Intrinsic and Extrinsic Science: A Dialectic of Scientific Fame

Publication Date

11-28-2016

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Perspectives in Psychological Science

Volume

11

Issue

6

DOI

10.1177/1745691616660535

First Page

893

Last Page

898

Abstract

In this article, I argue that scientific fame and impact exists on a continuum from the mundane to the transformative/revolutionary. Ideally, one achieves fame and impact in science by synthesizing two extreme career prototypes: intrinsic and extrinsic research. The former is guided by interest, curiosity, passion, gut, and intuition for important untapped topics. The latter is guided by money, grants, and/or what is being published in top-tier journals. Assessment of fame and impact in science ultimately rests on productivity (publication) and some variation of its impact (citations). In addition to those traditional measures of impact, there are some relatively new metrics (e.g., the h index and altmetrics). If psychology is to achieve consensual cumulative progress and better rates of replication, I propose that upcoming psychologists would do well to understand that success is not equal to fame and that individual career success is not necessarily the same as disciplinary success. Finally, if one is to have a successful and perhaps even famous career in psychological science, a good strategy would be to synthesize intrinsic and extrinsic motives for one’s research.

Keywords

fame, creativity, impact, citation indexing, publication count, replicability

Department

Psychology

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