Promotional language and the adoption of innovative ideas in science

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Peng, Hao; Qiu, Huilian Sophie; Fosse, Henrik Barslund; Uzzi, Brian
• 署名单位: Northwestern University
• 刊物名称: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0027-14909
• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2320066121
• 发表日期: 2024-06-18
• 关键词: validation; narratives; words; MODEL

摘要

How are the merits of innovative ideas communicated in science? Here, we conduct semantic analyses of grant application success with a focus on scientific promotional language, which may help to convey an innovative idea's originality and significance. Our analysis attempts to surmount the limitations of prior grant studies by examining the full text of tens of thousands of both funded and unfunded grants from three leading public and private funding agencies: the NIH, the NSF, and the Novo Nordisk Foundation, one of the world's largest private science funding foundations. We find a robust association between promotional language and the support and adoption of innovative ideas by funders and other scientists. First, a grant proposal's percentage of promotional language is associated with up to a doubling of the grant's probability of being funded. Second, a grant's promotional language reflects its intrinsic innovativeness. Third, the percentage of promotional language is predictive of the expected citation and productivity impact of publications that are supported by funded grants. Finally, a computer - assisted experiment that manipulates the promotional language in our data demonstrates how promotional language can communicate the merit of ideas through cognitive activation. With the incidence of promotional language in science steeply rising, and the pivotal role of grants in converting promising and aspirational ideas into solutions, our analysis provides empirical evidence that promotional language is associated with effectively communicating the merits of innovative scientific ideas.