Global Journal of
Sociology
Volume 04, Issue 1, (2014) 01-04
www.awer-center/gjs
Social Psychology in The Course of Time
Mohammad-Hossein Biglu*, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.
Suggested Citation:
Biglu, M., H. (2013). Social psychology in the course of time. Global Journal of Sociology. 4(1), 01-04.
Received 22 December, 2013; revised 10 January, 2014; accepted 13 March, 2014.
Selection and peer review under responsibility of Dr. Hasan Alicik, International Cyprus University, Cyprus
©
2014 SPROC LTD. Academic World Education & Research Center. All rights reserved.
Abstract
Social psychology is a branch of psychology that studies the behavioural interaction of individual or group
of population in the general public community. The objective of current study is to analyse the trend of
scientific activities in the field of social psychology during the last two decades. All publication entitled as
“Social Psychology” that was indexed in the database of Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-E) and
Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) through 1993-2012 was extracted and analysed. The extraction of data
was restricted to the papers entitled as “social psychology”. Limitation of papers indexed in these
databases into titles, cause to retrieve the most relevant papers in the desired subject areas. A total
number of 1,662 papers entitle social psychology was extracted and went under analysis. Analysis of data
indicated that a total number of 1662 papers as a title of Social psychology were indexed in the databases
of SCI-E and SSCI through the last 20 years. The majority of publication was in the form of journal article
and book review. The study concluded that the number of papers entitled social psychology stayed
plateau through the period of study in spite of some fluctuation through the last 20 years.
Keywords: social psychology, scientific profile, scientometrics, WoS
*ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE: Mohammad-Hossein Biglu, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.
E-mail address: Mh_biglu@yahoo.com
Biglu, M., H. (2013). Social psychology in the course of time. Global Journal of Sociology. 4(1), 01-04.
1. Introduction
Social psychology is a branch of science that studies the behavioural interaction of individual
and/or group of population in the general public community. Although the Social psychology
takes two aspects of psychology and sociology under consideration, but we should bear in mind
that social psychology differs from other sociological disciplines; some may confuse this with
public wisdom. In fact social psychology is an interdisciplinary branch of sociology and
psychology that studies the psychological aspects of a social. The study focuses on the
behavioural interaction of individual’s and/ or group of people in a public community. How
people influence the social and the social influences and/or change the people behaviours.
Although Social Psychology has some overlaps with sociology, political science, economic
science, cultural anthropology and other sociology disciplines, but its perception is different.
There is no clear boundary between social psychology and other social science disciplines.
Sociology focuses on how society is organized and how people experience life in the community;
whereas Social psychology has a particular interest in the nature of social and attempts to know
how the members of community influence on the society and vice versa. The history of Social
psychology is vague and cloudy. Nobody definitely knows who was the first, coined this branch
of psychology. Some believes Aristotle and/or Plato was the founder of this science, other
believe social-psychology is modern term and was coined after 1800 century “The term social
psychology was coined by the Italian journalist and politician Carlo Cattaneo in an article
published in 1864 in Il Politecnico” (Kruglanski, A. W., & Stroebe, W. 2012). Unlike in Western
regions, the history of social psychology in East is clear. After Avicenna (born 980, near Bukhara,
Iran [now in Uzbekistan]—died 1037, Hamadan, Iran) the famous Persian socio-psychologist
Jalaluddin Balkhi Rumi (Born 1207 C.E. Wakh (present in Tajikistan), Died 17 December 1273 C.E.
used the sociological aspects of psychology in his famous work (Masnavi). For instance we may
refer to the socio-psychological handling of a Maid, the king was fallen in her love, while she
suffered from psychosomatic illness.
This paper attempts to visualize the trend of scientific activities in the field of Social
psychology during a period of nineteen years (1993-2012) in the databases of SCI-E and SSCI.
2. Methods and Materials
Database of Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-E) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI)
from Web of Science (WoS) was used to extract all papers entitled “Social Psychology” during a
period of nineteen years (1993-2012). Web of Science was powered by ISI Web of Knowledge,
the Web of Science database is a collection of cross-searchable databases included Science
Citation Index (SCI), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Arts & Humanities Citation Index
(AHCI), Conference Proceedings Citation Index – Science, Conference Proceedings Citation Index
- Social Science & Humanities. One may search one or more of these databases; select by
checking the boxes. It is possible to search for current and retrospective information, by topic,
author, etc. The Web of Science is particularly good for citation searching, to discover how many
times a particular author or article has been cited and by whom, and to locate later works which
cite a specific article. Extraction of data was limited to the title of papers from advance research
menu of WoS. Restriction of papers into titles leads to retrieve the most relevant papers in
desired subject area (15). Extraction of data led to 1662 papers entitled “Social Psychology”
mainly in the form of journal article.
