APA Dictionary
Textbooks are secondary sources for experiments and acceptable primary sources for the textbook author's own framework. The 3 March 2026 Common Reference Examples Guide replaced the older Brown / Aron pair with these current APA Books examples:
Official Common Reference Examples authored book (§10.2):
Levenson, H., Jinich, S., Vaz, A., & Rousmaniere, T. (2025). Deliberate practice in emotionally focused couple therapy. American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000436-000
Official Common Reference Examples edited chapter (§10.3):
Zeleke, W. A., Hughes, T. L., & Drozda, N. (2020). Home–school collaboration to promote mind–body health. In C. Maykel & M. A. Bray (Eds.), Promoting mind–body health in schools: Interventions for mental health professionals (pp. 11–26). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000157-002
Official Common Reference Examples dictionary entry (§10.3):
American Psychological Association. (2018). Internet addiction. In APA dictionary of psychology. https://dictionary.apa.org/internet-addiction
Chapter entries name the chapter authors first, then the editors, the italic book title, and the chapter page span. They do not use "et al." in the reference until the author count hits APA's 21-author cutoff. The dictionary entry uses the year on the entry you opened, not a website-footer copyright. Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow is a real book you may assign, but it is not a journal article and it is not a substitute for the papers it narrates. For the book slot itself, see How to Cite Books in APA.
DSM-5-TR and ICD-11
Clinical and abnormal-psychology papers cite the edition on the desk. The current American Psychiatric Association text revision is the 2022 DSM-5-TR, not the 2013 DSM-5, unless you are writing about the 2013 criteria on purpose. The APA Style diagnostic-manual page is the authority:
Official APA Style wording
APA Style, Diagnostic manual references
References for diagnostic manuals follow the format for books, and references for entries in diagnostic manuals follow the format for edited book chapters.
Official APA DSM-5-TR reference:
American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed., text rev.). https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425787
Official APA DSM-5 reference (2013 edition):
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425596
Official APA DSM-5 chapter/entry:
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Anxiety disorders. In Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425596.dsm05
DSM-5-TR chapter (same edited-chapter pattern, 2022 edition):
American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Anxiety disorders. In Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed., text rev.). https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425787
Official APA ICD-11 reference:
World Health Organization. (2019). International statistical classification of diseases and related health problems (11th ed.). https://icd.who.int/
Because the author and publisher are the same, APA omits a second "American Psychiatric Association" after the title. Provide the DOI when the edition has one. On first mention in the text, name the italic title, the edition, the abbreviation, and the citation; after that, DSM-5-TR or (American Psychiatric Association, 2022) is enough. A typical first mention looks like this: the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed., text rev.; DSM-5-TR; American Psychiatric Association, 2022).
Tests, Scales, and Inventories
Section 10.11 of the Publication Manual tells you to cite the supporting literature—the manual or the journal article that published the measure—not the bare instrument name. University copies of that section state the rule in one sentence:
Official APA Style wording (Publication Manual §10.11)
Tests, scales, and inventories
To cite a test, scale, or inventory, provide a citation for its supporting literature (e.g., its manual, which may be an authored or edited book, or the journal article in which it was published).
Test titles in the paper
Although the test title may be italicized in a reference (e.g., in the name of a manual or when the test itself is cited), in the text, the title of a test should appear in title case in standard (nonitalic) type.
Write Beck Depression Inventory–II, not Beck Depression Inventory–II, in the paper. Italicize the title only in the reference for the manual. The Publication Manual's own test-manual example is the MMPI-2-RF:
Official APA test-manual example:
Tellegen, A., & Ben-Porath, Y. S. (2011). Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2 Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF): Technical manual. Pearson.
First mention in the text:
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2 Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF; Tellegen & Ben-Porath, 2011)
Later mentions:
MMPI-2-RF scores…
Official APA example when you cite the test itself (no manual):
Project Implicit. (n.d.). Gender-Science IAT. https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html
Official APA PsycTESTS database record:
Alonso-Tapia, J., Nieto, C., Merino-Tejedor, E., Huertas, J. A., & Ruiz, M. (2018). Situated Goals Questionnaire for University Students (SGQ-U, CMS-U) [Database record]. PsycTESTS. https://doi.org/10.1037/t66267-000
Cite the test itself only when no manual or publication article is available. Cite an APA PsycTests record only when you used that record's administrative or descriptive fields. Reproducing copyrighted items in an appendix still requires the publisher's permission; a reference list entry is not a license. If your lab now administers the later MMPI-3, cite the MMPI-3 manual you opened—do not reuse the 2011 MMPI-2-RF reference as a stand-in.
