from the s-u-c-c-e-s-s-that-is-how-we-spell-success dept.
An experiment looked at whether an earlier success for an online activity would mean that future success would be more likely (Abstract, Full Text [.pdf]).
The experimenters tested in four different areas:
- Kickstarter Funding: A number of unfunded projects were selected and some received funding
- Epinions ratings: A number of helpful ratings were selected and some were given a helpful rating
- Wikipedia awards: A number of highly productive editors were selected and given a community member status award
- Change.org petition signatures: A number of petitions were selected and some had a dozen signatures added
In each of the areas, the ones that had been randomly selected for an initial "success" received greater successes compared to the controls that were not given an initial success.
Further experimentation give a greater initial boost to see if the extent of further success would also be greater, but this did not have as much of an effect. The researchers note:
Our findings reveal the presence of a noticeable feedback effect in each of the distinct settings that we investigated, in that initial arbitrary endowments create lasting disparities in individual success. These results suggest that the inadvertent magnification of arbitrary differences between individuals of comparable merit may be a common feature of many types of social reward systems. At the same time, our experimental demonstration of decreasing marginal returns to success may suggest bounds to the degree to which the natural allocation of resources can be disrupted by social feedback effects. Without a priori differentiation in quality or structural sources of advantage, cumulative advantage alone may not be able to generate the extreme kinds of runaway inequality that so commonly are attributed to it. The vulnerability of meritocracies to biases from success-breeds-success effects thus may be more limited than generally assumed
