Citation impact, rejection rates, and journal value.

Comments on L. C. Buffardi and J. A. Nichols's (1981) list of rejection rates for psychological journals and further examines the relation between rejection rates, citation impact, and journal value. It was found that 69% of the variance in rejection rates was explained by area and type of journal. As Buffardi and Nichols reported, rejection rates were higher for APA than for non-APA journals (80.27% vs 65.37%), and citation indices were higher for APA than for non-APA journals (2.63 vs 0.91). Further results suggest that experimental journals have a higher Social Sciences Citation Indices impact than do general journals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Where the 'Stars' are: The 25 most cited psychologists in Canada": Corrections.

Reports an error in "Where the "stars" are: The 25 most cited psychologists in Canada (1972–1976)" by Norman S. Endler (Canadian Psychological Review, 1979[Jan], Vol 20[1], 12-21). Several corrections should be noted. The corrections are as follows: 1) in Table 1, the subheadings "1975 1974 1973 1972" were improperly aligned with the columns, and Kimura's 1976 citation rank should have been 3 instead of 2; 2) in Table 2, the number 1 calling attention to footnote 1 was omitted from the title; 3) in Table 3, an additional heading "Citations" should have appeared over the columns "1975 1974 1973 1972" on the same line as "Publications;" 4) in Table 3, the probability levels should have read '*p 1980-01842-001) and Endler et al's 1978 American Psychologist article (Vol. 33, pages 1064-1082). CPR also extends apologies to Professors Endler, Melzack and Tulving for typographical errors in the spelling of their names as follows: on the front cover, Professor Endler's middle initial should have been listed as S; on page 16, in the last paragraph, in the left hand column, Melzack's name was misspelled; on page 19, in the second paragraph in the right column, Tulving's name was misspelled. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 1980-28686-001.) The Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) for 1972-1976 was used as a data source for citation counts, which reflect scholarly impact, and publication counts reflecting productivity, for the 25 most cited psychologists ("stars") for 1972-1976. These 25 "stars" are located primarily at Ontario Universities and McGill and received their graduate training primarily at McGill, Yale, Harvard or the big 10 mid-western universities. Their major research areas appear to be cognitive processes, memory and verbal learning, personality theory and assessment, social processes and physiological psychology. Most of them are in their 40s or 50s, five of them are past presidents of CPA, three of them are currently departmental chairmen, and two are former departmental chairmen. Despite the limitations of the SSCI citation count, it appears to be the best single indicator of research quality and scholarly impact on the field of academic psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Citation impact, acceptance rate, and APA journals.

Investigated the role that factors such as journal circulation and acceptance rate play in relation to citation impact (CTI). CTI was negatively related to acceptance rate and positively related to circulation, consistent with the construct of CTI as a measure of journal quality. CTI was highest for moderate publication lag and had substantial stability over time. Compared to non-American Psychological Association (APA) journals, APA journals had significantly higher CTI in both 1977 and 1978, higher circulation, and lower acceptance rates. CTI is probably the best single measure of journal quality currently available. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Do APA journals play professional favorites?

Investigated possible favoritism in the publication policies of 4 American Psychological Association (APA) journals and 6 non-APA journals. While none of the APA journals had editors who were in private practice, retired or otherwise unaffiliated, all the non-APA journals had at least 2 editors in this category. Individual journals varied in the degree of professional favoritism shown, but this was not related to APA membership. Most journals devoted less than 10% of articles to editors' contributions, up to 33% to contributions from professional colleagues, and the remainder to sources outside immediate affiliations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Citation analysis of psychology journals.

Conducted a citation analysis of 57 psychology journals. Total citations to articles published in each journal in 1972 and 1973 were counted from a sample of pages (10%) in the Social Science Citation Index. Journals were rank ordered according to citation frequency per articles published in each journal during the 2-yr period. Mean citation rate per published article was .9. Spearman rank correlations between the rank order based on citations per article and the rank orders of the same journals determined by subjective evaluation in 2 previous studies by D. Koulak and H. J. Keselman (1975) and K. C. Mace and H. D. Warner (1973) were .39 and .56, respectively. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Degree of favoritism versus no favoritism.

Asserts that D. L. Schaeffer (1970) should not have compared journals published by the American Psychological Association (APA) with non-APA journals in ascertaining whether favoritism exists in APA journals. The comparison should have been with journals that do not practice favoritism, such as Psychometrika, in which articles are rated anonymously. A reply from Schaeffer follows. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Experimental replication and professional cooperation.

