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Topic · Clinical Psychology

Personality Traits and Psychology

Personality Traits and Psychology is a research topic within Clinical Psychology. Science Explorer counts 16k research works in it since 1950. 10.1% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers explores the impact of personality traits, including the Big Five, self-esteem, narcissism, and psychopathy, on various aspects of life outcomes such as academic performance, health, social behavior, and mental well-being. It includes longitudinal studies, cross-cultural comparisons, and investigations into the stability and change of personality traits across the life span.

  • Personality Traits
  • Big Five
  • Self-Esteem
  • Narcissism
  • Psychopathy
  • Longitudinal Studies
  • Social Behavior
  • Mental Health
  • Cross-Cultural
  • Life Span Development
Research works
16k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
1.6k
per year above
Top-10% rate
10.1%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+16%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
United States
29% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Personality Traits and Psychology

Which countries lead Personality Traits and Psychology research?

By volume, the United States and China publish the most (740 and 467 works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 United States 740 works
  2. 2 China 467 works
  3. 3 Germany 292 works
  4. 4 India 217 works
  5. 5 Türkiye 187 works
  6. 6 United Kingdom 185 works
  7. 7 Canada 125 works
  8. 8 Japan 104 works
  9. 9 Indonesia 104 works
  10. 10 Australia 103 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

United States: 29.3%China: 18.5%Germany: 11.6%India: 8.6%6 others listed: 32.0%29%largest
United States740 · 29.3%China467 · 18.5%Germany292 · 11.6%India217 · 8.6%6 others listed808 · 32.0%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Personality Traits and Psychology research?

By volume in 2022-now, Islamic Azad University, Tehran publishes the most Personality Traits and Psychology research, followed by Beijing Normal University and University of Alabama.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Islamic Azad University, TehranIran 31 works
  2. 2 Beijing Normal UniversityChina 29 works
  3. 3 University of AlabamaUnited States 19 works
  4. 4 University of ZurichSwitzerland 17 works
  5. 5 Southwest UniversityChina 16 works
  6. 6 Western UniversityCanada 14 works
  7. 7 Sapienza University of RomeItaly 13 works
  8. 8 Polish Academy of SciencesPoland 13 works
  9. 9 Tilburg UniversityNetherlands 13 works
  10. 10 University of British ColumbiaCanada 11 works

Who are the leading researchers in Personality Traits and Psychology?

The most-cited researchers publishing on Personality Traits and Psychology include George Davey Smith, Richard M. Ryan and Albert Bandura.

  1. 1 George Davey Smith United Kingdom 435k citations
  2. 2 Richard M. Ryan United States 395k citations
  3. 3 Albert Bandura United States 370k citations
  4. 4 Ronald C. Kessler United States 360k citations
  5. 5 Mika Kivimäki United Kingdom 318k citations
  6. 6 Dan J. Stein South Africa 306k citations
  7. 7 Gonçalo R. Abecasis United States 300k citations
  8. 8 Luigi Ferrucci United States 281k citations
  9. 9 Cornelia M. van Duijn Netherlands 250k citations
  10. 10 John C. Morris United States 241k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in Personality Traits and Psychology?

The most cited paper in Personality Traits and Psychology is "THE BIG FIVE PERSONALITY DIMENSIONS AND JOB PERFORMANCE: A META‐ANALYSIS" (Murray R. Barrick, Michael Kelly Mount, 1991), with 8,760 citations. Next come "Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test." (8,378) and "The Experiential Aspects of Consumption: Consumer Fantasies, Feelings, and Fun" (8,178).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 THE BIG FIVE PERSONALITY DIMENSIONS AND JOB PERFORMANCE: A META‐ANALYSIS Murray R. Barrick, Michael Kelly Mount · Personnel Psychology Mar 1991 8,760
2 Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test. Anthony G. Greenwald, Debbie E. McGhee, Jordan L. K. Schwartz · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1998 8,378
3 The Experiential Aspects of Consumption: Consumer Fantasies, Feelings, and Fun Morris B. Holbrook, Elizabeth C. Hirschman · Journal of Consumer Research Sep 1982 8,178
4 An Introduction to the Five‐Factor Model and Its Applications Robert R. McCrae, Oliver P. John · Journal of Personality Jun 1992 6,884
5 Transformational leader behaviors and their effects on followers' trust in leader, satisfaction, and organizational citizenship behaviors Philip M. Podsakoff, SCOTT B. MACKENZIE, Robert H. Moorman et al. · The Leadership Quarterly Jun 1990 5,655
All 99 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Personality Traits and Psychology research done?

The largest centres of Personality Traits and Psychology research in 2022-now are Beijing (China), London (United Kingdom), Istanbul (Türkiye) and Tehran (Iran).

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 BeijingChina 98 works
  2. 2 LondonUnited Kingdom 52 works
  3. 3 IstanbulTürkiye 43 works
  4. 4 TehranIran 42 works
  5. 5 WarsawPoland 40 works
  6. 6 ShanghaiChina 38 works
  7. 7 TokyoJapan 36 works
  8. 8 MoscowRussia 33 works
  9. 9 WuhanChina 29 works
  10. 10 LahorePakistan 28 works
See Personality Traits and Psychology on the map

Where is the best place to study Personality Traits and Psychology?

Among universities, judged by research, University of Zurich, Beijing Normal University and Wuhan University score highest, combining excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%20%40%mean 16.91%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →Wuhan UniversityTilburg UniversityUniversity of ZurichBeijing Normal Unive…
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1University of ZurichSwitzerland 64.318.2%7.1×17 +67.1%
2Beijing Normal UniversityChina 61.38.5%10.7×30 +296.4%
3Wuhan UniversityChina 55.839.8%1.7×8 +423.8%
4Tilburg UniversityNetherlands 54.519.3%22.3×12 +10.0%
5University of BernSwitzerland 51.421.4%5.0×9 +1.9%
6Southwest UniversityChina 48.712.0%8.5×16 +419.7%
7University of AlabamaUnited States 48.617.6%20.8×19 -17.3%
8Islamic Azad University, TehranIran 46.72.2%5.4×31 +5.5%
9Vrije Universiteit AmsterdamNetherlands 46.519.5%8.0×11 -11.5%
10Western UniversityCanada 43.410.6%7.2×14 -11.0%

Universities only. The score blends excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Personality Traits and Psychology, country by country

Is Personality Traits and Psychology research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 16% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2025. The fastest-growing topics are Personality Traits and Psychology.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Personality Traits and Psychology as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.016% in 2024.

still counting0.010%0.020%Personality Traits and Psychology0.017% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Personality Traits and Psychology over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Personality Traits and Psychology10.5% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

Questions people ask

Who researches personality?

By volume in 2022-now, Islamic Azad University, Tehran publishes the most Personality Traits and Psychology research, followed by Beijing Normal University and University of Alabama. By volume, the United States and China publish the most (740 and 467 works in 2022-now).

All 1,273 questions in the Question Catalogue

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