Status Spillovers

Abstract

When an actor experiences a sudden gain in status — for example, when a scientist wins a Nobel Prize, or a film director wins an Oscar — what does this jump in status do to the fates of the winner’s many ‘neighbors’? Do non-winners bask in the reflected glory of the winner, and therefore rise with her? Or conversely, does competition for attention ensue, attenuating the recognition neighbors otherwise would have received? We investigate this question in the scientific community. Using article keywords assigned by third-party experts, we identify articles highly related to publications by eventual appointees to the prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). We find that, on average, these 'neighbor articles' experience a substantial decline in citation rates after HHMI appointments are announced, relative to controls. That is, neighbors receive substantially less attention when a focal actor receives a prestigious prize. While this negative spillover effect dominates our findings, it is not absolute. For instance, neighbors are shielded from the negative effect if they share a direct social connection with a prize winner. Also, in areas of science in which endorsements are particularly valuable, such as novel fields of research, the spillover effect of a neighbor’s prize is instead positive.

Keywords: status, spillovers, prizes, science