On the Number of Articles of Psychological Interest Published in the Different Languages: 1936

-1945
Author(s): Samuel W. Fernberger
Source: The American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 59, No. 2 (Apr., 1946), pp. 284-290
Published by: University of Illinois Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1416892
Accessed: 10-12-2015 00:26 UTC

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 NOTES AND DISCUSSION
ON THE NUMBER OF ARTICLES OF PSYCHOLOGICALINTEREST
PUBLISHED IN THE DIFFERENT LANGUAGES: 1936-1945

Three times before, in 1917, 1926 and 1936, the writer has published
analyses of the number of articles published in the different languages.,
The first article covered the period 1894-1915; the second was a supple-
mentaryreportcovering the 10-yearperiod 1916-1925; and the third was
an additional supplementaryreport covering the 10-yr. period of 1926-
1935. The presentpaperis an additionalreportanalysingthe psychological
titles for the 10-yr. period just closed; namely 1936-1945. In the three
previousreports,the materialsconsistedof an analysisby language of the
titles listed in the PsychologicalIndex, which was discontinuedin 1936:
The materials for the present report were obtained from the listings in
the PsychologicalAbstracts.
The 1917 report may be consideredto cover the developmentof psy-
chological publicationfrom the relativelyearly days of psychologyto the
First World War. The 1926 reportcoversthe period of the war and post-
war years. The third report (1935) showed the trends of psychological
publicationin the mid-war period of readjustmentand of the economic
depressionwhich grew out of this readjustment.The presentreport (1945)
covers the years of growing Fascismin Europeand of the actualyears of
the SecondWorld War.
One sourceof error,which is eventuallyself-corrective,is that the titles
are listed under the year of publicationin the Abstractsrather than the
actual year of publicationof the book or article.There is sometimes,but
not frequently,a lag in listing of one year, but the errorcausedby this lag
is so small as certainlynot seriouslyto effecttrends.Anothersourceof error
must be expected for the last five years covered in the present analysis;
namely, the fact that articles may have appeared in Central European
countriesand those under Axis control whose titles are still unknown in
America. It is the writer's opinion that this number would not seriously
effect trends. A third source of error may have to do with reportsof a
classified nature having to do with the war effort or war preparationin
the various countries. It is known to the author that many such psycho-
logical reportswere preparedin the United Statesand in Britainbut there
is, as yet, no information regarding other countries. It can be safely
1This JOURNAL,28, 1917, 141-150; 37, 1926, 578-580; 48, 1936, 680-684.
284

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 NOTES AND DISCUSSION 285

assumed that this third factor might effect the trends for all languages
more or less equally.
The number of articles in English, German, French, Italian, Russian
and "All others"for each of the ten yearsare given in Table I. The results
for every year are found in successive rows and for each language in
successivecolumns. In the last column will be found the total number
of titles in all of the languages.The variationin the total numberof titles
is not wholly dependent upon the number of books and articles which
appeared during any given year. The total is partially dependent upon

TABLE I
NUMBER OF TITLES IN DIFFERENT LANGUAGES

Date English German French Italian Russian All others Total

1936 3660 I16o 410 121 223 488 6062
1937 3744 1159 404 I6I I48 447 6063
1938 4028 1455 433 I19 236 422 6693
1939 4229 1216 484 131 123 374 6557
1940 4460 811 264 196 74 470 6275
1941 4349 463 139 69 76 356 5452
1942 4330 328 78 25 60 245 50o66
1943 3836 147 35 o10 47 248 4323
1944 3642 87 33 2 27 135 3926
1945 3216 55 74 41 32 121 3539
av. 1926-35 3013 1658 448 372 409 162 6o64
High in 3783 2658 584 680 592 420 6792
1926-35 (1933) (1930) (1931) (1932) (1929) (1935) (I931)
period

