Exploring Consumer Psychology: A Visual Analysis of Research Trends

Abstract

As consumer psychology is of growing interest to businesses, marketers, and researchers alike, they emerge to understand cognitive, emotional, and behavioral factors that affect consumer decision-making. This paper will therefore chart evolving trends, patterns, and their leading contributors in consumer psychology research between 1960 and 2024 by using a comprehensive dataset of 1,496 publications from 598 sources. By applying advanced bibliometric tools, such as VOSviewer and Biblioshiny, this study carries out network analysis concerning citations, co-authorships, and cooperating keywords in order to detect main topics and emerging research lines. This study provides an overall overview of publication trends, most relevant authors and sources, and key topics driving contemporary research, showing also how consumer psychology has been developed across countries in a collaborative way. These represent the continued changing face of consumer psychology, in particular within the digital age, while emerging themes concern those referencing social media, e-commerce, and effects from global events such as COVID-19 on consumers.