The evolving field of consumer research through the lens of its top journals

Building on Simonson et al.’s (2001) review of consumer research, we examine the current state of the field through the methods, topics, and author network of papers from Journal of Consumer Research (JCR), Journal of Marketing Research (JMR), and Journal of Consumer Psychology (JCP). Our investigation yields four main findings. First, most papers follow recent methodological trends (e.g., Hayes’ PROCESS Macro), regardless of journal or topic. However, JCR has more CCT papers and JCP has published more reviews. Second, there has been a substantial increase in the number of studies and participants per study over time. Third, JMR and JCR have more samples outside of students and Mechanical Turk relative to JCP. Fourth, JCP has a larger share of first-time authors relative to JCR and JMR, but junior authors appear more at JCR. Finally, we review how the field has changed relative to the predictions of Simonson et al. (2001).