A global scientometric analysis of emotional intelligence and social intelligence research (2010–2024)

Abstract

The current paper is a scientometric evaluation of the Emotional Intelligence (EI) and Social Intelligence (SI) research published between 2010 and 2024 on the global level. The research is expected to analyze the intellectual framework of the discipline aimed at determining the patterns of publications, significant authors, prominent journals, productive nations, and new thematic domains of the EI and SI studies. Quantitative scientometric method was used based on retrieved bibliographic data of Scopus database in January 2025. The dataset obtained in the end was 8,584 publications, indexed in 3,907 journals and conference proceedings, which were contributed by 26,236 authors and included 16,364 author keywords. The growth of publications, citation patterns, co-authorship networks, co-citation structures, and keyword co-occurrence relationships were analyzed using such analytical tools as VOSviewer and Biblioshiny. The findings show that there is a significant positive change in the research output that grows by 249 publications in 2010 up to 1,408 publications in 2024 with an average annual growth rate of 13.17. Publication articles published earlier were more frequently cited with 2011 obtaining the highest average of 76.87 citations per article and 2024 had a total of 5.60 average citations since the citation window was shorter. The United States had the highest number of publications (24.60) of 820, China had 610 (18.30) and the United Kingdom had 345 (10.35).