Breakthrough recognition: Bias against novelty and competition for attention

Adding to the literature on the recognition and spread of ideas, and alongside the bias against novelty view documented in prior research, we introduce the perspective that articles compete for the attention of researchers who might build upon them. We investigate this effect by analyzing more than...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Chai, S. (Author), Menon, A. (Author)
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier B.V. 2019
Subjects:
Online Access:View Fulltext in Publisher
LEADER 01733nam a2200253Ia 4500
001 10.1016-j.respol.2018.11.006
008 220511s2019 CNT 000 0 und d
020 |a 00487333 (ISSN) 
245 1 0 |a Breakthrough recognition: Bias against novelty and competition for attention 
260 0 |b Elsevier B.V.  |c 2019 
856 |z View Fulltext in Publisher  |u https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2018.11.006 
520 3 |a Adding to the literature on the recognition and spread of ideas, and alongside the bias against novelty view documented in prior research, we introduce the perspective that articles compete for the attention of researchers who might build upon them. We investigate this effect by analyzing more than 5.3 million research publications from 1970 to 1999 in the life sciences. In support of our competition for attention perspective, we show that articles covering rarely addressed topics tend to receive more citations and have a higher chance of being breakthrough papers as compared to articles on more popular topics. We also explore conditions under which these effects might vary by using decade subsamples, home- versus foreign-field forward citations, as well as short-, medium- and long-term time windows. Finally, we also find evidence consistent with the previously documented bias against novelty and show that both mechanisms can work simultaneously. © 2018 Elsevier B.V. 
650 0 4 |a Attention 
650 0 4 |a Breakthrough 
650 0 4 |a Competition 
650 0 4 |a Competition for attentions 
650 0 4 |a Engineering 
650 0 4 |a Life-sciences 
650 0 4 |a Novelty 
650 0 4 |a Recognition 
650 0 4 |a Time windows 
700 1 |a Chai, S.  |e author 
700 1 |a Menon, A.  |e author 
773 |t Research Policy