Twenty Years of PSPB:  Trends in Content, Design, and Analysis

Richard C. Sherman, Amy M. Buddie, Kristin L. Dragan
Christian M. End, & Lila J. Finney

    This investigation assessed the nature of research published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (PSPB) over the past twenty years (1976-1996), and compared publication trends in PSPB to another major journal in the field, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (JPSP). Articles in both journals have tended to become longer, to contain more studies, to be authored by more collaborators, and to employ a greater diversity of statistical analyses. Research in both journals has relied heavily on designs involving experimental manipulation and college undergraduates as participants, though the temporal patterns of experimental designs are somewhat different in the two journals – decreasing over the years in JPSP but not in PSPB. Articles in PSPB have consistently emphasized the domain of attitudes and social cognition more than those in JPSP, and there have been identifiable shifts in the emphasis that PSPB articles have placed on specific problems (e.g, a recent increase in research on ethnic and gender prejudice). The implications of these patterns are discussed in terms of their significance for progress in the field and their impact on the career experiences of researchers.

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