Five Decades of Scientific Development on 'Attachment Theory': Trends and Future Landscape

Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities, 26(3), 1-16, 2018

16 Pages Posted: 13 Dec 2018

See all articles by Elaheh Farahmand

Elaheh Farahmand

University of Malaya (UM) - Department of Educational Psychology and Counselling

Mariani Md Nor

University of Malaya (UM)

Abbas Ghanbari Baghestan

University of Tehran; Universiti Science Malaysia

Nader Ale Ebrahim

Centre for Research Services, Institute of Management and Research Services (IPPP), University of Malaya (UM); University of Malaya (UM) - Department of Engineering Design and Manufacture

Nasrin Matinnia

Islamic Azad University (IAU) - Department of Nursing

Date Written: September 14, 2018

Abstract

Attachment Theory is one of the most frequently used frameworks which revolutionised the understanding of human behaviour, from early childhood to adulthood. Attachment Theory’s scholarly output was examined using a quantitative bibliometric approach, based on rigorous facts extracted from the WoS databases from 1970 to 2017. Overall, 1,700 documents in the category “Psychology” with the topic “Attachment Theory” were analysed to find trends of publications, networking coupling, keywords frequencies, top authors, and highly cited papers. A qualitative content analysis of the top 20 documents with the highest average citation per year was done to provide insight on document approaches. The results show that the scientific productivity in “attachment theory” is highly skewed. The authors recommend publishing attachment theory related articles in an open access journal. There is a need for further interdisciplinary research and practice collaboration to move beyond the sole psychological approach and realise the importance of multi-disciplinary approaches.

Keywords: Attachment Theory, adult attachment, bibliometric, communication, relationship, scientific productions, top cited
JEL Classification: L11, L1, L2, M11, M12, M1, M54, Q1, O1, O3, P42, P24, P29, Q31, Q32, L17
Suggested Citation:

Farahmand, Elaheh and Md Nor, Mariani and Ghanbari Baghestan, Abbas and Ale Ebrahim, Nader and Matinnia, Nasrin, Five Decades of Scientific Development on 'Attachment Theory': Trends and Future Landscape (September 14, 2018). Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities, 26(3), 1-16, 2018. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3266012