Hotspots in Psychology 2021

State-of-the-art meta-analyses and methodological advances in research synthesis methods from the field of psychology

This fifth collection of the "Hotspots in Psychology" format is devoted again to systematic reviews and meta-analyses in research-active fields that have generated a considerable number of primary studies. It features methodological advances in the area of research synthesis methods, including an exploration of using Twitter to identify hotspot topics in psychology and to make early predictions about trends as well as the presentation of a publication format facilitating reproducibility and a method of cumulative meta-analytic evidence synthesis called community-augmented meta-analyses (CAMA).

Further meta-analyses explore diverse areas, sometimes with big data samples. These include: the exploration of the factorial structure and measurement invariance between English and translated versions of a well-established psychometric instrument (the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule); an individual-participant metaanalysis of 221 representative samples from the European Social Survey (ESS) looking at what day of the week influences subjective well-being ratings; an exploration of the role of low self-esteem in the development of pathological eating; and the application of the theory of planned behavior to analyze gender differences in the motivation to start a business.