Annual Review of Psychology Impact Factor

The journal-level citation metrics for the Annual Review of Psychology—published annually since 1950 by the nonprofit publisher Annual Reviews—principally include its Clarivate Journal Impact Factor (JIF) and Scopus CiteScore. According to publisher and bibliographic data verified on 2026-11-07, the Annual Review of Psychology holds a two-year Journal Impact Factor of 41.8 and a 5-year Impact Factor of 40.4, ranking first in the Web of Science category Psychology, Multidisciplinary.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 7 Nov 2026

What is the Annual Review of Psychology impact factor?

Clarivate Journal Citation Reports (JCR) gives the journal a 2025 two-year Journal Impact Factor (JIF) of 41.8. As reported on 2026-11-07, the journal ranks first of 93 titles in the JCR category Psychology and first of 222 titles in Psychology, Multidisciplinary. The journal is abstracted and indexed in Scopus, the Science Citation Index Expanded and the Social Sciences Citation Index.

A figure this high is typical of review journals rather than a sign of a different kind of research. Unlike broad open-access megajournals (compare the Scientific Reports impact factor), a review serial publishes syntheses that other papers cite as background.

How is the impact factor calculated?

The Clarivate JIF for a given year is the number of citations received in that year by items the journal published in the two preceding years, divided by the number of citable items (articles and reviews) it published in those two years:

JIF = (Citations in year T to items published in years T-1 and T-2)
      / (Citable items published in years T-1 and T-2)

Because a review serial publishes literature syntheses rather than brief empirical reports, its articles tend to be cited widely by later work. Researchers who build a literature base through PsycINFO search strategies or follow preprints on PsyArXiv often start from review articles for historical context.

How should the metric be used in research assessment?

A journal-level metric describes the journal, not any one article or author. The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) recommends not using journal-based metrics such as the Journal Impact Factor as a surrogate measure of the quality of individual research articles or in hiring, promotion or funding decisions, and the Leiden Manifesto for research metrics likewise urges assessing research on its own merits. Citation practices also differ between fields, which matters when comparing, for example, psychology vs sociology or neuroscience vs psychology.

FAQ

What is the impact factor of the Annual Review of Psychology?

41.8, the 2025 Journal Impact Factor reported by Clarivate JCR.

Who publishes the Annual Review of Psychology?

Annual Reviews, a nonprofit publisher. The first volume appeared in 1950.

Is a high impact factor a measure of an individual paper?

No. DORA and the Leiden Manifesto both advise against using journal-level metrics to judge individual articles or researchers.

Sources

Annual Reviews: Annual Review of Psychology, https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/psych (checked 2026-11-07).
Clarivate: Journal Citation Reports, https://jcr.clarivate.com/ (checked 2026-11-07).
Wikipedia: Annual Review of Psychology (reports the 2025 JCR figure, ranks, ISSNs and indexing), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annual_Review_of_Psychology (checked 2026-11-07).
DORA: San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, https://sfdora.org/read/ (checked 2026-11-07).
Hicks et al., The Leiden Manifesto for research metrics, http://www.leidenmanifesto.org/ (checked 2026-11-07).

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