Structure of African Psychological Literature: 1827–1987

Intl. Inform. & Libr. Rev. (1995) 27, 203–223

Structure of African PsychologicalLiterature: 1827–1987*SUSHMA GUPTA

ABSTRACT

A data base of 2297 items on African psychology was compiledfrom Psychological Abstracts (PA) for 61 years, 1927–1987, toanalyse its structure for the (1) amount of literature, (2) authorproductivity and authorship trend, (3) language distribution,(4) format of literature, and (5) geographical distribution ofliterature. This paper presents results of the analysis of the database in condensed form. Literature growth during the first threedecades and in the last 7 years was dramatic. Altogether 1950authors have produced the entire African psychological litera-ture. The largest number of items, 55, was written by a singleauthor over only 7 years, while over 1500 authors have writtenonly one item each. A collaborative trend is present and itspatterns have significantly changed, from 6% during the1930’s–1950’s to about 36% in the 1980’s. A total of 2088 items(90·1%) have appeared as periodical literature, 143 items (6·2%)as theses, and a few books have also been identified. Otherformats, such as conference proceedings or reports, are negli-gible. A total of 45 countries out of the total 52 African countrieshave been covered so far. The number of countries covered hasrisen from 12 to 43 from the first three decades of the study to thelast 7 years. Two-thirds of the whole literature have appearedin 10 countries only, Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Senegal,Uganda, Ghana, Zambia, Egypt, Ethiopia and Zaire. Items ongeneral African area issues have decreased considerably from62% (subfile I, 1927–1958) to 11·4% (subfile IV, 1981–1987)and the items on specific countries have risen from 42% to89·2% during the same periods.

© 1995 Academic Press Limited

INTRODUCTION

In this age of information explosion it has become virtually impossible forscientists to be familiar with everything published in their own subject

* This study is a very large study which is written in eight papers. Here only a part of the study ispresented in a highly condensed form. People interested in its full version may write to the author atthis address: 33036 Trafalgar Lane, #8, Westland, MI 48186, USA.

1057–2317/95/030203+21 $12.00/0 © 1995 Academic Press Limited

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area. Abstracting and indexing services on specific subject areas help solvethis problem, but often include irrelevant items of little interest to thescientist. Librarians are continuously working to find more efficientmethods to organize information sources and allow scientists easier accessto the information they need. Identifying the characteristics of subjectliteratures is one method librarians use to achieve this goal.

Studies which describe the characteristics of literatures are called bibli-ometric studies. These studies are normally conducted on two types of database—bibliographies and citographies (citographies are lists of referencecitations which appear at the back of a work). The first bibliometric studymay be traced back to 1917 when Cole and Eales1 published the resultsof a statistical analysis of the literature of comparative anatomy. Sincethen bibliometric studies have been conducted and reported in the sciences,social sciences, and humanities.

Since 1985, several international conferences on bibliometric studieshave been held, and an issue of Library Trends (Vol. 30, No. 1, 1981) hasalso been devoted to the subject. More recently, a bibliometric dictionarywas published.2 These developments show that bibliometrics or infor-metrics—a new term assigned by Bookstein3—has clearly become anestablished field with applications in history, sociology, communications,and library and information science.

BIBLIOMETRIC STUDIES ON AFRICAN ISSUES AND PSYCHOLOGY

Africa has been of interest to people in many parts of the world for quitesome time. What type of literature is produced here? Who is producingit? Where is it being published? These are the types of questions beingasked about literature in Africa. As mentioned earlier, abstracting andindexing services make literature searches easier, but cannot cover all ofthe literature published in a particular subject area. Martyn4 has shown inhis study of several abstracting services in science and technology that only79% of the published papers are covered by abstracting services. ForAfrican literature there are only two abstracting and indexing services—African Bibliography (Manchester University Press, from 1984) and AfricanPeriodical Index (Hans Zell). They are, however, very recent and cannot beconsidered comprehensive. The documentation of African literature by

1 Cole, F. J. and Eales, B. Nelly. ‘‘The history of comparative anatomy, Part I—a statistical analysisof the literature’’. Science Progress. (Vol. 11, No. 4, 1917, pp. 578–596).

2 Diodato, Virgil. Dictionary of Bibliometrics. (New York (NY), Haworth Press, 1993).3 Bookstein, A. ‘‘Informetric distributions, Part I: unified overviews’’. JASIS (vol. 45, no. 5, 1993,

pp. 368–375). ‘‘Part II: robustness of informetric laws’’ (p. 376–386).4 Martyn, John. Tests on abstract journals. Journal of Documentation (Vol. 23, 1967, pp. 45–70).

