What Is The Matthew Effect?

The Matthew effect is the sociological denomination of a phenomenon of accumulation of goods, wealth or fame. Although the use of this term is attributed for the first time to the sociologist Robert K. Merton in an article published in 1968, its use has spread to other disciplines such as economics, psychology and education, in which it refers both to goods materials, such as money, as well as intangible values, such as trust or social prestige.

Mateo effect was originally called by the biblical quotation from chapter 13, verse 12 of the Gospel of St. Matthew, (repeated in Matthew 25, 29 and evangelists to five times) which reads:  “For the one he give and have in abundance; but from the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken away ”. In the field of education, the one who analyzed the event and assigned it the name of the Matthew effect was the Canadian psychologist Keith Stanovich.

Examples of Matthew effect

There are abundant observations of the Matthew effect, let’s see some depending on the area where it appears.

In science

In the scientific field, there is a sensational experiment done ten years ago. A team of scientists selected fifty papers by reputable researchers working at leading American universities published a couple of years earlier. The scientists changed the titles of the articles, invented fictitious authors employed in lower-ranking universities, and sent them to the same journals where they had been published. Almost all articles were rejected.

Interpreting it in the opposite direction, what is known as Stigler’s Law is produced because in many cases scientific findings do not receive the name of the one who discovered it in the first place.

In education

In education, it would be something similar to the Pygmalion effect , which draws attention to the improvement of the students who receive more attention and are the object of the most optimistic expectations of the teacher, to the detriment of the good evolution of the others; the Matthew effect is closely related to the so-called  self-fulfilling prophecy also formulated by Merton.

The Canadian psychologist Keith Stanovich was the one who observed that those who acquired “wealth” in written and oral expression at an early age, increasingly reinforced these skills, while those who took a long time to achieve them felt their failure, resisted going through the bad experience and therefore read and wrote less.

This made them susceptible to being increasingly at a disadvantage with respect to those who had already mastered literacy, who, being happy with their results, practiced more and more. This gave the latter an   advantage in terms of success in schooling and in their future studies.

In sociology

In Sociology we could give the following example: the Bank will give a loan more easily to those who can prove that they have greater guarantees (that is, to the one who has the most) and not to the poor, who is the one who most surely needs that money, with what that the rich will get richer and the poor poorer.

Consequences of the Matthew effect

• The contribution of a greater amount of benefits, both material (financial and other resources, prizes) and non-material (privileges, considerations, trust, power, fame) due to the fact of having the maximum value in a certain parameter that is considered relevant.

• On the other hand, benefits of any kind are reduced or canceled to persons or entities that have less value of a certain parameter that is considered relevant. In many cases, marginalization processes are generated because the consideration towards these people or entities is changed when they are perceived as in the last places of the classification.

One way to correct the harmful effects of the Matthew effect is by prioritizing participation to the detriment of competitiveness. Another is to establish mechanisms that protect the most disadvantaged. The most radical way to carry it out would be to grant aid in reverse. That is, to help more those who have shown to be worse, know less or have less. In short, correct inequalities.