About Advances in Motivation Science

Advances in Motivation Science

Advances in Motivation Science is an Elsevier book series — a serial of edited volumes in psychology — and not a journal. The JournalsWorld record gives its ISSNs as 2215-0927 and 2215-0919 and its publisher as Elsevier Ltd. Those two ISSNs are the electronic and print identifiers of a continuing series in which each volume is also a separately ISBN-identified book, published in hardcover and electronic form and hosted on Elsevier's platforms. The series editor from its foundation is Andrew J. Elliot, the psychologist known for work on achievement motivation, whose name appears as editor on the volumes from Volume 1 onwards.

The publisher launched the series with a clear claim about the field. Motivation, Elsevier's series description observes, had been a mainstay of the science of psychology, central to early dynamic and Gestalt models of the mind and fundamental to behaviourist theories of learning and action; the cognitive revolution of the 1960s and 1970s then eclipsed the emphasis on motivation for a period, but in the two decades before the series launched, motivation returned in force, until motivational analyses of affect, cognition, and behaviour became ubiquitous across psychological literatures and disciplines. The series was created to give that revived field a dedicated home for long-form synthesis: internationally recognised experts, writing cutting-edge theoretical and empirical contributions, with an overview of important research programmes and special attention to directions for future research.

That positioning explains the audience and the format. Each volume gathers a set of substantial chapters — research programme reviews, theoretical statements, and agenda-setting analyses — rather than short empirical reports. A reader who wants the current state of self-determination theory, achievement goal theory, motivated emotion regulation, or the motivational neuroscience of the anterior midcingulate cortex turns to a series like this one precisely because its chapters are written to define a programme, not merely to report a study.

Foundation and editorial identity

The series began with Volume 1, edited by Andrew J. Elliot and published by Elsevier in the mid-2010s; Volume 3 followed with ISBN 9780128047408, Volume 4 with ISBN 9780128121740 and a publication date in May 2017 in bookseller records, and the run had reached Volume 6 by the end of the decade, with later volumes continuing the sequence. The regular appearance of numbered volumes within a few years of launch shows the cadence of an annual or near-annual serial in its founding period, though, as with all book series, the schedule is set by the publisher and editor rather than by a journal-style calendar, and later cadence should be checked on the publisher's series page.

Elliot's editorship is itself a fact of scholarly significance. As a leading researcher on approach and avoidance motivation and achievement goals, he edits the series from inside its subject matter, and the volumes reflect that insider stewardship: contributors are drawn from the senior figures of motivation science, and chapters frequently take the form of a laboratory or research tradition presenting its programme as a whole. Volume 6's contents, as listed by the publisher's distribution partners, included a chapter on motivation, emotion, cognition, and communication toward a grand theory; a chapter on motivation in the service of allostasis and the role of the anterior midcingulate cortex; work on climatic ignition of motivation; a personal scholarly journey to the attribution fields; inspiration treated as optimal motivation, from ancient theory to contemporary science; and a chapter on the development of self-determination theory and the emergence and validation of its six mini-theories. A contents list of that kind is a map of the field written by its protagonists.

Volume 4's listed contents show the same pattern from a different angle: self-regulatory functions supporting motivated action; motivating personality, covering approach, avoidance, and their conflict; incentives and pay for performance in the workplace; culture and motivation through a socio-ecological approach; the evolving understanding of physical activity behaviour through a multi-process action control approach; and motivated emotion regulation — its principles, lessons, and implications. Between them, Volumes 4 and 6 span personality, organisational behaviour, cultural psychology, health behaviour, emotion, and neuroscience, which is exactly the interdisciplinary reach the series description promises.

Scope and subject coverage

The scope is motivation science as a whole. In the publisher's framing, motivation is a foundational issue in scientific psychology, not a passing topic, and motivational analysis now runs through affect, cognition, and behaviour across the discipline. Chapters therefore address the major theoretical traditions — self-determination theory, achievement goal and attribution traditions, approach-avoidance frameworks, expectancy and value models — alongside the biological bases of motivation, its development, its cultural shaping, its role in education, work, sport, and health behaviour, and its dysregulation.

The series' distinctive contribution is the research programme chapter. Where a journal article reports one or two studies, a chapter here reconstructs a programme: the originating questions, the sequence of findings, the revisions a theory underwent, and the open problems the programme's leaders themselves identify. The self-determination theory chapter in Volume 6 is the clearest example, presenting the emergence and validation of that theory's six mini-theories as a single developmental story, told for the series. For a doctoral student or a researcher entering from a neighbouring field, such chapters compress years of journal literature into one authoritative account.