Evaluated professional cooperation in exchanging information about replicating studies on request using 6 American Psychological Association (APA) journals and 6 non-APA journals. 54 satisfactory responses were received from 72 requests. Data indicate that APA or non-APA status was not significant. Findings highlight the existence of a substantial level of responsibility and professional cooperation among research psychologists regarding replication information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some characteristics of journals and authors.

Some characteristics of authors in 10 American Psychological Association journals and 9 other selected psychological journals are presented in a table. The "number of authors who are not affiliated with the APA is rather surprising although many of these may be students. The total proportion of non-APA members for the APA journals is .23 and for the others .28." Approximately "one-quarter to one-third of the authors throughout have no divisional affiliation… . All of the journals studied contained authors who were members of the Psychonomic Society. The APA journal with the highest proportion in this group was Psychological Review," and the next highest was the Journal of Experimental Psychology. Slightly more than ? of the articles are by individual authors and about ? are by 2 authors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evaluation of Canadian psychology departments based upon citation and publication counts.

Evaluated 32 Canadian psychology departments offering graduate programs in terms of productivity and impact upon the discipline. Publication and citation counts were tabulated for each individual staff member in each department and totaled within each department. The data source was the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) which lists for any individual all publications and all journal articles which cite his/her work. Some limitations of SSCI as a data source for the sociology of science are discussed. Because of the qualifications and reservations which must accompany the reported data, the study should probably be viewed more as exemplifying an interesting methodological approach than as offering definitive and clear-cut conclusions. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Double, double, toil and trouble: Pitfalls of suppositional inquiries of journal ratings.

Three recent comments in the September 1976 issue (Buss & McDermott; Levin & Kratochwill; Porter (see record 1990-57250-001; see record 1990-57248-001; and see record 1990-57249-001), attempting to deal with the difficult area of assessing journal "reputations," raised some interesting questions concerning our study reporting journal rankings (Koulack & Keselman, November 1975; see record 1976-24649-001). We are in agreement with Buss and McDermott (1976) that citations and rankings might not be measuring the same things, but we are in disagreement with Porter, who suggests that "fine ordering among journals is whimsical" (p. 675). In fact, as we suggest in our introduction and have demonstrated in the body of our article (Koulack & Keselman, 1975), journal rankings change as a function of type of work and area of interest. Perhaps Porter's (1976) findings might be a bit whimsical because of the procedure he used to obtain his correlations. Moreover, it is impossible to probe further because Porter does not present the rankings of the two journals chosen from the APA members' top 50, which appeared in either of the citation measures' top 50. Such data might provide some insight into the low correlations obtained between journal citations and rankings. For example, extremely low citation rankings on either citation index for these two journals, given their relatively high position in the APA membership rankings, would diminish the size of the correlation coefficients. The Levin and Kratochwill (1976) comment is somewhat annoying because it distorts a line from Shakespeare as well as misrepresents our presentation. They imply that (a) we thought our rankings represented a definitive approach to the journal rating problem, (b) we neglected to place emphasis on a table presented in the paper, and (c) respondents chose to ignore our instructions and in fact, rated journals on the basis of familiarity. In conclusion, we appreciate the fact that there are numerous ways of examining journal reputations (e.g., rankings by departmental chairpersons, rankings by APA membership, citations obtained from 77 psychology journals published in 1969, citations obtained from 3 psychology journals published from July 1973 to June 1975) and that each of them has potential value. However, comments that are not based on empirical investigation, such as those of Levin and Kratochwill (1976), are mere suppositions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Employee theft as a reaction to underpayment inequity: The hidden cost of pay cuts": Correction.

Reports an error in the original article by J. Greenberg (Journal of Applied Psychology, 1990, Vol 75[5], 561–568). A corrected version of Table 2 is presented. (The following abstract of this article originally appeared in record 1991-07467-001.) Employee theft rates were measured in manufacturing plants during a period in which pay was temporarily reduced by 15%. Compared with pre- or postreduction pay periods (or with control groups whose pay was unchanged), groups whose pay was reduced had significantly higher theft rates. When the basis for the pay cuts was thoroughly and sensitively explained to employees, feelings of inequity were lessened, and the theft rate was reduced as well. The data support equity theory's prediction regarding likely responses to underpayment and extend recently accumulated evidence demonstrating the mitigating effects of adequate explanations on feelings of inequity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A comparison of journal citation patterns of British and North American authors publishing in British journals.

