The Matthew effect in science. The reward and communication systems of science are considered.

TLDR

The Matthew effect describes how eminent scientists receive disproportionate credit, shaping the reward system of science and traditionally limiting its significance to that domain. The study investigates how the Matthew effect influences the visibility of scientific contributions, shifting focus to its impact on the communication system of science. The authors analyze psychosocial conditions, noting that self‑assurance of eminent scientists—shaped by experience, environment, and social validation—drives them to pursue risky problems and highlight their results, linking redundancy of discoveries to focalizing effects. The study finds that a macrosocial Matthew principle underlies social selection processes that concentrate scientific resources and talent.

Abstract

This account of the Matthew effect is another small exercise in the psychosociological analysis of the workings of science as a social institution. The initial problem is transformed by a shift in theoretical perspective. As originally identified, the Matthew effect was construed in terms of enhancement of the position of already eminent scientists who are given disproportionate credit in cases of collaboration or of independent multiple discoveries. Its significance was thus confined to its implications for the reward system of science. By shifting the angle of vision, we note other possible kinds of consequences, this time for the communication system of science. The Matthew effect may serve to heighten the visibility of contributions to science by scientists of acknowledged standing and to reduce the visibility of contributions by authors who are less well known. We examine the psychosocial conditions and mechanisms underlying this effect and find a correlation between the redundancy function of multiple discoveries and the focalizing function of eminent men of science—a function which is reinforced by the great value these men place upon finding basic problems and by their self-assurance. This self-assurance, which is partly inherent, partly the result of experiences and associations in creative scientific environments, and partly a result of later social validation of their position, encourages them to search out risky but important problems and to highlight the results of their inquiry. A macrosocial version of the Matthew principle is apparently involved in those processes of social selection that currently lead to the concentration of scientific resources and talent ( 50 ).