STRUCTURE OF AFRICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE 205

the established international abstracting and indexing services is very poorbut thus far are the only sources available.

A few literature and bibliometric studies, however, are available onAfrican issues. A list of such studies was compiled during the course ofliterature survey for this study.5 It lists 26 items and includes studies ongeological, geographical and agricultural literatures along with two studiesby Gupta6,7 on African psychological literature. One other list was com-piled for the bibliometric studies on psychological literature8 but did notinclude any study on African psychological literature. The first study is athesis and deals with the literature analysis for a period of 10 years; thesecond is a bibliometric study based on the same data base applyingLotka’s law.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

Bibliometric studies are used to study the characteristics of subject litera-tures, both literature cited and literature published. Analysis of bib-liographical data permits description of the characteristics of the literaturepublished in the field; while analysis of citation data describes the charac-teristics of literature cited and used by researchers. Cited literature maypresent multidisciplinary characteristics but published literature must beof the same discipline. This study provides the characteristics of the wholeAfrican psychological literature, 1927–1987, published, not cited, whichhave not previously been reported.

As indicated by the literature survey, only one study of African psycho-logical literature exists and that only for a period of 10 years (1966–1975).This present study is an attempt to analyse the whole African psychologicalliterature as it appeared in Psychological Abstracts (PA) from 1927 to 1987.This study specifically aims to identify and analyse the following charac-teristics:

(1) the amount of literature produced and the dynamics of its growthduring different periods;

(2) core authors, author productivity, and authorship trends;(3) languages used;(4) formats of literature and core periodicals;(5) geographical interests of authors.

5 Gupta, Sushma (1990). A list of bibliometric studies on African Issues. 26 items.6 Gupta, Sushma. Literature analysis: a statistical study of African psychological literature for the

period, 1966–1975. Ibadan, Nigeria, University of Ibadan, (MLS Thesis. 1978, 182 lvs).7 Gupta, D. K. ‘‘Lotka’s law and its application to author productivity distribution of psychological

literature of Africa, 1966–1975’’. Herald of Library Science. (Vol. 28, No. 4, 1989, pp. 318–326).8 Gupta, Sushma. A bibliography of bibliometric studies on psychology. (76 items, 1990).

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METHODOLOGY

According to Stevens9 bibliometric studies are of two types: first are thosethat count and analyse ‘‘the number of publications in a given field . . . forthe purpose of comparing the amount of research in different countries,the amount produced during different periods, or the amount producedin different subdivision of the field’’.10 The data base of such studies areusually bibliographies. Second are those that involve study of the literatureused by researchers in a given field, usually by means of references andcitation analyses of references in selected journals, citation indexes, or inlibrary holdings. This study uses the first method—analysis of bibliography.

There is only one abstracting and indexing service in psychology—Psychological Abstracts (PA), offered by the American Psychological Associ-ation (APA). A study conducted by Perk11 shows that ‘‘almost all psychologyand psychiatry titles are accessible through PA alone’’ (from LISA abstract),so it is assumed that this should be true for African psychological literatureas well.

A bibliographical data base was constructed by collecting all items onAfrican psychology which appeared in PA under the headings ‘‘Africa’’,‘‘see also Cultures’’, and individual countries for the 61 years from 1927to 1987. All items were copied as they appeared in PA without change.Items were analysed using the different fields of their bibliographic descrip-tion. During the copying process some peculiar structural characteristicswere noticed and the bibliography was subdivided into four subfiles aslisted below:

—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––Subfiles Years Number of items—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––Subfile I (1927–1958) 32 yrs 79 itemsSubfile II (1959–1969) 11 yrs 269 itemsSubfile III (1970–1980) 11 yrs 835 itemsSubfile IV (1981–1987) 7 yrs 1114 items—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––Total (1927–1987) 61 yrs 2297 items—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

This paper presents the results of the study in condensed form.

9 Stevens, Rolland E. Characteristics of Subject Literatures. (Chicago, American Library Association,ACRL Monograph No. 6, 1953).

10 ibid., p. 10.11 Perk, Lawrence J. ‘‘Secondary publications in education: a study of duplication’’. College and

Research Library (Vol. 38, No. 3, 1977).


LIMITATIONS

The limitations of this study are:

(1) As the data base has been compiled only from PA, other itemsappearing elsewhere have not been included.

