IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v76y2008i1d10.1007_s11192-007-1892-8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What makes an article influential? Predicting impact in social and personality psychology

Author

Listed:
  • Nick Haslam

    (University of Melbourne)

  • Lauren Ban

    (University of Melbourne)

  • Leah Kaufmann

    (University of Melbourne)

  • Stephen Loughnan

    (University of Melbourne)

  • Kim Peters

    (University of Melbourne)

  • Jennifer Whelan

    (University of Melbourne)

  • Sam Wilson

    (University of Melbourne)

Abstract

Factors contributing to citation impact in social-personality psychology were examined in a bibliometric study of articles published in the field’s three major journals. Impact was operationalized as citations accrued over 10 years by 308 articles published in 1996, and predictors were assessed using multiple databases and trained coders. Predictors included author characteristics (i.e., number, gender, nationality, eminence), institutional factors (i.e., university prestige, journal prestige, grant support), features of article organization (i.e., title characteristics, number of studies, figures and tables, number and recency of references), and research approach (i.e., topic area, methodology). Multivariate analyses demonstrated several strong predictors of impact, including first author eminence, having a more senior later author, journal prestige, article length, and number and recency of references. Many other variables — e.g., author gender and nationality, collaboration, university prestige, grant support, title catchiness, number of studies, experimental vs. correlational methodology, topic area — did not predict impact.

Suggested Citation

  • Nick Haslam & Lauren Ban & Leah Kaufmann & Stephen Loughnan & Kim Peters & Jennifer Whelan & Sam Wilson, 2008. "What makes an article influential? Predicting impact in social and personality psychology," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 76(1), pages 169-185, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:76:y:2008:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-007-1892-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-007-1892-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-007-1892-8
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11192-007-1892-8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John D. Lee & Kim J. Vicente & Andrea Cassano & Anna Shearer, 2003. "Can scientific impact be judged prospectively? A bibliometric test of Simonton"s model of creative productivity," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 56(2), pages 223-232, February.
    2. John Hudson, 2007. "Be known by the company you keep: Citations — quality or chance?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 71(2), pages 231-238, May.
    3. Grant Lewison & James Hartley, 2005. "What's in a title? Numbers of words and the presence of colons," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 63(2), pages 341-356, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lindsey E. Wylie & Katherine P. Hazen & Lori A. Hoetger & Joshua A. Haby & Eve M. Brank, 2018. "Four decades of the journal Law and Human Behavior: a content analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 115(2), pages 655-693, May.
    2. Ángel Acevedo-Duque & Alejandro Vega-Muñoz & Guido Salazar-Sepúlveda, 2020. "Analysis of Hospitality, Leisure, and Tourism Studies in Chile," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-20, September.
    3. Jinyoung Kim & Kanghyock Koh, 2014. "Incentives for Journal Editors," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 47(1), pages 348-371, February.
    4. Syed Hasan & Robert Breunig, 2021. "Article length and citation outcomes," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(9), pages 7583-7608, September.
    5. Oswald, Andrew J., 2009. "World-Leading Research and its Measurement," Economic Research Papers 271312, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    6. Rolf Ketzler & Klaus F. Zimmermann, 2013. "A citation-analysis of economic research institutes," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 95(3), pages 1095-1112, June.
    7. Andrew J. Oswald, 2010. "A suggested method for the measurement of world-leading research (illustrated with data on economics)," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 84(1), pages 99-113, July.
    8. Louis Mesnard, 2010. "On Hochberg et al.’s “The tragedy of the reviewer commons”," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 84(3), pages 903-917, September.
    9. James Hartley & Guillaume Cabanac, 2015. "An academic odyssey: writing over time," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 103(3), pages 1073-1082, June.
    10. Jost Sieweke & Johannes Muck & Stefan Süß & Justus Haucap, 2014. "Forschungsevaluation an Universitäten — Ergebnisse einer explorativen Studie rechtsund wirtschaftswissenschaftlicher Fakultäten," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 66(4), pages 274-305, June.
    11. Omwoyo Bosire Onyancha, 2020. "A meta-analysis study of the relationship between research and economic development in selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(2), pages 655-675, May.
    12. John Hudson, 2017. "Identifying economics’ place amongst academic disciplines: a science or a social science?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 113(2), pages 735-750, November.
    13. Feng Guo & Chao Ma & Qingling Shi & Qingqing Zong, 2018. "Succinct effect or informative effect: the relationship between title length and the number of citations," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(3), pages 1531-1539, September.
    14. Maarten Wesel & Sally Wyatt & Jeroen Haaf, 2014. "What a difference a colon makes: how superficial factors influence subsequent citation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(3), pages 1601-1615, March.
    15. Dessauer, Benedict & Emrich, Eike & Klein, Markus & Pierdzioch, Christian, 2013. "Zur Evaluation wissenschaftlicher Publikationsleistungen in der Sportwissenschaft," Working Papers of the European Institute for Socioeconomics 3, European Institute for Socioeconomics (EIS), Saarbrücken.
    16. Michael S. Patterson & Simon Harris, 2009. "The relationship between reviewers’ quality-scores and number of citations for papers published in the journal Physics in Medicine and Biology from 2003–2005," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 80(2), pages 343-349, August.
    17. Hamid R. Jamali & Mahsa Nikzad, 2011. "Article title type and its relation with the number of downloads and citations," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 88(2), pages 653-661, August.
    18. Rons, Nadine, 2018. "Bibliometric approximation of a scientific specialty by combining key sources, title words, authors and references," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 113-132.
    19. James Hartley, 2015. "Inaccuracies in titles," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 103(1), pages 329-330, April.
    20. Rosenstreich, Daniela & Wooliscroft, Ben, 2009. "Measuring the impact of accounting journals using Google Scholar and the g-index," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(4), pages 227-239.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:76:y:2008:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-007-1892-8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.