CONCEPTUAL, INTELLECTUAL AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL RESILIENCE STUDIES

PSİKOLOJİK DAYANIKLILIK ÇALIŞMALARININ KAVRAMSAL, ENTELEKTÜEL VE SOSYAL YAPISI

Abstract

This study aims to reveal the conceptual, intellectual, and social structure of research on psychological resilience. The research population consists of 1,424 scientific articles retrieved from a search conducted on November 8, 2025 (excluding 2026) using the “Web of Science” database, “core collection,” and the “psychological resilience” “tile” criteria. The data were analyzed using the R program Biblioshny package. The first study in the field was published in 1988. 5,175 authors contributed to the field. There were 88 single-authored articles, and the remaining articles were co-authored. The percentage of co-authors per article was 4.67. Until 2010, the number of publications per year was at most 5, although the majority of years were without publications. Since 2015, the number of annual publications has increased significantly, reaching 382 in 2025. The journal that published the most articles in the field was “Frontiers in Psychology,” the author who produced the most articles was “Sharpley, Christopher F.”, the most cited author was “Mustafa Sarkar,” and the most cited article was “Psychological Resilience: A Review and Critique of Definitions, Concepts, and Theory (2013: Fletcher, Sarkar). China leads in article production by both corresponding author and country. China is followed by the US and Turkey. However, among the most cited countries, the US is first, followed by China, the UK, and Turkey. An examination of the conceptual structure reveals that stress, depression, health, anxiety, mental health, and social support are the most frequently used keywords in the publications. The resulting co-occurrence network reveals that the keywords are clustered into three distinct clusters: stress, quality of life, and satisfaction. Since 2015, when the number of publications increased, studies in the field have focused on topics such as chronic pain, post-traumatic stress disorder, epidemiology, prostate, stress, depression, physical activity, and exercise. A co-citation analysis to reveal the intellectual structure reveals that authors cluster in seven different clusters. The most co-cited author was identified as K.M. Connor. The collaboration network, which reveals the social structure, reveals that authors cluster in nine different clusters. Zhang I. is the author with the most collaborations. China has collaborated most with other countries on the subject.