The series also gives space to integrative and forward-looking work that journals handle awkwardly: grand-theory proposals that connect motivation with emotion, cognition, and communication; historical and autobiographical accounts of how a research field formed, such as the journey to the attribution fields; and treatments that reach from ancient theory to contemporary laboratory science, as in the inspiration chapter. This willingness to publish synthesis, history, and theory alongside empirical programme reviews is what distinguishes a book series of this kind from both journals and handbooks.

Bibliographic identity, format and access

The series ISSNs are 2215-0927 and 2215-0919, as shown on this record. Individual volumes carry ISBNs — Volume 3 is ISBN 9780128047408 in its hardcover edition, and Volume 4 is ISBN 9780128121740 — and are issued as hardcover books of roughly 260 pages or more, with electronic editions distributed through Elsevier channels and major academic book platforms. Citation should give chapter author and title, the series title, the volume number, the editor Andrew J. Elliot, the publisher Elsevier (Academic Press imprint for the book programme), the year, and pages, with the series ISSN or volume ISBN as the catalogue requires.

The publisher named on the JournalsWorld record is Elsevier Ltd, and bookseller and platform records name Elsevier and its science and technology books operation as publisher of individual volumes. There is no contradiction to resolve here beyond imprint practice: Elsevier publishes the series, and its volumes appear under Elsevier's academic book programme. What the series is not is equally important: it has no journal impact factor, no article submission portal, and no article processing charge of the journal kind. It appears in journal directories, including this one, because its ISSN makes it a continuing serial that libraries and indexers track alongside journals.

Indexing for book series of this type is through book and chapter records in scholarly platforms and library catalogues, and through the citation indexes' book series coverage where applicable. No Scopus quartile or journal ranking applies to a book series in the journal sense, and none is claimed in this profile; any listing that presents this title with a journal quartile has misclassified it, and readers should rely instead on the standing of its editor, contributors, and publisher.

Contributions, readership and use

Contributions are commissioned or proposal-based. The editor identifies the programmes and themes a volume needs, invites recognised experts, and shapes multi-author volumes that balance theoretical traditions and application areas, as the contents of Volumes 4 and 6 demonstrate. Official public author guidance of the journal type — a standing instructions page with submission deadlines, word limits for unsolicited manuscripts, and fee schedules — could not be verified for this series, because that is not how it operates; a scholar who believes a research programme is ready for this treatment should approach the series editor with a proposal. Specific production requirements are then supplied by Elsevier for accepted chapters. Details beyond that model are not publicly disclosed in the sources consulted, and none are invented here.

The readership is researchers and postgraduates in psychology and neighbouring fields — education, organisational behaviour, health psychology, sport and exercise science, and cognitive and affective neuroscience — together with the libraries that maintain standing orders for Elsevier's Advances series family, of which this title is the motivation science member. The volumes are used as orientation reading for new research students, as citation anchors for theoretical claims, and as teaching material for advanced seminars, where a single chapter can structure a week's discussion of a theoretical tradition.

Frequently asked questions complete the record. Is Advances in Motivation Science a journal? No; it is an Elsevier book series of edited volumes. What are its ISSNs? 2215-0927 and 2215-0919. Who edits it? Andrew J. Elliot. Who publishes it? Elsevier Ltd, through its academic book programme. When did it begin? With Volume 1 in the mid-2010s; Volume 4 appeared in 2017 and Volume 6 by the end of that decade. What does it publish? Commissioned chapters presenting cutting-edge theoretical and empirical contributions, overviews of major research programmes such as self-determination theory, and directions for future research in motivation science. How are fees handled? It is a book series sold in print and electronic form; no journal article processing charge applies, and no such charge could be verified in official listings.

The Advances family and this series' place in it

Elsevier publishes a well-known family of Advances serials across the sciences, in which each title pairs the word Advances with a field and delivers edited, invitation-led volumes of programme-length reviews. Advances in Motivation Science is the psychology member of that family devoted to motivation, launched, in the publisher's words, as a brand new serial at a moment when the field it serves had returned to the centre of the discipline. Understanding the family model explains most of the series' features that puzzle journal-oriented readers: the hardcover volumes with their own ISBNs, the editor-led commissioning, the absence of a submission portal, and the presence of a continuing ISSN that lets libraries subscribe to the series as they would to a journal.

