Scientific Status of Disciplines, Individuals, and Ideas: Empirical Analyses of the Potential Impact of Theory

Abstract

The place of theory in scientific research can be subjected to empirical investigation. This possibility is illustrated by examining three issues. First, what determines a scientific discipline's placement in a hypothesized hierarchy of the sciences? This was addressed in an analysis of the characteristics that distinguish various disciplines, including attributes bearing an explicit connection to the role of theory. Second, what individual research programs are most likely to have a long-term impact on a scientific discipline? This was examined by looking at how thematic organization and theoretical orientation influence a scientist's disciplinary visibility. Third, what are the features of scientific publications that render some more successful in terms of long-term influence? This question was addressed by examining how theoretical content determines the impact of journal articles.

What makes an article influential? Predicting impact in social and personality psychology

“…The number of tables and figures appearing may predict article impact by reflecting greater quantity of substantive contribution or clarity of presentation. Figures, in particular, may predict impact because graph prominence is diagnostic of "hard" science [CLEVELAND, 1984;SIMONTON, 2006], which tends to attract relatively high citation rates. An article's referencing may predict impact, to the extent that more extensive referencing -like increasingly length a historical trend in psychology [ADAIR & VOHRA, 2003] -may occur in articles that are unusually substantial, integrative, or far-reaching in their implications.…”

Bibliometric Evidence for a Hierarchy of the Sciences

“…Scholars have treated the topic from a multitude of angles (see [6], [7], [8]), but all definitions seem to converge on the concept of consensus – consensus, for example, “on the significance of new knowledge and the continuing relevance of old” [9], [10], [11], [12]. In an ideal science, scholars share a common background of established theories, facts and methods.…”

“…Hard disciplines like physics, Cole argued, do appear to have a larger and more solid “core” of knowledge, manifest in the consistency of university textbooks; but at the research “front”, where science is actually done, consensus is equally low for all disciplines [10], [11], [40]. A later quantitative review, however, combined these and other empirical results and found evidence of a straightforward hierarchy [12], [41]. These contradictions are largely a consequence of methodological limitations, many of which were noted long ago [42]: most empirical studies to date have compared only one or two natural sciences (e.g.…”

Peer Review Agreement or Peer Review Disagreement: Which Is Better?

“…One could argue that this is more common in the social sciences than in the natural sciences because disagreements are more frequent in the former (Simonton, 2006). This could be explained by the social sciences' weak paradigms, which are characterized among other things by high journal rejection rates and particularism in grant application reviews (Glick, Miller, & Cardinal, 2007) and the connected idea of a hierarchy of sciences where physical and other hard sciences rank higher than all social sciences (Simonton, 2006;Simonton, in press). If we cannot agree on what good or bad science is, it appears that the criteria for evaluating science are not absolute but relative.…”