(2) As the data base has been compiled only from PA, all limitationswhich apply to PA automatically also apply to this study.

(3) This study analyses the items according to the year of their appear-ance in PA and not according to the date of their publication.

(4) All authors have been given the same weight throughout.(5) The study was divided into four subfiles, but this paper presents

some of its results in condensed form.

RESULTS OF THE STUDY

Growth and Dynamics of African Psychological LiteratureWith the first volume of PA (1927), items on Africa began appearing underthe subject heading ‘‘African Cultures’’. The first was an occasional paperfor the Slater Fund by an American, J. W. Johnson12, on ‘‘Native AfricanRaces and Cultures’’. In Vol. 2 (1928), four periodical articles appearedunder the subject heading ‘‘Africa’’, one on Togo tribal ceremonies, ano-ther describing pygmy ethnography, another on Southern African physi-ology, and the last one on teaching methods in Central Africa. Two itemswere written by Germans and two by Americans. In Vols 3 and 4 (1929,1930), 12 and 13 items appeared respectively. But in subsequent volumes,up to Vol. 20 (1946), only a few items appeared. From Vol. 21 (1947) toVol. 32 (1958), more items began to appear but there were never morethan nine in any 1 year. In 32 years, up to 1958, only 79 items appeared.

In 11 years from 1959 to 1969 (Vols 33–43), the appearance of itemson Africa became more regular, reaching a peak of 44 in vol. 37 (1963).During those years 269 items appeared, up significantly from the previous32 years. From vol. 44 (1970), the number of items again started to rise,reaching at its peak, 87 items in vols 57 and 58 (1977). During this 11-year period (1970–1980), the progress was not proportional to that ofthe previous 11 years, but 835 items showed a considerable interest ofresearchers in African issues. From 1981 to 1987, the annual number ofitems increased to more than one hundred and in 1982 reached a peak of200 items.

Items appearing after 1987 have not been included in this study as PA

12 Johnson, J. W. Native African Races and Culture. (Slater Fund Occasional Papers No. 25. 1927, p.26).

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stopped including foreign language items in its printed form. The overallgrowth of African psychological literature seems to have started after 1947,and continued to increase up to 1987. The number of items on Africanpsychology in PA have been tabulated and given in Table I.

Author Productivity and Authorship TrendTwo types of bibliometric studies related to authors and their charac-teristics have been commonly reported in the literature—author pro-ductivity trends and authorship trends. Studies of both types are availablefor many subject literatures, but only a few exist for psychological literature.For African psychological literature there is only one study by Gupta13

done in 1989 and this study is based on a data base of 10 years only.Table II was prepared to show author productivity trends in the subfiles

and in the entire data base. Subfile I, 1927–1958, is comprised of 79 itemsproduced by 70 authors. The productivity pattern of these authors is givenin the first column. It shows that author productivity is very low duringthis period, only 1·12 items per author. Subfile II, 1959–1969, is comprisedof 269 items produced by 266 authors. The productivity pattern of theseauthors is given in the second column. Author productivity is very lowduring this period as well with only one item per author.

Subfile III, 1970–1980, is comprised of 835 items produced by 748authors. The productivity pattern of these authors is given in the thirdcolumn and is similar to the other subfiles, with only 1·11 items per author.Subfile IV, 1981–1987, is comprised of 1114 items (only periodical articles)produced by 1049 authors. The productivity pattern of these authors hasbeen given in the fourth column. With only 1·06 items per author, authorproductivity during this period is similar to the other subfiles. The fifthcolumn in Table I is not the total of all the subfiles, but a new file whichhas been created by combining all the authors of all the subfiles in whichsome authors were present only in one subfile, some only in two subfiles,and some only in three subfiles with the rest being present in all the subfiles.So it is a new author file comprised of 1950 authors producing 2297 itemsduring the period 1927 to 1987. The productivity rate of these authors is1·16 items per author, the best among all the subfiles. Their productivitypattern is given in the fifth column and is the best among all the subfilesanalysed individually with 1501 authors (76·97%) producing one itemeach and 227 (11·64%) authors producing two items each. The remaining222 authors (11·38%) produced more than two items each, though thelargest number of produced items is the same as Subfile IV, 55 items.

