Diffusing through Disciplines: Insiders, Outsiders, and Socially Influenced Citation Behavior

Abstract

A basic premise of diffusion theories is that actors vary in their susceptibility to social influence and yet little is known about the nature and consequences of such heterogeneity in specific market domains. The present study examines variation in social influence with respect to academic research and citation accumulation. Based on theories of uncertainty, signaling, and legitimacy, the main hypothesis is that disciplinary outsiders are more likely than insiders to cite papers that are already highly cited. The empirical analysis, which spans six disciplines and 13 flagship journals, is based on over 800 articles and the 55,000+ citations they accumulate over a 20-year period. Each citation received is classified with respect to both its timing and the discipline from which it was sent. The results show that the effect of prior citation attention is greater for external citation accumulation even after controlling for the fact that externals adopt later on average than internals. Contrary to intuition, however, outsiders do not appear to uniformly exacerbate citation inequality. The broader implications of this study for diffusion and the sociology of science are discussed in the conclusion.