The citation impact factor in social psychology: A bad statistic that encourages bad science?

Abstract

The impact factor is widely used to measure journal quality in social psychology even though it actually measures apparent rather than genuine impact. Analyses of citations in two journals show that impact factors may detect some genuine publication impact, but this is a small proportion of apparent impact (32%). Self-citation figures of (61% and 38% of impacting citations) show that authors as often become aware of impact-credited articles by writing them as by reading them. If impact factors are to be used in this field then they should involve at least four years' coverage.

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