13 Gupta, D. K., ibid.


TABLE IChronological distribution of African psychological items, 1927–1958

—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––Total items Items on Cumulative % of items

Vol. Year in PA Africa items on Africa—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––1 1927 2730 1 1 0·0362 1928 3758 4 5 0·1063 1929 5016 12 17 0·2394 1930 5139 13 30 0·2525 1931 5066 1 31 0·0196 1932 5088 0 31 0·0007 1933 6129 1 32 0·0168 1934 6184 4 36 0·0649 1935 6056 2 38 0·033

10 1936 6062 0 38 0·00011 1937 6063 1 39 0·01612 1938 6693 0 39 0·00013 1939 6557 0 39 0·00014 1940 6275 0 39 0·00015 1941 5452 0 39 0·00016 1942 5066 0 39 0·00017 1943 4323 0 39 0·00018 1944 3926 0 39 0·00019 1945 3539 0 39 0·00020 1946 4936 0 39 0·00021 1947 4668 1 40 0·02122 1948 5612 1 41 0·01723 1949 6530 1 42 0·01524 1950 6563 1 43 0·01525 1951 8322 1 44 0·01226 1952 7297 2 46 0·02727 1953 8092 3 49 0·03728 1954 9120 4 53 0·04329 1955 9103 6 59 0·06530 1956 8542 7 66 0·08131 1957 9074 9 75 0·10932 1958 6100 4 79 0·06533 1959 1242 37 37 2·97934 1959 8532 17 54 0·19935 1961 7353 14 68 0·19036 1962 * 14 82 *37 1963 8381 44 126 0·52438 1964 10 500 18 144 0·17139 1965 16 619 14 158 0·08440 1966 13 622 22 180 0·16141 1967 17 202 21 201 0·12242 1968 19 586 20 221 0·10243 1969 18 068 48 269 0·26544 1970 21 722 64 64 0·294—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

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TABLE I—continued.—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Total items Items on Cumulative % of itemsVol Year in PA Africa items on Africa—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––45 1971 11 117 39 103 0·35046 1971 11 883 40 143 0·33647 1972 11 949 45 188 0·37648 1972 12 377 31 219 0·25049 1973 12 194 33 252 0·27050 1973 12 215 39 291 0·31951 1974 12 133 29 320 0·23952 1974 13 425 37 357 0·27553 1975 12 775 41 398 0·32054 1975 12 768 37 435 0·28955 1976 13 760 41 476 0·29756 1976 10 927 31 507 0·28357 1977 14 150 42 549 0·29658 1977 12 854 45 594 0·35059 1978 26 292 77 671 0·29260 1979 29 714 86 757 0·28961 1980 26 849 78 835 0·29062 1981 27 600 123 123 0·44263 1982 27 125 200 323 0·74464 1983 27 635 143 466 0·52465 1984 32 995 196 662 0·60366 1985 32 349 160 822 0·50367 1986 31 592 145 967 0·46568 1987 36 323 147 1114 0·404—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

* Because of different method of arrangement of items in PA it was not possible to countthe items in this volume.

A list of the 22 authors who produced 10 or more items each appears inAppendix A.

While analysing this file, some interesting observations were made aboutseveral authors:

(1) The author who produced 55 items did so in only seven years duringthe 1980’s. His name is Michael Vandewiele and he has writtenmostly on Senegal.

(2) Though not as prolific as Vandewiele, two other authors, Peter O.Ebigbo and U. H. Ihezue, also secured a place in the list of coreauthors by writing only during the 1980s.

(3) The writings of two authors, Gustav Jahoda and Paul Perin, appearin all four subfiles.

(4) Twenty-nine authors contributed continuously over a long period


TABLE II

Productivity trends of African psychologists, 1927–1987—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Subfile Subfile Subfile SubfileI II III IV Total Number of

Authors Authors Authors Authors Authors items1927–1958 1959–1969 1970–1980 1981–1987 1927–1987 produced

—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––62 212 597 820 1501 14 35 81 119 227 22 11 36 48 96 31 2 10 27 44 41 3 9 11 28 5– 2 3 5 14 6– 1 4 6 7 7– – 1 4 8 8– – 3 1 3 9– – – 2 5 10– – – 2 4 11– – – 1 2 12– – – – 1 13– – 1 – 1 15– – – 1 – 16– – 2 – – 17– – – – 1 19– – 1 – 1 20– – – – 2 21– – – 1 1 22– – – – 1 25– – – – 1 26– – – – 1 28– – – 1 1 55

—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––70 266 748 1049 1950

authors authors authors authors authors—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

1·12 1·01 1·11 1·06 1·16items items items items itemsper per per per per

author author author author author—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

of time while, in contrast, there are 16 authors whose works haveappeared after long gaps, one as long as 18 years.