the inclusionor eliminationof borderlinefields as a resultof gradually

changingstrictnessof editorialpolicy. In the next to the last row of
TableI will be foundthe averagenumbersof titles for the previousten
years (1926-1935). In the bottomrow will be found the high for any
one yearduringthisperiod.Thesevaluesaregivenas a basisfor compari-
son with the yearlyvaluesin the presentstudy.
The resultsfor theEnglishstudiesstartwithvaluesfor thefirsttwoyears
(1936-1937) well abovethe averagefor the ten yearsprevious,andvery
slightlybelowthe maximumfor thatperiod.The numberof Englishtitles
increasessteadilyfor the nextthreeyears,to establishan all-timemaximum
in 1940.Thereareslightdecreases fromthismaximumin 1941and 1942.
With the Americanentryinto the SecondWorld War, the numberof
titlessteadilydecreases to belowthe 1926-1935maximum,but still above
the averagefor thatperiod.
The resultsfor titlesin Germanhas a verydifferentdistribution.In no

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286 NOTES AND DISCUSSION

year is the numberas great as the averagefor the ten previous years,and
in only one year (1938) is the numberas great as one-half the maximum
for this period. By 1936, the effect of Nazi rule was evident and, indeed,
referenceto the previous article indicates that this effect was indicated as
early as 1932. After Germany'sattackon Poland, to commencethe Second
World War, the volume of German publicationdeterioratedrapidly-to
approximately50% for any previous year during the period 1940-1945.
Hence, in 1945, there is reported only about 2% of the titles for the
maximumof the previous 10-yr. period.
The distributionof titles in French shows values approximatelyequal
to the average of the previous ten years but, at no time, reaching the
maximumfor that period. The war and subsequentoccupationof France
had the expected effect of very greatly reducingthe volume of publication
in this language so that, by 1943 and 1944, only a very few titles were
reported.
The titles in Italian show a distributionsimilar to the French except
that the present 10-yr. period startsat a much lower level than the average
of the previous ten years. After 1940, the number of Italian titles is
trifling and dwindles to almost nothing by 1944.
The numbersof titles in Russian show a trend almost exactly like the
Italian,startingbelow the previous 10-yr.averageand dwindling to almost
nothing during the war years,with an absolutelow in 1944.
The form of the curve for the "All others" titles starts, for the first
three years of the present period, with values higher than the maximum
of the previous 10-yr. period. The all-time maximum is reachedin 1936
and, with the exception of the year 1940, the number steadily decreases.
During the last two years (1944-1945) the numbersof titles in the "All
others" categoryare below the averagefor the previousten years.
For the total number of titles for all languages, the number never
reachesthe previousmaximumreachedin 1931. For the first two yearsof
the present period, the number is almost identical to the previous 10-yr.
average. In 1938, the number suddenly increases and, from then on,
steadily declines, to fall below the previous average in 1941. By 1945,
the total number of titles of psychological interest was less than 50%
of the previous maximum and less than 60% of the previous 10-yr.
average.
Hence the effect of war on scientific publication can be clearly seen.
A similar effect was indicatedfor psychologyin a previous publication.2
' S. W.
Fernberger,Publications,politics and economics,Psychol. Bull., 1938,
35, 84-90.

