Disobedient Women

McClain, Lisa

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-73087-5_3

Cited by 1 publication

(2 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…While we would like to believe that fame, visibility and popularity are uniquely determined by performance, representing well-deserved recognition for some sustained or singular achievement, a significant body of media research indicates otherwise, suggesting that fame follows patterns on its own, divorced from talent or performance [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. Here we aimed to quantify the relationship between performance and popularity in an area where these two quantities can be individually measured.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These often prompt us to see fame and success as only loosely related to [10][11][12] and often divorced [12][13][14][15][16][17] from performance. This dichotomy is illustrated by documented examples of scientists whose popular media visibility significantly exceeds their scientific credentials [18], or by countless celebrities, from the Kardashian sisters to athletes with no or only underwhelming accomplishments [19][20][21], as well as by high performers like David Beckham or Tiger Woods who are frequently featured in the media for reasons unrelated to their professional achievements [22,23]. The source of this dichotomy is that in most areas of human achievement it is difficult to distinguish performance from success [24].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Untangling performance from success

Yücesoy

Barabási

2016

EPJ Data Sci.

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Fame, popularity and celebrity status, frequently used tokens of success, are often loosely related to, or even divorced from professional performance. This dichotomy is partly rooted in the difficulty to distinguish performance, an individual measure that captures the actions of a performer, from success, a collective measure that captures a community's reactions to these actions. Yet, finding the relationship between the two measures is essential for all areas that aim to objectively reward excellence, from science to business. Here we quantify the relationship between performance and success by focusing on tennis, an individual sport where the two quantities can be independently measured. We show that a predictive model, relying only on a tennis player's performance in tournaments, can accurately predict an athlete's popularity, both during a player's active years and after retirement. Hence the model establishes a direct link between performance and momentary popularity. The agreement between the performance-driven and observed popularity suggests that in most areas of human achievement exceptional visibility may be rooted in detectable performance measures.

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