Abstract

The relevance of psychological research has been often questioned. In particular in 1974 the scientific journal Giornale Italiano di Psicologia raised a debate on the basis of an influential intervention of Minguzzi. After fifty years the present intervention, taking advantage from the fact that in our days it is easy to know how many citations were received by a scientific study, examines whether the number of citations may be considered for estimating the relevance of a paper. In order to compare the number of citations with the opinions not only of researchers but also professionals, we considered the specific case of studies written in their language, i.e. Italian. In particular 15 studies, appeared in Psicologia Clinica dello Sviluppo, were compared for the numbers of received citations (derived both from Google Scholar and Scopus) and the mean relevance ratings given by 4 researchers and 4 practicioners. We found many correspondences, but also some specificities.