A network‐analytic perspective on 30 years of personality research

Abstract

The current research adopted a network‐analytic approach to summarize the changes within the field of personality psychology over a 30‐year span from 1990 to 2019. Bibliographic data from 25,238 articles were used to construct three separate co‐authorship networks respectively representing the patterns of collaboration within each decade of personality research (i.e., 1990–1999, 2000–2009, and 2010–2019). The network properties of each co‐authorship graph suggested that personality researchers have become more interconnected and collaborative with each successive decade. An examination of the semantic content of these articles suggested that the synthesis of clinical and normative trait models, along with the integration of traditional person and situation perspectives, may be driving the increased connectivity and collaboration between researchers. We hope that this novel application of network‐analytic and machine‐learning principles can serve as proof of concept for future efforts to summarize a scientific literature.