Predicting subsequent citations to articles published in twelve crime-psychology journals: Author impact versus journal impact

Summary

Four hundred and twenty-eight articles published in 12 crime-psychology journals during the 2003 calendar year were reviewed for subsequent citations in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI). Fifteen potential predictors were reduced to nine after subjecting the 15 variables to a principal components analysis with varimax rotation. The nine predictors included author characteristics - gender, occupational affiliation (academic-nonacademic), national affiliation (U.S.-other), citations per 2001-2002 first author publications - article characteristics - collaboration (single author-multiple author), article length, reviews, subject matter (corrections/criminology-legal/forensic) - and journal characteristics - journal impact. Negative binomial regression of the citations earned by these 428 journal articles in a 23 to 34 month follow-up (M = 28 months) revealed significant effects for citations per 2001-2002 first author publications, national affiliation, and review articles. These results suggest that author impact may be a more powerful predictor of citations received by a journal article than the periodical in which the article appears.