I recently discussed in this blog how status and prestige can do good things for a person, an organization, or a product. This effect has
seen much study because it is a social fact that is very influential, and it seems
arbitrary and illogical. Identical items are valued differently by supposedly
smart people. We have lots of evidence that status gives benefits, including to
those who are in some way connected to others with high status. To be seen with
the elite is to gain some elite-ness, and casual observation of how people
crowd the most prominent people in receptions will tell you they know that.
Can status also cause harm? A new article in Administrative Science Quarterly by Brian Reschke, Pierre Azoulay, and Toby Stuart found an
example of this. They looked at the very prestigious appointment to the Howard
Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), which marks appointees and their research as
especially accomplished, so much so that it can be used to predict future Nobel
Prizes. Receiving this appointment is clearly a good thing. But what happens to
those who are doing similar research but were not appointed to the HHMI? Is the
similar research a connection that lets them gain some status? Or does it mark
them as losers in a race for who is most important and should receive attention?
Even worse, does someone else’s HHMI appointment determine what the final
answer to a research question is, so that others conclude that this question
can now be ignored?
Of course the blog title gave it away: prizes harm the
status of similar others. Once a prize is announced, their work is seen as less
and less important—their influence erodes. This erosion increases over time,
and it is greater for younger (so less established) similar work. This is
important to learn about on its own, because it is so different from the positive
“status contagion” that we are used to finding. But there is also an exception
to this finding, and it is just as interesting. Circling back to the logic that
being near the elite can give some elite-ness, a prize might be able to bring
recognition to similar others, and through that give them status. Resche,
Azoulay, and Stuart found that can be true, but only if the similar others have
little recognition to begin with. Once their work is established enough to be
seen as important, the prize has negative effects.
