Self-Citation, Cumulative Advantage, and Gender Inequality in Science
In science, self-citation is often interpreted as an act of self-promotion that (artificially) boosts the visibility of one’s prior work in the short term, which could then inflate professional authority in the long term. Recently, in light of research on the gender gap in self-promotion, two large-...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Society for Sociological Science
2021
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/129946 |
| _version_ | 1811088587258593280 |
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| author | Azoulay, Pierre Lynn, Freda |
| author2 | Sloan School of Management |
| author_facet | Sloan School of Management Azoulay, Pierre Lynn, Freda |
| author_sort | Azoulay, Pierre |
| collection | MIT |
| description | In science, self-citation is often interpreted as an act of self-promotion that (artificially) boosts the visibility of one’s prior work in the short term, which could then inflate professional authority in the long term. Recently, in light of research on the gender gap in self-promotion, two large-scale studies of publications examine if women self-cite less than men. But they arrive at conflicting conclusions; one concludes yes whereas the other, no. We join the debate with an original study of 36 cohorts of life scientists (1970–2005) followed through 2015 (or death or retirement). We track not only the rate of self-citation per unit of past productivity but also the likelihood of self-citing intellectually distant material and the rate of return on self-citations with respect to a host of major career outcomes, including grants, future citations, and job changes. With comprehensive, longitudinal data, we find no evidence whatsoever of a gender gap in self-citation practices or returns. Men may very well be more aggressive self-promoters than women, but this dynamic does not manifest in our sample with respect to self-citation practices. Implications of our null findings are discussed, particularly with respect to gender inequality in scientific careers more broadly. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T14:04:24Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/129946 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T14:04:24Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publisher | Society for Sociological Science |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1299462022-10-01T18:59:59Z Self-Citation, Cumulative Advantage, and Gender Inequality in Science Azoulay, Pierre Lynn, Freda Sloan School of Management In science, self-citation is often interpreted as an act of self-promotion that (artificially) boosts the visibility of one’s prior work in the short term, which could then inflate professional authority in the long term. Recently, in light of research on the gender gap in self-promotion, two large-scale studies of publications examine if women self-cite less than men. But they arrive at conflicting conclusions; one concludes yes whereas the other, no. We join the debate with an original study of 36 cohorts of life scientists (1970–2005) followed through 2015 (or death or retirement). We track not only the rate of self-citation per unit of past productivity but also the likelihood of self-citing intellectually distant material and the rate of return on self-citations with respect to a host of major career outcomes, including grants, future citations, and job changes. With comprehensive, longitudinal data, we find no evidence whatsoever of a gender gap in self-citation practices or returns. Men may very well be more aggressive self-promoters than women, but this dynamic does not manifest in our sample with respect to self-citation practices. Implications of our null findings are discussed, particularly with respect to gender inequality in scientific careers more broadly. 2021-02-22T16:30:26Z 2021-02-22T16:30:26Z 2020-05 2020-03 2021-02-03T19:18:00Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 2330-6696 https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/129946 Azoulay, Pierre and Freda Lynn. "Self-Citation, Cumulative Advantage, and Gender Inequality in Science." Sociological Science 7 (May 2020): 152-186 © 2020 The Author(s) en http://dx.doi.org/10.15195/v7.a7 Sociological Science Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ application/pdf Society for Sociological Science Sociological Science |
| spellingShingle | Azoulay, Pierre Lynn, Freda Self-Citation, Cumulative Advantage, and Gender Inequality in Science |
| title | Self-Citation, Cumulative Advantage, and Gender Inequality in Science |
| title_full | Self-Citation, Cumulative Advantage, and Gender Inequality in Science |
| title_fullStr | Self-Citation, Cumulative Advantage, and Gender Inequality in Science |
| title_full_unstemmed | Self-Citation, Cumulative Advantage, and Gender Inequality in Science |
| title_short | Self-Citation, Cumulative Advantage, and Gender Inequality in Science |
| title_sort | self citation cumulative advantage and gender inequality in science |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/129946 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT azoulaypierre selfcitationcumulativeadvantageandgenderinequalityinscience AT lynnfreda selfcitationcumulativeadvantageandgenderinequalityinscience |