Tracing the size, reach, impact, and breadth of positive psychology

Abstract

This study quantitatively assessed the size, disciplinary reach, impact, and topic breadth of positive psychology (PP), in order to provide a comprehensive evaluation of the growth and significance of the field. Over 1.7 million documents in 700 PsycINFO ® journals covering the fields of psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience, management, business, public health, and sport science were analyzed using semantic and bibliographic methods. Results indicate that PP covers many different research topics from a diverse range of disciplines, and that PP literature has been growing rapidly in significance. Over 18,000 documents were identified as belonging to PP, with 2300 published in 2011. These documents represent over 4% of PsycINFO ® documents within the data-set published that year, and make PP close to the median size of all disciplines listed in the Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports ®, Social Sciences Edition. The aggregate impact factor for PP in 2011 was 2.64.