Sleeping Beauties in Psychology: Comparisons of "Hits" and "Missed Signals" in Psychological Journals.

Abstract

Scientific publications tend to be forgotten quickly. A few works, however, are still cited 100 years and more after their publication. The author used bibliometric methods to compare "hits" (works noticed by the scientific community soon after their publication) with "missed signals" (works that went unnoticed until much later) by investigating 2 psychological journals founded in the 1890s: Zeitschrift für Psychologie and Psychological Review. All articles that were published in either of these journals up to 1920 and cited more than 25 times in the Web of Science up to the year 2000 were considered for inclusion in the analysis. It emerged that hits corresponded more closely to the focus of scientific attention at the time of the publications than missed signals.

Sleeping beauties in the otolaryngology–head & neck surgery literature

“…Since then, other fields have investigated the occurrence of SBs, including those in physics, chemistry, computer science, intellectual property, and engineering . Yet, interest in SBs within the medical literature has been less robust, with publications on the topic found only in pediatrics, psychology, and nursing . In a comprehensive search of the English language literature (PubMed 1966–2019) we were unable to find another publication on SBs in surgical fields.…”

“…1,11,12 Yet, interest in SBs within the medical literature has been less robust, with publications on the topic found only in pediatrics, psychology, and nursing. 2,13,14 In a comprehensive search of the English language literature (PubMed 1966-2019) we were unable to find another publication on SBs in surgical fields. Similar to other investigations of SBs in medical fields, the findings of the current study do not appear to share many easily identifiable themes.…”

New Journals in Education and Psychology: General Trends, Discoverability, and Ubiquitous Journals of the Decade, 2000–2009

“…They were not recognized merely because their topics were unpopular at the time they were first written. 46 The work of Walter R. Schumm also challenges the notion of "higher-tier" and "lower-tier" journals, finding that there are few statistically significant differences in the citation rates of so-called "high-tier" and "low-tier" psychology journals and suggesting that visibility is related to the aggressive marketing of large publishers. 47 Furthermore, the widely held belief that the quality of an article correlates to the reputation of a publication may be fallacious, given how little we currently know about authors' motivations for choosing certain journals over others.…”

Citations, impact factors and the Australian Journal of Psychology in the future

“…The controversy attending the publication of highly cited psychology authors on the internet by Thomson ISI demonstrates the lacunae that emerge with the use of numerical data (Hebert, 2004), where classically important authors fail to show impact. Although no journal would wish to be identified as the outlet for the sleeping beauties of a discipline (Lange, 2005, van Raan, 2004, where there is a very significant delay in the recognition of a piece of research that appeared ahead of its time, journals that have longer term durability have a respectable role to play in the development of a field of endeavour. Impact and immediacy do not define such longevity of impact.…”