The APA Ethics Code
Methods and clinical papers often need a standard, not a journal article. APA Style treats ethics codes as reports. When the author and publisher are the same organization, omit the publisher. The current Code is the 2002 text as amended in 2010 and 2017:
Official APA Ethics Code reference:
American Psychological Association. (2017). Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct (2002, amended effective June 1, 2010, and January 1, 2017). https://www.apa.org/ethics/code
Parenthetical, whole code:
(American Psychological Association, 2017)
Parenthetical, one standard:
(American Psychological Association, 2017, Standard 8.11)
Quote a standard by its number instead of a page: Standard 3.04, Standard 8.01, Standard 8.11. After you introduce the group author, later citations can use the abbreviation APA only if you established it: American Psychological Association (APA, 2017). Do not cite a lecture slide that restates informed-consent language as if it were the Code.
Open Data and Archived Data Sets
If you reanalyze a public file, cite the data set (Publication Manual §10.9). If you only discuss findings as the original authors reported them, cite their article. The APA Style data-set page and the 3 March 2026 Common Reference Examples Guide both use a psychology-textbook content analysis in ICPSR:
Official APA data-set example:
O’Donohue, W. (2017). Content analysis of undergraduate psychology textbooks (ICPSR 36966; Version V1) [Data set]. ICPSR. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR36966.v1
Parenthetical:
(O’Donohue, 2017)
Italicize the data-set title, then put the repository number and version in roman parentheses. The bracketed description can be "Data set" or "Data set and code book." The year is the version you downloaded, not the year the original study ran. The 3 March 2026 handout types the archive name in full as Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research; either that expansion or ICPSR is acceptable if it matches the record you retrieved. For the full data-set template, including government files, see How to Cite Data Sets in APA.
Classic Studies and Secondary Citations
APA Style is explicit about textbook summaries of Piaget, Milgram, or Bowlby. The APA Style secondary-sources page puts the rule in two sentences:
Official APA Style wording
APA Style, Secondary sources
Cite secondary sources sparingly—for instance, when the original work is out of print, unavailable, or available only in a language that you do not understand.
Same page, on scholarly practice
If possible, as a matter of good scholarly practice, find the primary source, read it, and cite it directly rather than citing a secondary source.
When you cannot get the original, name it in the sentence and put the source you did read after "as cited in." Only the source you read appears in the reference list. APA's own example is (Rabbitt, 1982, as cited in Lyon et al., 2014). If the original year is unknown, drop it: Allport's diary (as cited in Nicholson, 2003).
Primary source you retrieved (classic article):
Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67(4), 371–378. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0040525
In-text when you read Milgram:
(Milgram, 1963) or Milgram (1963) found…
Official APA secondary-citation form:
(Rabbitt, 1982, as cited in Lyon et al., 2014)
Do not list Milgram in References if you have not opened the 1963 article. Do not list Rabbitt if you have not opened Rabbitt. The Creating an APA Style Reference List Guide adds a second retrieval rule: "If you read a work while doing your literature search but did not end up citing it in the text of your paper, do not include it in the reference list." The reference list is a record of what the paper uses, not a reading list of famous names. For the broader primary-versus-secondary distinction, see Primary vs Secondary Sources.
Retracted Psychology Articles
Psychology has a documented retraction literature. If you discuss a retracted paper—because you are writing about the Stapel case, a failed replication, or a methods error—APA 7 still wants the original publication details, then the retraction in parentheses. The official APA Style journal-article examples use this Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin article:
Official APA Style wording
APA Style, Retracted journal article
Use this format to cite the retracted article itself, for example, to discuss the contents of the retracted article.
Same page, on the parentheses
First provide publication details of the original article. Then provide information about the retraction in parentheses, including its year, journal, volume, issue, and page number(s).
Official APA retracted-article example:
Joly, J. F., Stapel, D. A., & Lindenberg, S. M. (2008). Silence and table manners: When environments activate norms. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34(8), 1047–1056. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167208318401 (Retraction published 2012, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38[10], 1378)
Parenthetical:
(Joly et al., 2008)
Cite the separate retraction notice only when you are writing about the notice itself (who retracted the paper, and why). Do not silently drop a retracted finding into your literature review as if it were current evidence. The journal-article guide walks through the companion retraction-notice form: How to Cite a Journal Article in APA.
