Titles in Highly Ranked Multidisciplinary Psychology Journals 1966–2011: More Words and Punctuation Marks Allow for the Communication of More Information

Abstract

Titles of articles in seven highly ranked multidisciplinary psychology journals for every fifth year between 1966 and 2011 (inclusive) were studied in terms of title length, word length, punctuation density, and word pleasantness, activation, and concreteness (assessed by the Dictionary of Affect in Language). Titles grew longer (by three words) and were more frequently punctuated (by one colon or comma for every other article) between 1966 and 2011. This may reflect the increasing complexity of psychology and satisfy readers' requirements for more specific information. There were significant differences among journals (e.g., titles in the Annual Review of Psychology were scored by the Dictionary of Affect as the most pleasant, and those in Psychological Bulletin as the least pleasant) and among categories of journals (e.g., titles in review journals employed longer words than those in research or association journals). Differences were stable across time and were employed to successfully categorize titles from a validation sample.