Authorship TrendThe data for this analysis are presented in Table III. Subfile I, 1927–1958,comprises of 79 items, out of which only five items are two-author works

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722

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488

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(6·33%). Subfile II, 1959–1969, comprises 269 items, out of which 63items (23·42%) are collaborative efforts—a dramatic increase over SubfileI. Subfile III, 1970–1980, comprises 835 items, out of which 216 items(25·87%) are collaborative efforts—a slight increase over Subfile II. SubfileIV, 1980–1987, comprises 1114 items, out of which 397 items (35·64%)are collaborative efforts—again a dramatic increase over Subfile III.

Since the period 1927–1958 when there were only five two-author itemsout of 79 (6·33%), the collaborative trend has been increasing, reaching397 collaborative items out of 1114 (35·63%) during 1981–1987, almostsix times that of the subfile I. On the other hand, single author items havedecreased considerably from 93·66% (1927–1958), to 76·57% (1959–1969), 73·89% (1970–1980), and 64·36% (1981–1987).

The authors were also analysed for producing items as single authors,co-authors, or both. This analysis was taken up on the assumption thatsince the collaborative trend was increasing, co-authors should also beincreasing. They were found, however, to be in almost the same numbersas single authors. The number of authors who were both single authors,as well as co-authors, is very small. Results are given below:

895 single authors only;860 co-authors only;177 both single author and co-author.

LANGUAGE OF THE LITERATURE

African psychological literature has appeared in a total of 11 languagesincluding Russian, Italian, Swedish, and Portuguese. Table IV gives acomplete list of languages. Most articles, 2000 items (87·0%), haveappeared in English, but French, 235 items (10·2%), was also usedfrequently. Other languages comprise less than 3·0% of the literature.

FORMAT OF THE LITERATURE

Format analysis is used to determine in what types of sources informationon a particular subject are likely to appear. It is especially important forAfrican psychology as the topic is a narrow one. The format distributionanalysis for the four subfiles and the whole data base (see Table V) revealsthat out of the total 2297 items, 2088 items (90·1%) appeared as periodicalarticles, 143 items (6·2%) as theses; 39 items (1·7%) as books and 17 items(0·7%) as analyticals.

There is one anomaly here. As of 1981, all formats other than periodicalarticles were no longer indexed in PA. To look for items produced in other

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TABLE IV

Language distribution in African psychological literature, 1927–1987—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Subfile Subfile Subfile SubfileLanguages I II III IV Total—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––English 57 221 756 966 2000

(72·0%) (82·2%) (90·5%) (86·7%) (87·0%)French 14 35 68 118 235

(18·0%) (13·0%) (8·1%) (10·6%) (10·2%)German 8 13 3 7 18

(10·0%) (4·8%) (0·8%)Afrikaans 0 0 2 10 12

(0·9%) (0·5%)Spanish 0 0 2 6 8Belgica 0 0 3 0 3Norwegian 0 0 0 2 2Swedish 0 0 0 2 2Italian 0 0 0 1 1Portuguese 0 0 0 1 1Russian 0 0 0 1 1—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––Total 79 269 835 1114 2297—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

formats after 1980 other sources and services should be searched. Forexample, for theses the Dissertations Abstracts International (DAI) needs to beconsulted. It should also be noted that the hard copy of PA stoppedindexing foreign language materials in 1988, though its electronic versionscontinue to index materials in other languages. To save the data base fromthese anomalies, items were collected only up to 1987 and various subfileswere created.

Periodical LiteratureTwo thousand and eighty-eight items (90·1% of the whole literature)appeared in 464 periodicals. The distribution of items among periodicalsis shown in Table VI. As many periodicals are present in more than onesubfile, figures for the number of periodicals are different in each subfile.The total number of periodicals for the entire data base is not the total ofall the subfiles. It is interesting to note that the Subfile IV alone comprisesmore than half the whole periodical literature, 1114 items (54·35%), inonly 7 years time, 1981–1987; while for 54 years, 1927–1980, three subfilescomprise only 974 items (45·65%). The growth is manifold.

