Authorship Pattern and Collaborative Research Trends in the Journals of Psychology.

Purpose of this paper is to analyze the authorship pattern of the authors of psychology journals to identify their productivity, collaboration and affiliations. This is the bibliometric study of seven psychology journals. The information about number of articles, authorship pattern, author’s institutional and geographical affiliation and author productivity were collected to achieve the objectives of the study. The number of two authored articles was found highest, followed by single and three authored articles. The degree of collaboration was found increasing with the passage of time in most of the journals under study. The institutional collaboration was common among the authors. The study depicts that main contribution was made by the researchers working in universities. Most of the contributors are affiliated with the institutions of Pakistan, while the authors from 26 other countries including India, Malaysia, USA, Iran and Bangladesh have also contributed. Lotka’s law of scientific productivity was tested and conforms only partially. This study will be valuable for considering the performance, collaboration and affiliation of the authors of psychology. This is the first study of its kind in the field of psychology in Pakistan. This will be a useful addition in the bibliometric literature. This type of research may be useful for understanding the performance of researchers and importance of research and development activities. This study confirms the earlier studies of psychology researchers who prefer collaborative research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]