What is the Relationship Between “Personality” and “Social” Psychologies? Network, Community, and Whole Text Analyses of The Structure of Contemporary Scholarship

Abstract

The structure of social/personality psychology, including the relationship between the areas of "social" and "personality," is empirically examined in a series of network, community, and text analyses. In a study of keywords, both attitudes and social cognition and group processes appear as communities; the role of personality is more diffuse. In a larger analysis of citations in the four primary journals in the combined social/personality area, personality appears as a large community which surrounds a well-defined core (the Five-Factor Model) but which lies on the periphery of social/personality psychology. Interpersonal relations and attachment are central in social/personality, and appear largely distinct from the study of groups. Attitudes and social cognition are broadly studied, but, in contrast with personality and interpersonal relations, are not structured around a simple core. These methods and results collectively inform the relationship between personality and social psychologies and provide an early step towards an empirical understanding of the structure of the discipline.Keywords: personality; network; scientometric; social psychology; methods; community How should the map of social-personality psychology be drawn? What are the relationships among its constituent methods, institutions, papers, scholars, and constructs? The question has implications for the psychology curriculum (How should personality and social psychologies be taught?), for the nature and evaluation of our research (Should a scholar who examines positive affect be asked to review a paper on extraversion?), and even for our selfconcepts (Should I call myself a social psychologist?). Yet our understanding of this terrain remains grounded more in anecdote and tradition than in data. In the present paper, I use diverse scientometric methods, including network, community, and text analysis, to provide an initial map of the combined field of social and personality psychology. Limitations of the work should be acknowledged at the outset: This effort provides only a contemporary snapshot of the field and not its evolution over time, it does not yet provide contextualize personality and social psychology in the region of other closely related areas of inquiry (such as developmental and cognitive psychologies), and it does not yet consider the extent to which the structure holds outside of prominent conferences and journals published in the United States. Despite these limitations, the methods form an initial toolbox for future study, and the results provide a coherent initial map of contemporary personality-social psychology. Perhaps equally importantly, the paper invites consideration of its central premise, i.e., that the structure of personality and social psychology -fields which take justifiable pride in their empirical achievements -is of consequence and can itself be studied empirically.

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