The distribution of the literature among periodicals has been given inTable VII. This table shows that half of the whole periodical literature has


TABLE V

Available formats in African psychological literature, 1927–1987—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––Subfilesor Data base Per. art. Theses Books Analyt. Others—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––I 69 1 8 0 11927–1958 (87·4%) (1·5%) (11·6%) (1·5%)32 years79 items

II 269 11 12 1 11959–1969 (90·7%) (4·1%) (4·4%)11 years269 items

III 661 131 19 16 61970–1980 (79·2%) (15·6%) (2·3%) (1·9%)11 years835 items

IV 1114 Not Not Not Not1981–1987 (100·0%) covered covered covered covered7 years1114 items

Data base 2088 143 39 17 81927–1987 (90·1%) (6·2%) (1·7%) (0·7%)61 years2297 items—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

been covered by only 31 periodicals and the other half by 433 periodicals.This shows a sizeable concentration of African psychological literature inrelatively few periodicals—useful knowledge for librarians who need tosubscribe to periodicals which include good coverage of Africanpsychology. The list of 31 periodicals has been given as Appendix B.

During this study some other characteristics were also noted regardingperiodicals:

(1) Two periodical titles have appeared in all four subfiles, though theyhave not published enough items to be included in the list of coreperiodicals; they are (a) American Journal of Sociology (5 items), and (b)Psychiatry (9 items).

(2) American Imago published its first item on African psychology in 1954

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TABLE VI

Distribution of African psychological periodical literature, 1927–1987—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––Subfiles No. of per. No. ofor data base articles periodicals—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––I 69 461927–1958 (87·4%)32 years79 items

II 244 831959–1969 (90·7%)11 years269 items

III 661 2031970–1980 (79·2%)11 years835 items

IV 1114 2971981–1987 (100·0%)7 years1114 items

Data base 2088 4641927–1987 (90·1%)61 years2297 items—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

and waited 29 years, until 1983, to publish its second, the longestgap in time of any of the periodicals.

(3) There are several periodicals which took the lead in publishing itemson African psychology in the early years but then never publishedagain, these include Africa, African Studies, American Anthropology, Anthro-pos, Congo, and East African Medical Journal. Reasons may be that theperiodical itself was no longer indexed in PA, the periodical ceasedpublication, or the periodical did not publish any item on Africanpsychology.

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION

Geographical areas are of interest to psychologists as psychology changeswith a change of area, religion, traditions, population, languages, society,


TABLE VII

Distribution of African psychological periodical articles among 464 periodicals, 1927–1987

—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––Number of Number of

items periodicals Total items Cumulative—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

174 1 174 17485 1 85 25976 1 76 33572 1 72 40750 1 50 45749 1 49 50645 1 45 55143 1 43 59438 1 38 63237 1 37 66934 1 34 70333 1 33 73632 1 32 76829 1 29 79726 1 26 82324 1 24 84723 1 23 87020 1 20 89017 3 51 94116 2 32 97314 1 14 98713 2 26 101312 5 60 1073 (Half lit)11 4 44 111710 5 50 11679 4 36 12038 7 56 12597 6 42 13016 15 90 13915 17 85 14764 28 112 15883 43 129 17172 67 134 18511 237 237 2088

—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––Total 464 2088

—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

customs, and cultures. Africa is a land where these things can changeevery 50–60 miles. Africa consists of 52 countries and four areas—Africa,North Africa, East Africa, and West Africa. Central Africa and South

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Africa have not been listed here because they are countries. The dis-tribution of the literature according to country and area have been givenin Table VIII.

This table shows that African psychological literature has been producedon 45 of 52 countries and on all four areas. Thus about 87% of the Africancontinent has been covered; only seven countries have been left out. Atotal of 1879 items (81·8%) have been produced on these 45 countries;and a total of 486 items (21·1%) have been produced on the four areas—Africa, 388 items (16·9%); East Africa, 38 items (1·6%); North Africa, 17items (0·7%); and West Africa, 43 items (1·8%).

The two most investigated countries are Nigeria with 479 items (20·8%)and South Africa with 351 (15·3%). Nigeria and South Africa togethercover 830 items (36·1% of the whole literature). A list of the top 10countries on which more than 40 items have been produced is given inTable IX. These top ten countries, Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Senegal,Uganda, Ghana, Zambia, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Zaire, cover 1518 items(66·1%). The remaining 35 countries cover only 361 items (15·7%), slightlymore than South Africa alone.

Nine countries, Central Africa, Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria,Senegal, South Africa, Sudan and Tanzania; and three areas, Africa, EastAfrica, and West Africa have received regular coverage during all fourperiods. Six countries received the attention of African psychologists onlyin the 1980’s; they are Angola, Burundi, Chad, Djibouti, Guinea Bissau,and Namibia. Each country has also had only one item written about it.

