If you're actively submitting manuscripts to top social-personality psychology journals, there's a good chance your paper has crossed -- or will cross -- the desk of a 1980s' U-M Ph.D. recipient. Graduates from that era have served as head or associate editors of journals for 20 years or more. It's just that now, the Maize and Blue influence seems greater than it's been in a long time.
The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, published by the national office of the American Psychological Association, has long been regarded as the top empirical outlet in the field. Since the start of 2017, Shinobu Kitayama has edited JPSP's Attitudes and Social Cognition section (one of three). Shinobu, a one-time office-mate of mine and a 1987 Michigan Ph.D., returned to U-M as a faculty member around 2004, after serving on the faculties of the University of Oregon and Kyoto University (Japan). An interview with Shinobu on his vision for his section appears here.
Chris Crandall is editor of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, the flagship empirical journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. Chris finished his Ph.D. at Michigan the same year as Shinobu and, as a further coincidence, also began his editorship at the outset of 2017. Chris has been on the faculty at the University of Kansas since 1992.
The Society for Personality and Social Psychology also publishes Personality and Social Psychology Review, an outlet for pieces that integrate prior research in a given area and propound new theoretical directions.Who edits PSPR? None other than Monica Biernat, a 1989 U-M Ph.D., who is finishing up the four-year term she began in 2014. Monica has also been on the Kansas faculty since 1992.
Finally, Bill von Hippel, a 1990 Michigan Ph.D. and current faculty member at the University of Queensland in Australia, is an associate editor for Psychological Science, the flagship empirical journal of the Association for Psychological Science.