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 NOTES AND DISCUSSION 287

This earlier paper is based on the previouslyindicated analyses covering

the period from 1894 to 1935. The effect of the First World War on
German titles and later on titles in English is markedbut not nearly so
markedas in the case of the SecondWorld War. This recent conflictwas
indeed a "total war" so far as psychologicalpublicationswere concerned
in the CentralEuropeanand Nazi occupiedcountries.
It is of interestto analyzethe distributionof languagesgroupedtogether
in the category "All others." The complete analysis was made only for
the last nine years of the present period. The number of titles for each
language is given below and the number in parentheses indicates the
number of years in which there was publicationlisted in that language.
In all, 18 languagesare representedas follows: Spanish, 850 (9); Japa-
nese, 521 (8); Roumanian,330 (8); Scandinavian(Swedish, Norwegian
and Danish), 279 (9); Dutch, 202 (9); Portuguese,185 (9); Polish,
172 (7) ; Hungarian,115 (6); Chinese, 84 (5); Czech, 23 (6) ; Greek,
20 (6) ; Finnish, 10 (5); Turkish, 10 (1); Lithuanian,4 (3); Arabic,
4 (1); Estonian,2 (2); Hindustani, 2 (2); and Hebrew, 1 (1).
It is of interest to note that there was practicallyno publication in
Japanese,Roumanian,Scandanavian,Dutch, Polish, Hungarianand Chinese
during the war years. A number of titles by Chinese authors,however,
appearedin English during these latter years. It is also of interestto note
that most of the Spanish and Portuguesetitles are found in South and
Central American publications. Indeed 104 of the 121 titles for "All
others" in 1945 are in Spanish and Portuguese, while in 1944 these
languages account for 117 of the 135 titles listed in this category. One
can only repeat what he said in 1936: "Add English, German, French,
Russian and Italian and one will realize that, to cover the field of psy-
chology completely,the poor suffering psychologistsmay be expected to
have an adequatereading knowledge of at least 21 (now 23) different
languages.Formerlypracticallyall psychologywas written in one of four
languages.Today the trend seems to be in the directionof writing in the
language of the countryin which the book or articleis published."
One additional analysis seems of interest; namely, a break-downby
countriesof the authorsof the English languagearticles.This was reported
for the single year of 1939 in a previous publication,3and seemed of
sufficientinterest so that it was done for the other years of the present
period under consideration.

3
S. W. Fernberger,A national analysis of the psychologicalarticles published
in 1939, this JOURNAL,53, 1940, 295-297.

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288 NOTES AND DISCUSSION

The task is not an easy one becausenames so frequentlymean nothing

unless the analyzerknows the countryin which the authorlives. One can
emphasizethis point with the following list of names: Flathmann,Feld-
meier, Werner, Zoeller, Hanst, Lenz, Vitucci, Fenili, Mesereau, Wang-
gard, Svendsen, Busik, Mazur, Sliwka, Grygiel and Lutryzkowski.All of
these men were studentsat either Annapolis or West Point and all played
in the Army-Navy game in 1940. But they might as well have been
AmericanPsychologists!
Experiencewill indicatethat such a break-downcan be done, without a
tremendousamountof labor, only by a psychologistwho has been familiar
with the psychologicalliteraturefor many years. Only such an individual

TABLE II
BREAKDOWN OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TITLES BY COUNTRY OF AUTHOR

British
Total Not Total British Dominions Other
Date American
English identified British Isles and Countries
Colonies
1936 3660 243 2847 4o10 342 68 i6o
1937 3744 261 3037 314 262 52 132
1938 4028 272 3148 488 419 69 120
1939 4229 273 3525 288 255 33 143
1940 4460 272 3633 445 361 84 110
1941 4349 130 3692 436 350 86 91
1942 4330 59 3832 361 306 55 78
1943 3836 38 3435 321 245 76 42
1944 3642 27 3328 314 258 56 46
1945 3216 17 2767 387 323 64 45

can recognize a large proportionof the names of authorsand also know

somethingof their origins and presentwhereabouts.
The method employed in the present study was first to examine the
name of the author in the hope that it could be recognizedand classified
as to country. If the name was not recognized, search was made in the
membershiplists of the Americanand British PsychologicalAssociations.
If still unidentified,Who's Who, the InternationalBlue Book, Who's Who
in Educationand similar biographicalreferenceswere consulted. If still
unidentified,one sought to find the country of origin of the author by
internal evidence in the title, the abstract,or the publicationin which the
articleappeared.It would seem that, if an articleappearedin a publication
such as the Proceedingsof the Indiana Academyof Science,that one may
be reasonablysure that the work was done by an American.After all of
these criteria had been applied, there still remained a number of titles