Table VIII also shows a gradual increase in the number of countriescovered, the number of items produced on specific countries, as well as adecrease in the number of items produced on the areas over the fourperiods. Subfile I of 79 items for 32 years covers only 12 countries andthree areas—41 items (50%) are on Africa, eight items (11%) are on twoother areas, and 34 items (40%) are on specific countries. Subfile II of 269items for 11 years covers 20 countries and all four areas, 92 items (34·2%)are on Africa, 25 items (9·3%) are on the other three areas, and 158 items(58·7%) are on specific countries. Subfile III of 835 items for 11 yearscovers 37 countries and all four areas, 153 items (18·3%) are on Africa,40 items (4·8%) are on the other three areas, and 651 items (77·9%) areon specific countries. Subfile IV of 1114 items for 7 years covers 45countries and all four areas, 102 items (9·1%) are on Africa, 25 items(2·2%) are on the other three areas, and 994 items (89·2%) are on specificcountries. Thus the number of countries receiving coverage during the timeperiod covered by the study increased from 12 to 43 and the percentage ofitems produced on areas decreased, from 62·0% to 11·4%. Psychologistsappear to have started taking greater interest in specific geographical areastudies over general African studies.


TABLE VIII

Geographical distribution of African psychological items, 1927–1987—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Subfile Subfile Subfile SubfileCountries I II III IV Total—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––1. Algeria 0 4 7 14 252. Angola 0 0 0 1 13. Botswana 0 0 4 18 224. Burundi 0 0 0 1 15. Cameroon 0 0 1 11 126. Cent Africa 6 1 3 2 127. Chad 0 0 0 1 18. Congo 1 9 9 2 219. Djibuti 0 0 0 1 1

10. Egypt 0 6 6 47 5911. Eq. Guinea 0 0 1 1 212. Ethiopia 0 6 31 13 5513. Fr. Guiana 1 1 1 0 314. Gabon 0 0 2 2 415. Gambia 0 0 1 0 116. Ghana 3 17 47 23 8917. Guinea Bissau 0 0 0 1 118. Ivory Coast 0 3 11 11 2519. Kenya 3 6 44 54 16520. Lesotho 0 0 1 4 521. Liberia 0 1 21 5 2722. Libya 0 0 4 3 723. Madagascar 0 0 1 1 224. Malawi 0 0 2 3 525. Mali 0 0 2 7 926. Morocco 0 0 11 13 2427. Mozambique 0 0 2 1 328. Namibia 0 0 0 1 129. Niger 0 1 0 4 530. Nigeria 3 15 163 301 47931. Rwanda 0 0 4 2 632. Senegal 1 3 36 75 11533. Sierra Leone 0 1 9 4 1434. Somalia 1 0 2 4 735. South Africa 11 63 64 224 35136. Sudan 1 2 9 15 2737. Swaziland 0 0 2 6 838. Tanzania 1 1 20 17 3839. Togo 2 0 0 1 340. Tunisia 0 0 5 11 1641. Uganda 0 14 64 18 9642. Upper Volta 0 0 1 1 243. Zaire 0 0 10 31 4144. Zambia 0 1 45 22 6845. Zimbabwe 0 3 5 12 20—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

S. GUPTA220

TABLE VIII—continued.—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Subfile Subfile Subfile SubfileCountries I II III IV Total—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––45 countries 34 158 651 994 1879—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––AREAS

Africa 41 92 153 102 388East Africa 3 7 20 8 38North Africa 0 4 7 6 17West Africa 5 14 13 11 43

—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––49 117 193 127 486

—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––Countries covered (45) 12 19 36 43 45—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

TABLE IX

Top 10 countries covering more than 40 items, 1927–1987—–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––Countries No. of items % Covered—–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––1. Nigeria 479 20·8%2. South Africa 351 15·3%3. Kenya 165 7·2%4. Senegal 115 5·0%5. Uganda 96 4·2%6. Ghana 89 3·8%7. Zambia 68 2·9%8. Egypt 59 2·5%9. Ethiopia 55 2·4%

10. Zaire 41 1·8%—–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––10 countries Total = 1518 Items 66·1%—–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The results of the study have been summarized as below:

(1) The growth of African psychological literature was slow to start, butincreased dramatically during the last two decades. During the first threedecades only 79 items were listed, during the next 11 years the numberrose to 269, then again in the next 11 years it rose to 835, and in the next


7 years the PA indexed 1114 items on African psychology. The numberof items which have appeared during the last 7 years almost equals thenumber which appeared in the previous 54 years.

