APA 7 Style

References

Your reference list should begin on a new page, after the main text, with the word "References" bold and centered.
Note: this is a difference from previous versions of APA style.

Subsequently, you should list all sources cited in your article sorted (1) alphabetically by author names, and then (2) by publication year (ascending), and finally (3) alphabetically by title. If you have any articles with the same authors in the same year (e.g., Hudson & Fraley published two articles in 2016), then make sure to disambiguate them in your reference list with letters behind the year (e.g., 2016a and 2016b).

All entries in your reference list should have a half inch hanging indent. This means that the first line of each reference is flush left. However, if the reference overflows across multiple lines, all subsequent lines should be indented one half inch.

Your reference list must contain all sources cited in your manuscript. It should not contain any additional entries that are not cited in your manuscript.

Helpful hint: You can use a reference manager, such as Zotero, to automatically manage your in-text citations and reference list.
Reference Formats
A typical journal article reference is formatted as:
Lastname, F. M., & Lastname2, F. M. (2024). Article title. Journal Title, Vol.(Iss.), pages. https://doi.org/DOI
Hudson, N. W., & Fraley, R. C. (2015). Volitional personality trait change: Can people choose to change their personality traits? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 109(3), 490-507. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000021


A typical book chapter is formatted as:
Lastname, F. M., & Lastname2, F. M. (2024). Chapter title. In F. M. Lastname3, & F. M. Lastname4 (Eds.), Book title (pp. pages). Publisher. https://doi.org/DOI
Hudson, N. W., & Fraley, R. C. (2017). Volitional personality change. In J. Specht (Ed.), Personality development across the lifespan (pp. 555-571). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-804674-6.00033-8


For information on citing other types of sources, please refer to the APA official style guideline website.
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References

Augustine, A. A., Larsen, R. J., & Elliot, A. J. (2013). Affect is greater than, not equal to, condition: Condition and person effects in affective priming paradigms: the components of affective priming. Journal of Personality, 81(4), 355–364. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12024

Bleidorn, W., & Peters, A.-L. (2011). A multilevel multitrait-multimethod analysis of self- and peer-reported daily affective experiences. European Journal of Personality, 25(5), 398–408. https://doi.org./10.1002/per.804

Hudson, N. W., & Fraley, R. C. (2016a). Changing for the better? Longitudinal associations between volitional change and psychological well-being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 42(5), 603–615. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167216637840

Hudson, N. W., & Fraley, R. C. (2016b). Do people’s desires to change their personality traits vary with age? An examination of trait change goals across adulthood. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 7(8), 847–856. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550616657598

Idler, E. L., & Benyamini, Y. (1997). Self-Rated Health and Mortality: A Review of Twenty-Seven Community Studies. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 38(1), 21. https://doi.org/10.2307/2955359

In-Text Citations

You should always cite any ideas that are (1) not your own, original thoughts, and (2) not general knowledge.
Citation Basics
In APA7, citations are only for helping people to find the appropriate reference in your Reference list. Thus, you should always collapse all citations unless disambiguation is needed. For papers with two authors (e.g., Cam & Ben, 2001), always list both authors. For papers with three or more authors (e.g., Cam, Ben, & John, 2006), always use the et al. abbreviation (e.g., Cam et al., 2006)—even on the first citation—unless disambiguation is needed.
Disambiguating Citations
Sometimes the same authors have written multiple articles in the same year. For example, maybe you want to cite Alex, Ben, and Cam (2006) as well as Alex, Cam, and Ben (2006). "Alex et al. (2006)" would be ambiguous. So, you should cite the papers as Alex, Ben, et al. (2006) and Alex, Cam, et al. (2006), respectively, in order to avoid ambiguity.

But what if the author list is identical and in the same order across two papers written in the same year? In this case, you will need to use letters to disambiguate the papers. For example, if Yeti and Sherman wrote two papers in 1984 and you are citing both, you will need to cite Yeti and Sherman (1984a) and Yeti and Sherman (1984b). The paper with the title that comes first alphabetically will be 1984a and the other will be 1984b. Make sure your reference list also has the letters included!
Citing Multiple Articles at Once
When you want to cite multiple articles at once, you should list the cited sources alphabetically by the authors' names. For example, if you wanted to cite Daniels and Edwards (2003) and Markus and Calm (1934) at the same time, you would list Daniels and Edwards first (because "Daniels" comes before "Markus" alphabetically). When citing multiple sources at once, use semicolons to separate them (e.g., Daniels & Edwards, 2003; Markus & Calm, 1934).
Note: Sometimes you have to use multiple authors' names to sort the citations alphabetically. For example, Daniels & Kim comes before Daniels & Zachary. Similarly, Alex, Ben, & Cam comes before Alex, Ben, & Daniels.

When the exact same authors (in the exact same order) have written multiple papers, if you want to cite both papers at the same time, you only need to list the authors' names once. For example, imagine that Smith and Douglas have written two papers: one in 1999 and one in 2002. You can cite both papers at once as (Smith & Douglas, 1999; 2002). When the list of authors is identical, you sort the papers by publication year (e.g., 1999 comes before 2002).

Helpful hint: You can use a reference manager, such as Zotero, to automatically manage your in-text citations and reference list.
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You should always cite sources. Unless there are only two authors or disambiguation is needed, always collapse all authors except the first author by using the et al. abbreviation (e.g., James et al., 2008).

Sometimes you will encounter a source with many authors. Unless disambiguation is needed, collapse the citation from the very first time you cite it. For example, imagine that Jackson and three colleagues wrote an article in 1998. Even if you are citing them for the first time, you would still use the et al. abbreviation (e.g., Jackson et al., 1998).

Sometimes the same authors have written multiple papers in the same year. Imagine that you want to cite both Albert, Benjamin, Cox, and Daniels (2001) and Albert, Daniels, Cox, and Benjamin (2001). You can cite the first paper as (Albert, Benjamin, et al., 2001) and the second paper as (Albert, Daniels, et al., 2001) to disambiguate them. But what if the author list is exactly the same across two papers? For example, what if James and Taylor wrote two papers in 1987, and you want to cite both of them? You'll cite one paper as (James & Taylor, 1987a) and the other as (James & Taylor, 1987b) to disambiguate them (the paper with the alphabetically first title will be 1987a and the other one will be 1987b).

It is often useful to cite multiple papers for the same sentence. If you do so, the citations should always be listed alphabetically by the authors' names (e.g., Benjamin et al., 2004; Cox et al., 1984; Yellow et al., 2011).

Finally, if the exact same authors (in the exact same order) have written multiple papers, there is a shorthand notation. For example, you can cite Yip & Hallow (2001a, 2001b) and Yip & Hallow (2011) as (Yip & Hallow, 2001a, 2001b, 2011).

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