Skip to main content
Log in

A bibliometric study of psychological research on tourism

  • Published:
Scientometrics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The psychology of tourism is a new, multidisciplinary research field. However, no systematic analyses of the scientific production in this field have been carried out to date. This study presents a bibliometric analysis of the area of psychology of tourism between 1990 and 2005. The evolution of scientific production during this period, Price’s, Lotka’s and Bradford’s laws and citation patterns were studied. The results show a significant growth in the literature on the subject, as well as an increase in coauthorship and institutional collaboration. Bibliometric laws and empiric regularities observed in other disciplines are also present in this new research field.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Aksnes, D. W. (2003), Characteristics of highly cited papers. Research Evaluation, 12(3): 159–170.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Andersen, H. (2000), Influence and reputation in the social sciences-How much do researchers agree? Journal of Documentation, 56(6): 674–692.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Archambault, E., Vignola-Gagne, E., Cote, G., Lariviere, V., Gingras, Y. (2006), Benchmarking scientific output in the social sciences and humanities: The limits of existing databases. Scientometrics, 68(3): 329–342.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Avkiran, N. K. (1997), Scientific collaboration in finance does not lead to better quality research. Scientometrics, 39(2): 173–184.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berno, T., Ward, C. (2005), Innocence abroad-A pocket guide to psychological research on tourism. American Psychologist, 60(6): 593–600.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bradford, S. C. (1934), Sources of information on specific subjects. Engineering, 137(3550): 85–86.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bridgstock, M. (1991), The quality of single and multiple authored papers-an unresolved problem. Scientometrics, 21(1): 37–48.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown, M. (1994), Using Gini-style indices to evaluate the spatial patterns of health practitioners; theoretical considerations and an application based on the Alberta data. Social Science and Medicine, 38(9): 1243–1256.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glänzel, W. (2002), Coauthorship patterns and trends in the sciences (1980–1998): A bibliometric study with implications for database indexing and search strategies. Library Trends, 50(3): 461–473.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldfinch, S., Dale, T., Derouen, K. (2003), Science from the periphery: Collaboration, networks and “periphery effects” in the citation of New Zealand Crown Research Institutes articles, 1995–2000. Scientometrics, 57(3): 321–337.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hart, R. L. (2007), Collaboration and article quality in the literature of academic librarianship. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 33(2): 190–195.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hicks, D. (1999), The difficulty of achieving full coverage of international social science literature and the bibliometric consequences. Scientometrics, 44(2): 193–215.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Katz, J. S., Hicks, D. (1997), How much is a collaboration worth? A calibrated bibliometric model. Scientometrics, 40(3): 541–554.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leimu, R., Koricheva, J. (2005), Does scientific collaboration increase the impact of ecological articles? Bioscience, 55(5): 438–443.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lotka, A. J. (1926), The frequency distribution of scientific productivity. Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, 16(12): 317–323.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mckercher, B., Law, R., Lam, T. (2006), Rating tourism and hospitality journals. Tourism Management, 27: 1235–1252.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Naranan, S. (1971), Power law relations in science bibliography-self-consistent interpretation. Journal of Documentation, 27(2): 83–97.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Narin, F. (1976), Evaluative Bibliometrics: The Use of Publication and Citation Analysis in the Evaluation of Scientific Activity, Washington D.C.: National Science Foundation.

    Google Scholar 

  • Narin, F., Stevens, K. Whitlow, E. S. (1991), Scientific cooperation in Europe and the citation of multinationally authored papers. Scientometrics, 21(3): 313–323.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nath, R., Jackson, W. M. (1991), Productivity of management-information-systems researchers — does Lotka law apply. Information Processing & Management, 27(2–3): 203–209.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nisonger, T. E. (2004), Citation autobiography: An investigation of ISI database coverage in determining author citedness. College & Research Libraries, 65(2): 152–163.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pao, M. L. (1985), Lotka law-a testing procedure. Information Processing & Management, 21(4): 305–320.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pearce, P. L., Stringer, P. F. (1991), Psychology and tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 18(1): 136–154.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Peters, H. P. F., Van Raan, A. F. J. (1994), On determinants of citation scores — a case-study in chemical-engineering. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 45(1): 39–49.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Phelan, T. J. (1999), A compendium of issues for citation analysis. Scientometrics, 45(1): 117–136.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Redner, S. (1998), How popular is your paper? An empirical study of the citation distribution. European Physical Journal B, 4(2): 131–134.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Seglen, P. O. (1992), The skewness of science. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 43(9): 628–638.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Seglen, P. O. (1994), Causal relationship between article citedness and journal impact. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 45(1): 1–11.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smart, J. C., Bayer A. E. (1986), Author collaboration and impact-a note on citation rates of single and multiple authored articles. Scientometrics, 10(5–6): 297–305.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Van Raan, A. F. J. (2004), Measuring science. Capita selecta of current main issues. In: H. F. Moed, W. Glänzel, U. Schmoch (Eds), Handbook of Quantitative Science and Technology Research. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 19–50.

    Google Scholar 

  • Van Raan, A. F. J. (2005), For your citations only? Hot topics in bibliometric analysis. Measurement: Interdisciplinary Research and Perspectives, 3(1): 50–62.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Maite Barrios.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Barrios, M., Borrego, A., Vilaginés, A. et al. A bibliometric study of psychological research on tourism. Scientometrics 77, 453–467 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-007-1952-0

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-007-1952-0

Keywords

Navigation