Geropsychology and Psychology in the German- Speaking and Anglo-American Research Community

Abstract

Summary: This paper is aimed to add to the understanding of the recent history of geropsychology by use of an underutilized tool, i.e., bibliometrical analysis. First, we employ an “external perspective” by focusing the development of geropsychology against the background of psychology as a whole as well as other selected psychology subfields. Second, from an “internal perspective,” we were interested in how major subfields of geropsychology have developed. In both of these issues, we compare the Anglo-American to the German-speaking research community. Third and finally, we explore the relative contribution of geropsychology work coming from German-speaking countries to the international literature. Regarding the external perspective, the major finding is that geropsychology has become a well-established subfield of psychology over the last quarter of the 20th century both in the Anglo-America and German-speaking research community. In particular, geropsychology has become a very prominent part of developmental psychology in German-speaking countries. From an “internal perspective,” research on cognitive functioning was the most frequent and consistent contributor to the geropsychology literature in both regions. Different between regions was the diverging interest in research on life experiences and coping (which was much higher in German-speaking countries). Finally, recent geropsychology research from German-speaking countries has contributed - in relative terms - more to the international literature than the psychology literature as a whole has done.