The Matthew Effect: what it is and how it describes injustices

Vulnerable social groups get worse and worse, and the privileged get better and better. Why?

Something that many social scientists have wondered is why those people to whom certain material or immaterial benefits are attributed end up actually receiving those benefits. And the same but in reverse: how is it that people who are associated with fewer benefits are also less likely to have access to them.

Many concepts and theories have been developed to provide answers to the above. These concepts and theories have been thought and applied from different areas. For example, social psychology, organizational psychology, economics or social policy, among others. One of those that have been used since the mid-twentieth century in psychology and sociology is the Matthew Effect.. We will now explain what this effect consists of and how it has been applied to explain different phenomena.

Why is it called the Matthew Effect?

The Matthew Effect is also known as the San Mateo Effect. It is so called because a biblical passage from the Gospel of Matthew has been taken and reread. Specifically, it is verse 13, chapter 19, which says that "to him that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken away".

In its rereading, many interpretations have been given. There are those who have used it to justify the inequitable attribution and distribution of material and immaterial benefits; and there are those who have used it in the opposite sense, to denounce such distribution. In the specific case of the scientific fieldThe passage has been reread to explain the phenomenon in the sociology of science, which we will explain in detail towards the end of this text.

Dimensions of this social phenomenon

As we have said, there have been different disciplines, both in psychology and in related areas, which have tried to explain the process of social distribution of material and immaterial benefits. social distribution of material and immaterial benefits.. Some of the most popular are, for example, the Pygmalion effect, the snowball effect or the cumulative effect, among others.

In his case, the Matthew Effect has allowed us to pay attention not only to decision-making in the selection and distribution of benefits based on categorization criteria (social stratification), but also to think about how this is connected to the structuring of an individual psychological perception, from which we attribute to certain people a series of values that justify the selection and distribution of benefits.

In this sense, the Matthew Effect occurs through two interrelated dimensions: the process of selection and distribution; and the process of individual perception, related with the activation of our memory and attribution strategies..

1. Selection and distribution processes

There are people or groups of people whose qualities we consider necessary to access different benefits. Depending on the context, we can ask which values are considered relevant for the distribution of material and immaterial benefits? On the basis of which criteria are different benefits distributed?

In pyramidal structures and in meritocratic models this is quite this is quite visible, since a person or entity is attributed the power to be the creditor of the benefits. That person or entity is the one whose actions and values are recognized first, and sometimes only, in the first place. This also reduces the possibilities that the benefits and their conditions of possibility are distributed equitably.

2. Individual perception processes

Broadly speaking, these are values based a priori to associate a person or group of people with a material or immaterial benefit. It is frequent the overvaluation of the parameters, where even individually we tend to perceive the top of the pyramid as most valuableand from there we also justify that the distribution is decided for the benefit of some and not others.

Individual perception is influenced by the decision process, and ends up justifying the distribution of benefits among "the best".

Among other things, the Matthew Effect relates decisions on the distribution of benefits to a social prestige that is attributed a priori to certain persons or groups of persons. Likewise, the concept the concept has made it possible to think about the gaps in social stratificationsThe concept has also made it possible to think about the gaps in social stratifications, i.e., how this has repercussions in reducing the benefits of those who do not correspond to certain values (e.g., prestige).

Inequality in sociology of science

The Matthew Effect was used by the American sociologist Robert Merton in the 1960s to explain how it is that we attribute the credit for scientific research to a single person, even when other people have participated to a greater extent..

In other words, it has served to explain how scientific genius is attributed to some people and not to others. And how, based on this, certain possibilities of action and knowledge production are determined for some and not for others.

Mario Bunge (2002) tells us that in fact different experiments on the Matthew Effect have been carried out in this context. For example, in the 1990s, a group of researchers selected fifty scientific articles, changed the title and the title of the article.They changed their title and name (to that of an unknown researcher) and sent them for publication to the same journals where they were originally published. Almost all of them were rejected.

It is common for our memory to function on the basis of the names of those who already have a certain scientific or academic recognition, and not on the names of those we do not associate with values such as prestige. In the words of the Argentine epistemologist: "If a Nobel Prize winner says something stupid, it appears in all the newspapers, but an obscure researcher has a stroke of genius, the public does not know about it" (Bunge, 2002, pp.1).

Thus, the Matthew Effect is one of those that contribute to the social stratification of scientific communities.This can also be visible in other environments. For example, in the same context, the term Matilda Effect has been used to analyze the social and gender stratification of science.