The Matthew effect, sometimes called the Matthew principle or cumulative advantage, is the tendency of individuals to accrue social or economic success in proportion to their initial level of popularity, friends, wealth, and natural advantages. It is sometimes summarized by the adage or platitude "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer". Also termed the "Matthew effect of accumulated advantage", taking its name from the Parable of the Talents in the biblical Gospel of Matthew, it was coined by sociologists Robert K. Merton and Harriet Zuckerman in 1968. Early studies of Matthew effects were primarily concerned with the inequality in the way scientists were recognized for their work. However, Norman W. Storer, of Columbia University, led a new wave of research. He believed he discovered that the inequality that existed in the social sciences also existed in other institutions. Later, in network science, a form of the Matthew effect was discovered in internet networks and called preferential attachment. The mathematics used for this network analysis of the internet was later reapplied to the Matthew effect in general, whereby wealth or credit is distributed among individuals according to how much they already have. This has the net effect of making it increasingly difficult for low ranked individuals to increase their totals because they have fewer resources to risk over time, and increasingly easy for high rank individuals to preserve a large total because they have a large amount to risk.
Etymology The concept is named according to two of the parables of Jesus in the synoptic Gospels (Table 2, of the Eusebian Canons). The concept concludes both synoptic versions of the parable of the talents:
For to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. I tell you, that to every one who has will more be given; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. The concept concludes two of the three synoptic versions of the parable of the lamp under a bushel (absent in the version of Matthew):
For to him who has will more be given; and from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. Take heed then how you hear; for to him who has will more be given, and from him who has not, even what he thinks that he has will be taken away. The concept is presented again in Matthew outside of a parable during Christ's explanation to his disciples of the purpose of parables:
And he answered them, "To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to him who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away."
Sociology of science
Cumulative advantage In the sociology of science, the first description of the Matthew effect was given by Price in 1976. (He referred to the process as a "cumulative advantage" process.) His was also the first application of the process to the growth of a network, producing what would now be called a scale-free network. It is in the context of network growth that the process is most frequently studied today. Price also promoted preferential attachment as a possible explanation for power laws in many other phenomena, including Lotka's law of scientific productivity and Bradford's law of journal use.
Coining the "Matthew effect" "Matthew effect" was a term coined by Robert K. Merton and Harriet Anne Zuckerman to describe how, among other things, eminent scientists will often get more credit than a comparatively unknown researcher, even if their work is similar; it also means that credit will usually be given to researchers who are already famous. For example, a prize will almost always be awarded to the most senior researcher involved in a project, even if all the work was done by a graduate student. This was later formulated by Stephen Stigler as Stigler's law of eponymy – "No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer" – with Stigler explicitly naming Merton as the true discoverer, making his "law" an example of itself. Merton and Zuckerman further argued that in the scientific community the Matthew effect reaches beyond simple reputation to influence the wider communication system, playing a part in social selection processes and resulting in a concentration of resources and talent. They gave as an example the disproportionate visibility given to articles from acknowledged authors, at the expense of equally valid or superior articles written by unknown authors. They also noted that the concentration of attention on eminent individuals can lead to an increase in their self-assurance, pushing them to perform research in important but risky problem areas. The Matthew Effect also relates to broader patterns of scientific productivity, which can be explained by additional sociological concepts in science, such as the sacred spark, cumulative advantage, and search costs minimization by journal editors. The sacred spark paradigm suggests that scientists differ in their initial abilities, talent, skills, persistence, work habits, etc. that provide particular individuals with an early advantage. These factors have a multiplicative effect which helps these scholars succeed later. The cumulative advantage model argues that an initial success helps a researcher gain access to resources (e.g., teaching release, best graduate students, funding, facilities, etc.), which in turn results in further success. Search costs minimization by journal editors takes place when editors try to save time and effort by consciously or subconsciously selecting articles from well-known scholars. Whereas the exact mechanism underlying these phenomena is yet unknown, it is documented that a minority of all academics produce the most research output and attract the most citations. In addition to its influence on recognition and productivity, the Matthew Effect can also be observed in the distribution of scientific resources, such as funding. A large Matthew effect was discovered in a study of science funding in the Netherlands, where winners just above the funding threshold were found to accumulate more than twice as much funding during the subsequent eight years as non-winners with near-identical review scores that fell just below the threshold.
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