Eminence In Psychology Research Articles

How Well Do Bibliometric Indicators Correlate With Scientific Eminence? A Comment on Simonton (2016)

Citing an earlier study on eminence in psychology, Simonton (2016) argued that associations between measures of scholars’ reputation, scientific productivity, and citation counts are only small to moderate [Simonton, D. K. (2016). Giving credit where credit’s due: Why it’s so hard to do in psychological science. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11, 888–892]. However, this reading is based on partial regression coefficients, which underestimate the joint explanatory power of correlated variables. A reanalysis of the original data showed that a composite bibliometric index was substantially associated with reputation (β = 0.70; 46% explained variance). Very similar results were obtained with a newly calculated h index (β = 0.67; 42% explained variance). Although both Simonton’s original analysis and the current reanalysis are inherently limited, the data suggest that the reputation of psychologists tracks their scientific contribution more closely than has been acknowledged in the recent literature.

Achieved Eminence in 80 Female Psychologists: Family, Marriage, Children, Education, Career, and Contributions

Although a large body of empirical research has shed considerable light on the attainment of eminence in psychology, this literature has focused almost exclusively on samples of eminent males. Yet there is sufficient reason to expect that eminent female psychologists do not neces- sarily follow the same life and career pathways as do eminent male psychologists. To help rem- edy this deficiency, the current historiometric study concentrates on a sample of 80 eminent female psychologists born between 1847 and 1950. After obtaining three reliable eminence measures, variables were defined with respect to family background (parental occupations and sibling configurations), marriage and children (including divorce), education and career devel- opment (especially the attainment of higher degrees and full professorships), and professional contributions (to 20 different specialty areas). Even after controlling for potential artifacts due to year of birth and reference source, statistically and substantively significant correlations were found in all four sets of variables. Even though the pattern of findings sometimes closely paral- leled what was found for eminent male psychologists, other times the results strongly diverged. Because these divergences most likely reflected traditional gender roles and gender-biased pol- icies, female and male routes to eminence should progressively converge over time, if they have not done so already. Finally, some findings based on this all-female sample deserve empirical examination in comparable male samples.

Why Traditional Metrics May Not Adequately Represent Ethnic Minority Psychology

The first Perspectives on Psychological Science symposium on eminence in psychology focused almost exclusively on “traditional” markers of success (e.g., citation counts, awards, grants). In this essay, I argue that the context of the research and the context of the researchers are crucial components of ethnic minority psychology. First, I describe structural reasons for why ethnic minority researchers might have less impressive traditional markers of success; then, I highlight how the “minority tax” contours the scholarly activities of ethnic minority researchers. Any conceptualization of eminence must take these additional considerations into account.

Great psychologists and their times: Scientific insights into psychology's history: Book review.

DKAN KEITH SIMONTON. Great Psychologists and Their Times: Scientific Insights into Psychology's History. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2002, 335 pages. (ISBN 1-55798-896-X, US$49.95 Hardcover). James McKeen Cattell was an inveterate, obsessive tabulator. He studied physical and mental measurements by counting everything from height, weight, lung capacity, keenness of sight, discrimination of pitch and reaction time, memory, imagery, and the association of ideas. For him, mental tests and measurements would show the constancy of mental processes, their interdependence, and their variation under different circumstances (1890/1961, p. 860). All of these exact measurements, he hoped, would allow people to learn to reduce their judgments, observations and beliefs to exact measurements . . . [and] will bring about an extraordinary change in their attitudes in religion, politics, business and the affairs of life (1928, p. 351.) In the final years of the 19th century, Cattell, like E. B. Titchener at Cornell and E. W. Scripture at Yale, believed that every psychical element could be reduced to questions of quality, intensity, duration, and sometimes clearness or extent. Most important was the discovery that such tasks reduce the influence of subjectivity, allowing the investigator to map the parameters of the tasks into norms. The timing and force of elementary intellectual operations were all that was required for a science of mental measurements (Stam, 1999). Historically, however, these are forgotten measurements; vast quantities of numbers with little or no function save arguing for the capacity to measure and the attempt, to construct an early applied psychology devoted to the use of techniques inspired by Galton's laboratory in London (cf. Danziger, 1990). Despite this extensive collection of data, is Cattell's contemporary, William James, we are more likely to remember today. The breadth and depth of James's writings on psychology and his concerns about the nascent discipline display a much greater understanding of the problems of consciousness (a stream, James wagered), measurement (James was skeptical), and the practicality of this knowledge in a real world. The book under review would have us believe that we do not quite whether James deserves his eminence since we do not know how much of the eminence variance remains beyond [our] reflective grasp... William James may really deserve his high status... but we don't for sure (p. 63). This one example sums up the pleasures of reading this book as well as its serious limitations. For like Gattell, Simonton is in the business of collecting a great deal of data that, again like Cattell, sometimes appears to come to naught. I shall return to James below. To make the case more clearly, Cattell too endeavoured to understand eminence, a problem he seemed to have come to appreciate while under Galton's tutelage. The latter had published a book entitled Hereditary Genius in 1869 in which he had attempted to demonstrate the importance of inheritance to the development of physical or mental abilities. Cattell, wanting to expand and improve upon Galton, saw this as a natural extension of his applied techniques, for it would be eminently serviceable if we should seek, not only to measure the individuals about us, but to apply measurements to men and women and events in (1928, p. 351). This tradition of measuring eminence has been with us ever since and Simonton has to rank as one of its most skilled practitioners. Having written books such as Genius, Creativity, and Leadership (1984), Greatness (1994), and Origins and Genius (1999), he now turns his attention to psychology, accumulating in one volume a series of studies, some of which were previously published elsewhere, and organizing the whole into a single volume on eminence in psychology. This is not a typical work on the history of psychology but prides itself as a work based largely on historiometric methods (with some results of psychometric studies included). …

Contributions to the History of Psychology: CIV. Eminence in Psychology as Measured by Name Counts and Eponyms

Two measures of eminence in psychology are proposed, (1) consistency of surname counts among authors of introductory psychology textbooks and (2) frequency of use of eponyms in the psychological literature. After comparing surname counts from introductory psychology textbooks across 75 years with page-space allocations from history of psychology textbooks, it was suggested that the present measures are orthogonal to other existing measures of eminence which are based on content analyses of textbooks. Also, when surname counts were plotted against ranked positions of individuals and when percent of use of eponyms was plotted against frequency (low, medium, high) category, respectively, a hyperbolic shaped curve for the surnames and significant disproportions for the eponyms was observed. These findings agree with previous data which led to the conclusion that those who are highly eminent in psychology receive a disproportionate share of attention, praise, and citation space in the psychological literature.

Psychology of the Scientist: XLII. Scientific Eminence and Reading Ease

This study attempted to evaluate whether the frequency with which an individual's articles are reprinted in books of readings in introductory psychology is an adequate measure of scientific eminence. 22 authors were identified as having at least eight articles reprinted in a sample of 30 books of readings. While many of them are considered as eminent by other criteria, suggesting that the variable studied here is an appropriate measure of scientific eminence in psychology, several eminent psychologists did not have as many articles reprinted in the sample of books. It is hypothesized that both scientific eminence and readability of the author's, work combine to determine the probability that scientists have their work reprinted in anthologies for the undergraduate student.

Chronological age, professional age, and eminence in psychology.

Chronological age, professional age, and eminence in psychology.

Some social and psychological correlates of eminence in psychology

Some social and psychological correlates of eminence in psychology