Examined citation practices of British and North American psychologists publishing 361 articles in 4 British journals. Results confirmed the finding of D. Koulack and H. J. Keselman (see record 1976-24649-001) that journal status is dependent on area of interest. Studies of A. R. Buss and J. R. McDermott (1976), R. L. Hohn and H. J. Fine (1973), and K. C. Mace and H. D. Warner (1973) are also discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Linguistic Isolation of American Psychology.

Comments on the original article "Linguistic isolation of American social psychology: A comparative study of journal citations," by L. J. Finison and C. L. Whittemore (see record 1990-57169-001). In this comment, the author makes two remarks relevant to the linguistic isolation of American psychology in general. First, the low citation rate to foreign language publications in American psychology journals, such as that found by Finison and Whittemore for social psychology journals, does not necessarily mean that almost every piece of research published in psychology is contributed by an American psychologist, or that American psychologists ignore the work of foreign researchers. Second, another factor that may explain partially, and at least in some areas of psychology, the high English-language citation rate in psychology journals is the translation of the work by foreign psychologists into the English language. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Journal Citations.

Comments on the article by J. R. Haynes (August, 1983) regarding core psychology journals. Haynes originally argues that two APA journals, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance and Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory failed to be included in the citation impact list because of extremely low citation impact for the Journal Citation Report. However, the Journal Citation Report for 1979-1981 is an unreliable source about Journal of Experimental Psychology journals for a number of reasons, including the citation of nonarticles and the conflation of citations for different journals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Attitudinal Orientations and Cognitive Functioning Among Adolescents:: Erratum.

Reports an error in the original article by Amos Handel (Developmental Psychology, 1975[Nov], Vol 11[6], 667-675). On page 667, the sentence beginning on the fourth line in the third paragraph should read: "This trend focuses on process variables, that is, the actual experiences of children which contribute to their cognitive growth, rather than on status variables (social class, race), which are presumed to represent only surface characteristics of the environment (Wolf, 1964,1966).'In Table 1 on page 670, the first entry under the fourth column ("Progressive Matrices") should read: '-05." In Table 2 on page 671, the third entry under the first column ("Independent variable") should read: "C = A + B = background." (The following abstract of this article originally appeared in record 1976-06752-001.) Examined the pattern of relations of attitudinal orientations to cognitive functioning in 950 Israeli 7th graders. Following the 1966 study by J. S. Coleman et al, attitudinal orientations were represented by measures of locus of control, self-concept, and educational aspirations. Multiple regression analyses showed that 18.1-31.6% of the total variance in 4 measures of cognitive functioning was associated with attitudinal orientations, while only 10.6-18.9% of the total variance in these measures was associated with socioeconomic background variables. In the least economically advantaged group, locus of control was the most potent attitude variable; in the complementary 2 groups of higher socioeconomic status, more of the variance in cognitive functioning was associated with self-concept and aspirations than with locus of control. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Note.

The Publication Board clarifies its position with respect to the 1,800-word summary of papers published in the Proceedings of each APA annual convention. Acceptance or rejection of any article consisting of an expanded version of a Proceedings paper is a matter of judgment by the editors of the various APA journals. The proper form for citation of a Proceedings article is as follows: Polis, R. F. Leadership style, hierarchical influence, and theoretical implications. Proceedings of the 74th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, 1966, 1, 39-40. (Summary). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ratings of psychology journals compared to objective measures of journal impact.

Compared the K. C. Mace and H. D. Warner (1973) list of chairpersons' ratings of psychological journal reputation and an objective measure of journal eminence. No close correspondence was found between ratings and citation counts for journals. For chairpersons, professional reputation of a journal is evaluated by criteria other than its visibility in the literature. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Phones, phonies, and psychologists.

"The Classified Telephone Directory and the APA Directory… continue to provide crude barometer readings of some public activities by individuals claiming to be 'psychologists.'… At the present time, 55.8% of all individual advertisers are APA members, as compared to 46.7% in 1953 and 18.5% in 1947. In actual numbers, the extent of the APA takeover of the 'Psychology Section' is even more impressive: from 38 in 1947 to 323 in 1957, an increase of 750%p In comparison, the growth of non-APA members has been only 53% (from 167 to 256). Whereas in 1947 non-APA advertisers outnumbered listed APA members 5:1 (167:38), ten years later the ratio is better than even in favor of APA psychologists (256:323)." Tables of data surveying 1957 advertisers in the "Psychology Section" of Classified Telephone Directories for 1957, and 3 tables indicating data for the years 1947, 1949, and 1953 as well are provided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)