Software, SPSS, and R
APA 7 does not put standard analysis tools in the reference list. Publication Manual §8.22 and §10.10 treat common software the way they treat a general mention of a website:
Official APA Style wording
Publication Manual §8.22
Common software and mobile apps are treated in a similar manner; in most cases, it is sufficient to mention the name of the program or app and the version used (if known) in the text, without providing an in-text citation or reference list entry (see Section 10.10).
Name the product and version in the Method from the splash screen or Help → About—do not guess a current build number. The same rule covers Excel, SAS, Qualtrics, and jamovi when you only used them to run analyses. Cite specialized or uncommon software that readers could not be expected to know, using the computer-software template (Publication Manual p. 339). Psychological Science separately requires a Research Transparency Statement with persistent identifiers for shared data, materials, and analysis scripts; that is a sharing rule, not a reason to add SPSS to References.
In the Method (no reference list entry; replace the version with yours):
Analyses were conducted in IBM SPSS Statistics (Version 29) and R (Version 4.4.1).
Official APA specialized-software example:
Borenstein, M., Hedges, L., Higgins, J., & Rothstein, H. (2014). Comprehensive meta-analysis (Version 3.3.070) [Computer software]. Biostat. https://www.meta-analysis.com/
If a software manual is what you quoted, cite the manual as a book. If an AI tool drafted text or code, that is a different object: see How to Cite ChatGPT and AI Tools.
What Never Belongs in the Reference List
The APA Style database-information page is the reason a PsycInfo hit is not a reference-list element:
Official APA Style wording
APA Style, Database information in references
Do not include database information for works obtained from most academic research databases or platforms because works in these resources are widely available.
Creating an APA Style Reference List Guide, unread sources
If you read a work while doing your literature search but did not end up citing it in the text of your paper, do not include it in the reference list.
- The database you searched. Omit PsycInfo, Academic Search, Google Scholar, and similar research databases when the article has a DOI or other wide circulation.
- Personal communications. Supervisor emails, unpublished lab notes, and conversations are cited in the text only: (J. R. Smith, personal communication, March 4, 2026). They have no reference entry because a reader cannot retrieve them. See How to Cite Personal Communications.
- Sources you did not read. A name that appears only inside another paper is a secondary citation or a lead to find the original—not a reference-list row.
- Lecture slides that only restate a published article. Cite the article. Cite the slides only when the unpublished teaching material is itself the source.
Paraphrase First, Then Quote
Psychology writing prefers paraphrase. The APA Style paraphrases page says so directly:
Official APA Style wording
APA Style, Paraphrases
Published authors paraphrase their sources most of the time, rather than directly quoting the sources; student authors should emulate this practice by paraphrasing more than directly quoting.
Reserve quotation marks for a definition, a scale item you have permission to reproduce, or wording you are analyzing. A paraphrase still needs an author-date citation. Page numbers are required for quotations—(Milgram, 1963, p. 376)—and optional but useful for long books. If a paraphrase runs for several sentences, cite on first mention and again when the source would otherwise become unclear. Full guidance: Paraphrasing vs. Quoting.
Reporting Standards Are Not Citations
APA Style Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS) tell you what to report in Method and Results—sample, measures, missing data, qualitative procedures—not how to punctuate a reference. Use JARS–Quant for numerical studies, JARS–Qual for language-based studies, and JARS–Mixed when you combine both. They sit in Chapter 3 of the Publication Manual. If a methods course asks you to "cite JARS," cite the standards page or the task-force paper you actually read, not a lecture slide that mentions the acronym. Psychological Science adds its own Research Transparency Statement between the Introduction and Method; that statement is manuscript policy, not an extra reference-list row unless you quote a published JARS paper.
Common Psychology Citation Mistakes
- Calling a book a journal article. Dweck's Mindset is a trade book. It does not take a volume, issue, or journal title.
- Citing DSM-5 (2013) when you used DSM-5-TR (2022). The text revision is a different edition with its own DOI.
- Putting et al. in the reference list for a four-author article. Niepel et al. is an in-text form. The reference lists all four names.
- Adding PsycInfo or "Retrieved from" to a DOI article. The DOI is the retrieval element.
- Listing a classic study you met only in a textbook. Use the original or an "as cited in" construction.
- Italicizing the Beck Depression Inventory–II in the paper. Title case, roman type, unless you are citing the manual title in References.
- Putting a period after a DOI. APA leaves
https://doi.org/…unpunctuated. - Citing SPSS in the reference list. Name the version in the Method instead.
- Keeping a PsyArXiv URL after you read the journal version. Cite the version you used, as with Latimier 2020 versus Latimier 2021.
