Evolutionary perspectives in publications across subfields of psychology

Across time, there has been variability in the degree to which evolutionary perspectives and explanations have been integrated within the prevailing theoretical perspectives in psychology as a whole and within the various subfields of psychology. In the current study, we explored recent (2004-2013) publication rates of papers presenting evolutionary perspectives within the top journals in eight sub-disciplinary areas of psychology. We selected the journals with the highest impact factor ratings in each sub-disciplinary area and searched for publications within those journals that utilized evolutionary-relevant terms (e.g., evolution, natural selection, etc.) in their abstracts. While the general experimental and multidisciplinary journals had the highest rates of evolutionary-themed publications, the applied areas had the lowest rates. Overall, a rather modest proportion of recent publications in psychology’s top journals integrate evolutionary perspectives.