Searching for the structure of early American psychology: Networking Psychological Review, 1894-1908

Abstract

This study investigated the intellectual structure of early American psychology by generating 3 networks that collectively included every substantive article published in Psychological Review during the 15-year period from the journal's start in 1894 until 1908. The networks were laid out so that articles with strongly correlated vocabularies were positioned close to each other spatially. Then, we identified distinct research communities by locating and interpreting article clusters within the networks. We found that, from the first 5-year time block to the second, psychological specialties rapidly differentiated themselves from each other. Between the second and third 5-year time blocks, however, the number of specialties shrunk. We discuss the degree to which this shift may have been attributable either to a change in the journal's editorship in 1904, or to a broader crisis of confidence, beginning that same year, in the use of "consciousness" as the discipline's defining concept.