To Whom National Culture Matters: An Analysis of Mentions of Countries in Titles and Abstracts in Social and Personality Psychology and Related Fields From 1990 to 2020

Culture significantly influences human psychology, making it essential for psychological research, particularly in social psychology, to acknowledge its importance. However, the majority of psychological research ignores or marginalises culture and context. This is problematic because, despite representing a small portion of humanity (specifically Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) populations) mainstream psychology is published as if it represented the whole humanity. Among the subfields of psychology, social psychology is arguably the one in which this issue should be least prevalent. To investigate this, we conducted a study on titles and abstracts of articles from 69 social psychology journals published between 1990 and 2020, examining how cultural diversity and awareness of its importance changed over time. The results indicate that cultural awareness is more prominent in journals focused on culture, international or local issues; while remaining almost entirely absent in journals focused on theory, reviews and business. Furthermore, cultural awareness displays an imbalance regarding culture: while WEIRD mentions remain most common, mentions of other regions appear to be disproportionately represented or 'inflated' in specific contexts. The generalizability of psychological theories will remain impossible if culture is not integrated as a central factor in research.