Within psychology, the series occupies the space between the Annual Review style of single-author synthesis and the edited handbook. A handbook chapter aims at settled coverage of a topic for reference. A chapter in this series aims at movement: it presents a research programme while it is still developing, states its theoretical commitments plainly, and closes by naming directions for future research — one of the three promises the publisher repeats in every volume description, alongside presenting new research on the field and providing a timely overview of important research programmes conducted by the most respected scholars in psychology. That forward tilt is why the volumes are bought by active researchers rather than only by libraries.

Themes across the volumes

Reading the documented contents of Volumes 4 and 6 together gives a reliable picture of the series' thematic range. From Volume 4: self-regulation in motivated action, which connects goal pursuit to the control processes that keep behaviour on track; personality approached through approach, avoidance, and their conflict, which is close to the editor's own research programme; incentives and pay for performance, which carries motivation science into organisational economics and management practice; culture and motivation through a socio-ecological lens, which resists treating motivational processes as culture-free; physical activity behaviour through a multi-process action control approach, which serves health psychology; and motivated emotion regulation, which treats the control of emotion itself as a motivated act. From Volume 6: the search for a grand theory joining motivation, emotion, cognition, and communication; allostasis and the anterior midcingulate cortex, anchoring motivation in brain systems for effort and persistence; climate as an igniter of motivation; the attribution tradition told as a scholar's journey; inspiration as optimal motivation, traced from ancient theory to contemporary experiments; and the self-determination theory programme presented through its six mini-theories.

Three observations follow. First, the series is theoretically plural: self-determination theory, attribution theory, approach-avoidance frameworks, and action control models are given room side by side rather than being forced into one school. Second, it is methodologically plural in the same way, moving from neuroscience to workplace field research to cultural analysis without treating any one method as the field's sole standard. Third, it is deliberately historical: chapters that narrate how a programme developed, or that begin in ancient theory, treat the history of motivation science as part of its present content. That combination — plural, current, and historically aware — is the editorial signature a prospective reader should expect from future volumes as well.

How scholars use the series

For a researcher designing a study, the practical use is framing. A programme chapter tells you which constructs the originators of a theory consider central, which measures they trust, and which moderators they regard as established, before you commit a design. For a reviewer or editor in a neighbouring journal, the chapters provide the citable, consolidated statement of a theory against which a manuscript's use of that theory can be checked. For a teacher, a chapter offers a one-week, graduate-level route into a tradition, complete with the references a seminar needs. And for the field itself, the series performs a record-keeping function: when the leaders of a programme set out its development and validation in one place, as the self-determination theory chapter does for its six mini-theories, later historians and meta-scientists gain a primary source written by the participants.

To cite the series correctly, treat each chapter as a chapter in an edited book that belongs to a named series: chapter author, chapter title, the words In and the series title with its volume number, the editor Andrew J. Elliot, Elsevier as publisher, the year, and the page range, adding the volume ISBN for the edition consulted or the series ISSN, 2215-0927 or 2215-0919, where a catalogue requires the serial identifier. Do not present the series as a peer-reviewed journal in grant or promotion documents; present it accurately, as an editor-commissioned Elsevier book series whose chapters are invited from recognised experts — a distinction that strengthens, rather than weakens, the credit due to its contributors.

Summary for directory users

In short, Advances in Motivation Science, ISSNs 2215-0927 and 2215-0919, is Elsevier's commissioned book series for the science of motivation, edited by Andrew J. Elliot, launched in the mid-2010s when motivational analysis had returned to the centre of psychology, and built from volumes — the fourth in 2017, the sixth by the end of that decade — whose chapters present major research programmes whole: self-determination theory and its six mini-theories, attribution, approach and avoidance, self-regulation, incentives at work, culture, physical activity, emotion regulation, allostasis and the midcingulate cortex, inspiration, and the search for a grand theory joining motivation to emotion, cognition, and communication. It should be sought in libraries and on Elsevier's book platforms as a series of edited books, cited by volume and chapter, and valued for exactly what it is — an expert-led synthesis serial — rather than mistaken for a journal that it has never claimed to be. Future volumes can be expected to follow the same editorial pattern, and readers verifying the latest volume should consult Elsevier's current series listing, since the publisher's page, not any directory entry, is the authoritative record of the newest contents.

That final verification habit — checking the publisher's own listing for the current volume, the current contributors, and the current contents before citing or purchasing — applies to every title in Elsevier's Advances family, and it is especially appropriate here because a young series changes faster than a mature one. Each new volume can shift the balance of traditions represented, introduce a programme that has only recently matured, or revisit a classic theory with new evidence, and a profile written from the documented early volumes should be read as a foundation that the newest volume may extend in directions worth discovering directly.