Success really does breed success, unique online experiments find

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-04/ucl-srd042514.php


PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 28-Apr-2014

Contact: Cher Thornhill
University College London
Success really does breed success, unique online experiments find

Success really does breed success – up to a point - found researchers from UCL and Stony Brook University, following a series of unique on-line experiments.

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They found that success was more likely to follow initial assistance, with crowd-funders on kickstarter.com arbitrarily given an initial donation being about twice as likely to receive further contributions as others who only received funding through standard routes. In the ideological arena, the granting of a dozen signatures to a randomly selected petition on change.org led to the project attracting another endorsement more often than petitions that did not receive the orchestrated support. However, the magnitude of the support offered had little effect on the outcome.

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However, when the research team carried out a second study to investigate whether success increases in proportion to the help given, they found that, for example, giving twice as much funding does not provide twice as much success.

Dr Soong Moon Kang (UCL Management Science & Innovation, UK) said: "Our research has implications for the success of initiatives to counter inequality and create a more meritocratic society. It also suggests that these don't need to be big or costly to help: it's the initial boost that matters. We also find that interventions have much more effect on those coming from very little."