Department of Human Sciences, Università degli Studi di Verona, Verona, Italy.
Department of Psychology, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany.
Psychol Res. 2022 Nov;86(8):2321-2340. doi: 10.1007/s00426-022-01727-2. Epub 2022 Aug 27.
Psychological Research (formerly Psychologische Forschung) has been published for a century which makes it a valuable subject matter for historical investigations. The journal's development bears traces of the progress in psychology. This development is of particular interest for the field of theoretical psychology which investigates the epistemological and methodological background. Our hypothesis is that the history of Psychological Research is indicative for the transformations within the discourse of the discipline, i.e., the general context of communication in psychology. We revisit the changes in the editorial practises of the journal through a scientometric mixed-methods approach, combining bibliometric analyses which compare Psychological Research to Psychological Review and the British Journal of Psychology with a single-case investigation. Regarding form, we find continuities and disruptions in the development of the editorial customs from long and single-author to short and multi-author contributions. Investigating content through word frequency analysis shows that the journal's history reflects the rise of the cognitivist paradigm as well as a transition from theoretical discourse towards experimentation. The analysis of a single case demonstrates the nature of past theoretical discourse in contrast to contemporary practises. Overall, our findings support the assumption of discursive transformations. From the perspective of theoretical psychology, these transformations can be described as a shift towards Methodism which entails a critical negligence of theory.
《心理学研究》（Psychologische Forschung）已出版一个世纪，是历史研究的重要对象。该期刊的发展反映了心理学的进步。这种发展对于理论心理学领域特别有趣，因为它研究了认识论和方法论背景。我们的假设是，《心理学研究》的历史反映了学科话语内部的转变，即心理学交流的一般背景。我们通过科学计量混合方法，结合文献计量分析，将《心理学研究》与《心理学评论》和《英国心理学杂志》进行比较，同时进行单案例研究，重新审视了该期刊编辑实践的变化。就形式而言，我们发现编辑习惯从长而单一作者到短而多作者的发展具有连续性和中断性。通过词频分析研究内容表明，该期刊的历史反映了认知主义范式的兴起，以及从理论话语向实验的转变。对单个案例的分析展示了过去理论话语的本质与当代实践形成鲜明对比。总的来说，我们的发现支持话语转变的假设。从理论心理学的角度来看，这些转变可以被描述为方法论的转变，这意味着对理论的批判忽视。
