The most frequently cited books in introductory texts

Gorenflo and McConnell (1991) found little commonality among introductory textbooks with respect to journal article citation. Using a stratified random sample of 15 current texts, we extended this research by checking for commonality in book citations. We found little commonality. Of 3,608 unique book citations, 70% were in only 1 text, 91% in 3 or fewer texts, and only 17 met the commonality criterion of citation in at least 80% of the texts. No book was cited in all of the texts, and there was a strong currency citation bias with 70% published since 1980. We discuss these findings in terms of the nonhomogeneity of introductory texts and the larger fractionation problem in contemporary psychology.