Achievement and Ascriptive Processes in the Recognition of Scientific Articles
Abstract
Most studies in the sociology of science have used individuals or organizations as their units of analysis. Using scientific articles provides an alternative method for studying the distribution of recognition or influence in science. The study of citations to articles not only permits a better examination of the functionalist distinction between achievement and ascriptive processes (relying on universalistic and “Matthew effect” criteria, respectively) but also considers intellectual factors in scientific communications-some of the major concerns of the critics of functionalism. This paper develops a method for the study of citations and applies it to a sample of geoscience articles. The results indicate that achievement processes are more important than ascriptive processes in the distribution of scientific influence.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The studies by Baldi (1998), Stewart (1983), and White (2004) provide more support for a normative interpretation of the allocation of citations than for a social constructivist interpretation.
“In contrast, the studies undertaken by Baldi (1998), Stewart (1983), and White (2004) provide more support for a normative interpretation of the allocation of citations than for a social constructivist interpretation.”
From What do citation counts measure? A review of studies on citing behavior (2008) · cites this paper as Stewart, 1983
Cited by
Sorted by citations
What do citation counts measure? A review of studies on citing behavior
Bornmann, L., & Daniel, H. (2008) · Journal of Documentation · doi:10.1108/00220410810844150 · Cited by 1,607 · see citing works
The quest for citations: Drivers of article impact
Stremersch, S., Verniers, I., & Verhoef, P. C. (2007) · Journal of Marketing · doi:10.1509/jmkg.71.3.171 · Cited by 400 · see citing works
- Authors
- Stewart, J. A.
- Affiliations
- Washington State University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Stewart, John A.
- ORCID
- Stewart, John A.
- Venue
- Social Forces
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 1983-09
- Volume
- 62
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 166
- ISSN
- 0037-7732 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2022892690
- Cited by
- 110
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 9 · 2013: 1 · 2012: 8
- FWCI
- 4.27
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Social Forces (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › scientometrics and bibliometrics research
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Academic Writing and Publishing
- Keywords
- scientific citations, scientific impact, Matthew effect, functionalism, Randall Collins, micro-level analysis, scientific articles, earth sciences, Thomas Kuhn, Thomas Merton
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
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