Mapping of the Moral Mindscape: Exploring Evolution of Research Trends on Universal Human Values Using Scientometric Analysis

This scientometric investigation analyses the comprehensive evolution of research trends, publications and citations over time, as well as keyword occurrences, top productive authors, sources and the most cited documents published on universal human values (UHV). For this study, scientometric information comprising 620 documents was extracted from the lens database, published from 1943 to 2024, using search keywords such as ‘universal human values’ or ‘universal human value’. In this study, the quantitative data analysis was conducted utilizing MS Excel (2021) and the VOSviewer (version 1.6.20) software. The findings of this investigation indicated that the publications in the field of UHV emerged in the 1940s; however, the first publication on UHV was published in 1943. The maximum number of publications ( N = 101) was found in 2023, and the maximum number of citations ( N = 282) was received in 1995. A total of 423 (68%) documents were published as articles. The most productive author is Anna K. Döring. Doring has published 5 documents and received 175 citations. The most fruitful source is the ‘Social Science Research Network’, and the most cited document is Diener and Diener (1995, Social Indicators Research , Vol. 36[3], 275–286). The most common and trending keywords are humans and social values, which have been used in UHV-related published documents. This investigation will be valuable for prospective researchers who want to conduct novel studies on the various dimensions of UHVs. By going through this article, independent researchers, faculty, NGO workers and policy constructors will be able to find out the most popular keywords, mostly cited authors and documents, and also the top productive sources of UHVs’ research domain.