{"id":15195,"date":"2013-09-25T11:51:44","date_gmt":"2013-09-25T16:51:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/study-awards-may-stifle-future-achievements\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:28:30","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:28:30","slug":"study-awards-may-stifle-future-achievements","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2013\/09\/25\/study-awards-may-stifle-future-achievements\/","title":{"rendered":"Study: Awards may stifle future achievements, at least in math"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Each year hundreds of prizes are awarded across all scientific disciplines. Most recognize lifetime achievement.\u00a0 But a number of the most prestigious awards in science and mathematics are given to accomplished younger scientists to inspire them to even greater accomplishments.<\/p>\n\n

But do these prizes actually result in more brilliant work from the world\u2019s best and brightest?<\/p>\n\n

Apparently not, at least in mathematics.\u00a0 In fact, two economists found that winning the Fields Medal<\/a>, generally regarded as the Nobel Prize of mathematics, seems to have the opposite effect.\u00a0When compared with other elite mathematicians, medal winners were significantly less productive in terms of the number of scholarly articles they published and the overall quality of those papers. They also were more likely to take time-consuming forays into other academic areas and mentored fewer doctoral students than their peers<\/p>\n\n

\u201cEvery four years, the greatest mathematicians in the world gather to select new medalists and to remind them that the Fields Medal is meant to encourage their future achievement,\u201d wrote economists George J. Borjas of Harvard and Kirk B. Doran of Notre Dame. \u201cIn fact, the medal reduces the rate of publication and the likelihood that its winners produce great achievements in pure mathematics.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Instead, Fields winners often step off the path that led them to honors.\u00a0 \u201cThe medalists \u2018play the field,\u2019 studying unfamiliar topics at the expense of writing papers,\u201d the researchers wrote in a newly released National Bureau of Economics<\/a> working paper.\u00a0 \u201cThe increased opportunities provided by the Fields Medal, in fact, discouraged the recipients from continuing to produce the pure mathematics that the medal was awarded for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Borjas and Doran studied the scholarly production of the 52 men who have won the Fields Medal since 1936 (to date, no women have won).\u00a0 The prize is awarded by the International Mathematical Union to two to four mathematicians under the age of 40. It rewards accomplishment but also is specifically designed to be \u201cencouragement for future achievement on the part of the recipients,\u201d wrote Canadian mathematician John Charles Fields, who created the prize.<\/p>\n\n

To study the impact of the Fields Medal, these researchers analyzed data contained in the MathSciNet<\/a> archives. This database categorizes by specialty and year every paper by every mathematician published since 1939.\u00a0 The database also contains the number of times each paper was cited by other scholars, a measure of its importance to the field.<\/p>\n\n

They also sought \u201cto determine what the post-medal career path of Fields medalists would have looked like they not been awarded the medal.\u201d\u00a0 They did this by sifting through the lists of young winners of other prestigious math prizes who had not been awarded the Fields Medal\u2014a list of worthy \u201ccontenders\u201d that served as a control group.<\/p>\n\n

Before they won the prize, Fields medalists had similar publication rates compared with non-medalists.\u00a0 But after receiving the award, Fields recipients\u2019 annual production of scholarly papers declined by 24% and these papers were cited less frequently by other mathematicians.<\/p>\n\n

About half the decline in production was due to the fact that winners were spending more time doing research in unfamiliar areas outside their specialties, Borjas and Duran found.\u00a0 Awardees strayed outside their \u201ccomfort zone\u201d\u2014the area where they did their prize-winning research\u2014only about 5 percent of the time before they won the prize but 25% thereafter.\u00a0 In contrast, non-winners strayed from their specialties about 5% of the time before winning their accolades but 10% afterwards.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cIn short, the data reveal that the awarding of the Fields Medal is associated with a strong increase in the likelihood that a mathematician tries out fields that are very distant from the fields that established his reputation,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n\n

But why? One answer may be what these economists call the “wealth effect.\u201d\u00a0 While the medal comes with only a $15,000 cash prize, winners \u201care likely to see a substantial expansion in their opportunity set, in terms of high-quality job offers, additional research funding, and many other career opportunities,\u201d Borjas and Doran suggested.<\/p>\n\n

In turn, the winners may \u201cincrease the consumption of leisure\u2026.relative to that of the contenders,\u201d these researchers noted.\u00a0 \u201cWe should not be surprised if\u2026the \u2018wealth of the prize\u2019 does indeed slow the Fields medalists down.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do prizes result in more brilliant work from the world\u2019s best and brightest? Apparently not, at least in mathematics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","sub_headline":null,"sub_title":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"relatedPosts":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0,"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"bylines":[941],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[467],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[515],"research-teams":[519],"class_list":["post-15195","short-read","type-short-read","status-publish","hentry","bylines-rich-morin","formats-short-read","regions-countries-united-states","research-teams-social-trends"],"label":"Short Read","post_parent":0,"word_count":690,"canonical_url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2013\/09\/25\/study-awards-may-stifle-future-achievements\/","art_direction":false,"_embeds":[],"table_of_contents":[],"datacite_doi":"","prc_seo_data":{"title":"Study: Awards may stifle future achievements, at least in math","description":"Do prizes result in more brilliant work from the world\u2019s best and brightest? 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