(2) The productivity rate of African psychologists is about the samethroughout the subfiles, but is a little bit better for the entire data base. Asthe literature grew, the number of authors also grew, but the productivityrate did not register a similar increase.

(3) In African psychological literature, single authorship of articles hascome down from about 94% (1927–1958), to about 64% (1981–1987)—adifference of 30% in 30 years time. The total number of collaborativeitems has increased dramatically, from 6·33% (1927–1958) to 35·63%(1981–1987), an over five times increase. Single authors and co-authorswere found in almost equal numbers. Few single authors wrote also as co-author.

(4) Of African psychological literature, 90·1% has appeared as periodicalliterature. Half the periodical literature appeared in only 31 periodicals,while the other half appeared in 433 periodicals. The second most usedformat for African psychological literature is thesis. Up to 1980, 143 theses(6·2%) have been indexed with 131 of those having been indexed duringthe period 1970–1980. Theses and books stopped being indexed in PA in1980 and other formats are of negligible importance. In 1988, PA stoppedindexing foreign language articles. To access these formats one now needsto search other sources.

(5) African psychological literature has appeared in a total of 11 lan-guages including Russian, Italian, and Swedish, with English being usedmost frequently (87·0%) and French coming in second (10·2%).

(6) Coverage of individual countries increased gradually at first, butmore rapidly in recent years. A tremendous increase occurred betweenthe periods 1959–1966 and 1970–1980, with an increase from 20 countriesto 37. In the 1980’s most African countries were covered by the literature.Another noticeable feature is that items produced on general African issueshave decreased dramatically, from 62·0% in the 1920’s and 1930’s toonly 11·4% in the 1980’s. Items on specific countries have increasedconsiderably, from 43·0% to 89·2%. This clearly shows a shift in theinterests of African psychologists from general studies to the problems ofspecific countries. Nigeria is the most studied country, followed by SouthAfrica. Kenya and Senegal have both had more than 100 items writtenabout each of them. Some countries have consistently received attention,like Congo, South Africa, and Nigeria, while some have received attentiononly in the 1980’s such as Angola, Burundi, and Chad. Almost two-thirdsof the whole literature produced on African psychology has been writtenabout 10 countries—Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal,South Africa, Uganda, Zaire, and Zambia.

S. GUPTA222

APPENDIX A

List of 22 African psychologists producing 10 or more items,1927–1987

—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––Authors No. of items—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––1. Vandewiele, Michael 552. Deregowski, Jan B. 283. Munroe, Robert L. 264. Munroe, Ruth H. 255. D’Hondt, Walter 226. Collomb, Henri 217. Jegede, R. Olukayode 218. Jahoda, Gustav 209. Orpen, Christopher 19

10. Erinosho, O. A. 1511. Doob, Leonard 1312. Giel, R. 1213. Heaven, Patrick 1214. Ebigbo, Peter O. 1115. Ihezue, U. H. 1116. Kilbride, Philip L. 1117. Wober, Mallory 1118. Levine, Robert A. 1019. Maqsud, Muhammad 1020. Ndetei, David M. 1021. Olowu, Akinsola 1022. Opolot, Jethro A. 10—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––


APPENDIX B

List of 31 periodicals covering half of the African psychological literature, 1927–1987—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––Periodicals No. of items—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––1. Journal of Social Psychology 1742. International Journal of Psychology 853. Psychopathologie Africaine 764. Journal of Cross-cultural Psychology 725. Social Science and Medicine 506. Psychological Reports 497. Psychologia Africana 458. South African Journal of Psychology 439. Journal of Psychology 38

10. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 3711. Perceptual and Motor Skills 3412. Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Reports 3313. British Journal of Psychiatry 3214. Ethos 2915. West African Journal of Educational and Vocational Measurement 2616. Annales Medico Psychologiques 2417. International Journal of Social Psychology 2318. American Ethnologist 2019. British Journal of Psychology 1720. Journal of Social Research 1721. Social Psychiatry 1722. African Journal of Psychiatry 1623. Child Development 1624. Humanitas 1425. International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling 1326. Revue de Psychologie Appliquee 1327. Adolescence 1228. British Journal of Educational Psychology 1229. International Review of Applied Psychology 1230. Journal of National Institute of Personnel Research (RSA) 1231. Journal of Negro Education 12—––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Documents

Structure of African Psychological Literature: 1827–1987