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 NOTES AND DISCUSSION 289

whose authors were unidentified,varying from 243 to 17 for different

years, and for a total of 1592 for the 10-yr. period or approximatelyonly
4% of the titles in English.
The resultsof this analysisare given in Table II. The very largest num-
ber of English language titles are of American origin. The number of
Americantitles increasedsteadily from 1936 to 1942, when a maximum
of nearly 4,000 titles was reached. The next largest group of English
language titles are of British origin and, of these, the British Isles proper
contributea far larger number than the Dominions and Colonies com-
bined. Curiously,the number of British titles seems little affected by the
war, certainlyto a far less degree than for the other warring countries
including the United States. Titles in English, found in the last column
of this table, were produced by the nationals of countries other than
Britain and the United States. This group clearly show the effects of the
war and the numbersteadily decreasesfrom 1939 onward. For the whole
10-yr. period, the total break-downof the titles in this last categoryare
given below. The number for the ten years for each countryof author is
given, followed in parenthesesby the numberof years in this period for
which at least one title was listed.

Germany .............348 (10) Poland .............. 18 (5)

(including Germansin USA) Italy ................ 17 (6)
China ...............193 (10) France ............... 16 (5)
Scandanavia .......... 98 (7) Hungary ............. 10 (8)
Japan ............... 95 (10) Czechoslovakia........ 9 (5)
Russia .............. 64 (10) Belgium ............. 1 (1)
Holland ............. 63 (10) Greece .............. 1 (1)
Spain ................ 24 (9) Lithuania ............ 1 (1)

For the sake of completeness,a third table is added in which will be

found the percentagesof titles in the differentlanguages. Obviously the
same trends will be found here as were previouslydiscussedfor the data
in Table I above. But it may be of interest to note the relative trends
among the languages. In 1945, the student of psychology, who had
English and no other language,could readbetterthan nine out of everyten
titles-and more than three out of every four titles were of American
origin.
It is extremelydoubtful if this supremacyof English language publi-
cation in psychologywill continue. One may surely expect a revival of
psychologicalresearchand of scientificpublicationin all of the countries

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290 NOTES AND DISCUSSION

now that peacehas been established.It will be of interestto discoverwhat

the trendswill be during the next ten years.Hence, in spite of the present
analysis, especially since the beginning of the Second World War, the
writerwould like to quote part of the final sentenceof his 1917 reporton
this topic and so emphasize "the extreme necessity for the student of
psychology-no matterof what his nationality-to have a facile and critical
reading knowledge of both German and English." One may find that
French, Italian, Russian or Spanish may be of greater importancethan
German, for the next ten years, for the reading of currentliterature,but

TABLE III
LANGUAGES
OFTITLESIN DIFFERENT
PERCENTAGES

Date English German French Italian RussianAll othersAmerican

(USA)
1936 60.4 19. I 6.8 2.0 3-7 8.1 47.0
1937 61.7 19.1 6.7 2.7 2.4 7.4 50o.
1938 6o.2 21.7 6.5 1.8 3.5 6.3 48.5
1939 64.5 18.6 7.4 2.0 1.9 5.7 53.8
1940 71.5 12.9 4.0 3.1 1.2 7.1 57.9
1941 79.8 8.5 2.6 1.3 1.4 6.5 68.I
1942 85.5 6.5 1.5 0.5 1.2 4.8 75.6
1943 88.7 3.4 0.8 0.2 1.1 5.7 79.5
1944 92.8 2.2 0.9 o.o 0.7 3.4 84.8
1945 90.6 1.6 2.I 1.2 0.9 3-4 78.2

certainly German is the language second to English for the reading of

psychological literatureof the past.
Universityof Pennsylvania SAMUEL W. FERNBERGER

MEASUREMENT OF AFFECTIVE POWER IN TERMS OF

RATIOS OF PARTIAL e2S

The psychologyof motivationis often concernedwith the comparisonof

the effectiveness,with respect to some criterion, of two or more ranges
of variationof the experimentalconditions. Such comparisonpresentsno
difficultywhen criterionscores are objectiveand relatedto the independent
variablesby linear functions. It raises a definite methodologicalproblem,
however, when criterionscores are specific to particularexperimentsand
related to the independentvariablesby complex functions. The method
describedbelow representsan attemptto solve this problemin the special
case in which criterion scores are degrees of enjoyment on a subjective
scale. It should apply equally well, however, when criterionscores repre-
sent some other type of scalar value.

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