3. Results
A total number of 1662 papers entitled social psychology was obtained from the databases of
SCI-E and SSCI through the period of study.
2
Biglu, M., H. (2013). Social psychology in the course of time. Global Journal of Sociology. 4(1), 01-04.
Fig. 1: Number of papers entitled Social psychology indexed in WoS 1993-2012
As figure 1 shows the number of papers entitled social psichology indexed in WoS has
faltuated through the period of study. the most productive year was 1993 and the leas
productive year was 1999.
Fig. 2: Ten top productive countries publishing papers entitled Social Psychology
Figure 2 shows the ten top productive countries sharing papers entitled Social Psychology in
WoS through 1993-2012. The USA sharing 45% (715 papers) of global publication was the most
prolific country. The following countries were England, Canada and Germany sharing 12 % (190
papers), 6.4% (100 papers) and 5.5% (87 papers) of global publication respectively.
Table 1: Ten top productive Organization sharing papers entitled Social Psychology in WoS
Rank
Institutes
Paper
percent
1
OHIO STATE UNIV
24
1.3%
2
UNIV MINNESOTA
17
0.9%
3
CONNECTICUT COLL
16
0.8%
4
STANFORD UNIV
16
0.8%
5
UNIV CALIF LOS ANGELES
16
0.8%
6
UNIV MARY WASHINGTON
16
0.8%
7
UNIV MARYLAND
16
0.8%
8
PENN STATE UNIV
15
0.8%
9
UNIV GEORGIA
15
0.8%
10
UNIV MICHIGAN
15
0.8%
3
Biglu, M., H. (2013). Social psychology in the course of time. Global Journal of Sociology. 4(1), 01-04.
A total number of 786 Institutes contributed in publishing papers entitled Social Psychology in
WoS during 1993-2012. Table 1 is restricted to the ten top productive institutes. As Table 1
indicated Ohio State University did the University of Minnesota follow the most productive
institute?
A total number of 1662 papers were published in 1723 formats of publication. Journal Article
and Book Review were the most frequented format of publication. These tow formats of
publication consisted 73% of total publication. Some papers were published in more than one
format. That is why the number of publication type is greater than the number of extracted
papers [Table 2].
Table 2: publication type of papers entitles Social Psychology in WoS 1993-2012
Rank
Document Types
Paper
Percent
1
ARTICLE
656
38%
2
BOOK REVIEW
599
35%
3
EDITORIAL MATERIAL
169
10%
4
MEETING ABSTRACT
112
7%
5
REVIEW
92
5%
6
PROCEEDINGS PAPER
58
3%
7
NOTE
11
1%
8
CORRECTION
7
0%
9
NEWS ITEM
6
0%
10
BOOK CHAPTER
3
0%
11
BIOGRAPHICAL ITEM
2
0%
12
CORRECTION ADDITION
2
0%
13
LETTER
2
0%
14
REPRINT
2
0%
15
DISCUSSION
1
0%
16
ITEM ABOUT AN INDIVIDUAL
1
0%
Total
1723
100%
4. Conclusion:
Analysis of data concluded that the majority of papers entitled Social psychology indexed in
database of WoS came from North America and Western Europe. Australia and New Zealand
from Pacific Ocean regions, Japan from Asia and Russia were appeared among ten top
productive countries.
References:
Biglu, S., Biglu, M. H., & Falk, C. (2011). Scientometric study of scientific production in psyciatry. European
Psychiatry, 26, 515.
Biglu, M. H. (2011). Scientometrics study of psychiatry in Medline 2006-2010. Asian Journal of
Psychiatry, 4, S74.
Biglu, M. H. (2013). Global attitudes towards forensic psychiatry (2006–2012). European Psychiatry, 28, 1.
Kruglanski, A. W., & Stroebe, W. (Eds.). (2012). Handbook of the history of social psychology. Psychology
Press
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