A comprehensive scan of psychological disciplines through self-identification on Google Scholar: Relative endorsement, topical coverage, and publication patterns.

Publisher: Public Library of Science Country of Publication: United States NLM ID: 101285081 Publication Model: eCollection Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1932-6203 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 19326203 NLM ISO Abbreviation: PLoS One Subsets: MEDLINE

Original Publication: San Francisco, CA : Public Library of Science

Search Engine* ; Psychology, Experimental*; Psychology, Social ; Personality ; Psychophysiology

Psychological researchers often identify with psychological disciplines, such as social or clinical psychology. The current study analyzed Google Scholar profiles from 6,532 international scientists who attracted more than 100 citations in 2019 and self-identified with at least one of 10 common psychological disciplines (psychoanalysis; clinical psychology; (cognitive) neuroscience; developmental psychology; educational psychology; experimental psychology; biological psychology/psychophysiology; mathematical psychology/psychometrics; social psychology; personality psychology). Results indicated that almost half of all psychologists self-identified with either social psychology or cognitive neuroscience. There were 487 topics that were endorsed at least five times, ranging from highly discipline-specific topics to more integrative ones, such as emotion and personality. We also factor-analyzed frequencies of topical endorsement across disciplines and found two factors, which we interpreted as reflecting correlational and experimental research traditions (with social psychology being the largest discipline within the former tradition and cognitive neuroscience being the largest discipline within the latter tradition). Differences in productivity and impact were also found, with researchers identifying with psychometrics being the most productive and researchers identifying with personality psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and multidisciplinary psychology as the most impactful in terms of citation increases per additional output. Recommendations for promoting cross-fertilization across psychological disciplines are formulated.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
(Copyright: © 2024 Denissen, Rauthmann. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Erratum in: PLoS One. 2024 Dec 2;19(12):e0314923. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0314923. (PMID: 39621637)

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Date Created: 20240102 Date Completed: 20240104 Latest Revision: 20241202

20241204

PMC10760704

10.1371/journal.pone.0296421

38165965