- Treating a retracted Stapel paper as current evidence. Keep the official retraction parenthesis if you must discuss the article.
Official Sources Worth Bookmarking
- APA Style Common Reference Examples Guide (3 March 2026) — Niepel, Levenson, Zeleke, Latimier, APA Dictionary, O’Donohue
- Creating an APA Style Reference List Guide (23 February 2022) — document type, author-equals-publisher, no period after the DOI
- APA Style reference examples — journal articles, books, chapters, data, software, and tests
- Diagnostic manual references — every DSM edition plus ICD
- Preprint article references — PsyArXiv and PubMed Central
- Secondary sources — the "as cited in" rule
- Paraphrases — when to quote in psychology papers
- Data set references — ICPSR and other archives
- Database information in references — why PsycInfo is not a source element
- Psychological Science submission guidelines — APA 7 plus the 40-citation Research Article note (23 June 2026)
- APA Style JARS — what to report in Method and Results
- APA Ethics Code — the 2017 amended text
- APA PsycInfo — the discipline database; still not a reference-list element
Frequently Asked Questions
- Do psychology students have to use APA 7th edition?
- Almost always. APA Style is the house style of the American Psychological Association and the default for psychology courses, theses, and most psychology journals. Psychological Science (guidelines updated 23 June 2026) requires APA 7 for invited revisions and final manuscripts. Use a different style only when a syllabus, advisor, or target journal names one. For the discipline-level choice, see When to Use APA Style.
- How do I cite the DSM-5-TR in APA?
- Cite the 2022 text revision as American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed., text rev.). https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425787. Omit a publisher name because it repeats the author. On first mention, introduce the italic title, the edition, the abbreviation DSM-5-TR, and the citation. A chapter uses the edited-book-chapter pattern with the same year and DOI.
- Do I cite PsycInfo or the journal article?
- Cite the article. APA reference formats follow the document type, not the database. If the article has a DOI, end the reference with https://doi.org/… and leave PsycInfo, PubMed, and Google Scholar out of the entry.
- How do I cite a psychological test such as the MMPI-2-RF or BDI-II?
- Cite the manual or the article that published the measure (Publication Manual §10.11). In the paper, write the test name in title case without italics and give the abbreviation on first use: Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory–2 Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF; Tellegen & Ben-Porath, 2011). Cite a PsycTESTS record only when you used that record’s unique information. If you administered the MMPI-3, cite that manual instead.
- When should I write "as cited in" for a classic psychology study?
- Only when you cannot retrieve the original. APA Style tells you to cite secondary sources sparingly. If you read Milgram (1963), cite Milgram. If you only read a later textbook that discusses Milgram, write (Milgram, 1963, as cited in …) and put the textbook—not Milgram—in the reference list.
- How do I cite a PsyArXiv preprint in APA 7?
- Treat it as a preprint, not as a journal article and not as an unpublished manuscript. Name the authors, year, sentence-case title, the repository (PsyArXiv), and the URL or DOI, as in the official Latimier, Peyre, and Ramus (2020) example at https://psyarxiv.com/kzy7u/. If you later use the published journal version—here, Latimier et al. (2021) in Educational Psychology Review—switch the reference to that version.
- How do I cite the APA Ethics Code?
- Cite the 2017 amended Code as a group-author report: American Psychological Association. (2017). Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct (2002, amended effective June 1, 2010, and January 1, 2017). https://www.apa.org/ethics/code. Point to a standard by number: (American Psychological Association, 2017, Standard 8.11).
- Do I need a reference list entry for SPSS or R?
- No, not when you only used a standard program to analyze data. Name the product and version in the Method from the copy you actually ran. Add a reference only for specialized or uncommon software, or when you quoted a software manual. Sharing an analysis script on OSF is a transparency step; it does not turn SPSS into a reference-list item.
- Should psychology papers quote or paraphrase?
- Paraphrase. APA Style says published authors paraphrase most of the time and that students should do the same. Quote a definition, a scale item you have permission to reproduce, or wording under analysis. Every paraphrase still needs an author-date citation.
- How do I cite a retracted psychology article?
- Give the original article, then add the retraction in parentheses, as in the official Joly, Stapel, and Lindenberg (2008) Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin example (retraction published 2012, volume 38, issue 10, page 1378). Cite the retraction notice separately only when you are writing about the notice. Do not present the finding as current evidence.
Generate APA citations for psychology papers
Build the journal-article, book, and in-text forms after you have identified the object. The generators follow APA 7 author-date rules; they cannot tell a DSM entry from a PsycInfo hit until you can.