Ahead of Others in the Authorship Order: Names With Middle Initials Appear Earlier in Author Lists of Academic Articles in Psychology

Middle name initials are often used by people in contexts where intellectual performance matters. Given this association, middle initials in people’s names indicate intellectual capacity and performance (Van Tilburg & Igou, 2014). In the current research, we examined whether middle initials are...

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Main Authors: Eric Raymond Igou, Wijnand Adriaan Pieter van Tilburg
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2015-04-01
Series:Frontiers in Psychology
Subjects:
Online Access:http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00469/full
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spelling doaj-7f4bc860368e4d7182e8399819fa5ce42020-11-24T21:40:22ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782015-04-01610.3389/fpsyg.2015.00469120277Ahead of Others in the Authorship Order: Names With Middle Initials Appear Earlier in Author Lists of Academic Articles in PsychologyEric Raymond Igou0Wijnand Adriaan Pieter van Tilburg1University of LimerickUniversity of SouthamptonMiddle name initials are often used by people in contexts where intellectual performance matters. Given this association, middle initials in people’s names indicate intellectual capacity and performance (Van Tilburg & Igou, 2014). In the current research, we examined whether middle initials are associated with a typical academic indicator of intellectual performance: authorship order of journal articles. In psychology, authorship early in the author list of an article should correspond with greater contribution to this intellectual endeavor compared to authorship appearing later in the author list. Given that middle initials indicate intellectual capacity and performance, we investigated whether there would be a positive relationship between middle initials in author names and early (vs. late) appearance of names in author lists of academic journal articles in psychology. In two studies, we examined the relationship between amount of authors’ middle initials and authorship order. Study 1 used a sample of 678 articles from social psychology journals published in the years 2006 and 2007. Study 2 used a sample of 696 articles from journals of multiple sub-disciplines in psychology published in the years from 1970 to 2013. Middle initials in author names were overrepresented early (vs. late) in author lists. We discuss implications of our findings for academic decisions on authorship orders, potential avenues of further investigation, and applications.http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00469/fullPublicationsindividual differencesNamesmiddle initialsAuthorshipp Order
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Eric Raymond Igou
Wijnand Adriaan Pieter van Tilburg
spellingShingle Eric Raymond Igou
Wijnand Adriaan Pieter van Tilburg
Ahead of Others in the Authorship Order: Names With Middle Initials Appear Earlier in Author Lists of Academic Articles in Psychology
Frontiers in Psychology
Publications
individual differences
Names
middle initials
Authorshipp Order
author_facet Eric Raymond Igou
Wijnand Adriaan Pieter van Tilburg
author_sort Eric Raymond Igou
title Ahead of Others in the Authorship Order: Names With Middle Initials Appear Earlier in Author Lists of Academic Articles in Psychology
title_short Ahead of Others in the Authorship Order: Names With Middle Initials Appear Earlier in Author Lists of Academic Articles in Psychology
title_full Ahead of Others in the Authorship Order: Names With Middle Initials Appear Earlier in Author Lists of Academic Articles in Psychology
title_fullStr Ahead of Others in the Authorship Order: Names With Middle Initials Appear Earlier in Author Lists of Academic Articles in Psychology
title_full_unstemmed Ahead of Others in the Authorship Order: Names With Middle Initials Appear Earlier in Author Lists of Academic Articles in Psychology
title_sort ahead of others in the authorship order: names with middle initials appear earlier in author lists of academic articles in psychology
publisher Frontiers Media S.A.
series Frontiers in Psychology
issn 1664-1078
publishDate 2015-04-01
description Middle name initials are often used by people in contexts where intellectual performance matters. Given this association, middle initials in people’s names indicate intellectual capacity and performance (Van Tilburg & Igou, 2014). In the current research, we examined whether middle initials are associated with a typical academic indicator of intellectual performance: authorship order of journal articles. In psychology, authorship early in the author list of an article should correspond with greater contribution to this intellectual endeavor compared to authorship appearing later in the author list. Given that middle initials indicate intellectual capacity and performance, we investigated whether there would be a positive relationship between middle initials in author names and early (vs. late) appearance of names in author lists of academic journal articles in psychology. In two studies, we examined the relationship between amount of authors’ middle initials and authorship order. Study 1 used a sample of 678 articles from social psychology journals published in the years 2006 and 2007. Study 2 used a sample of 696 articles from journals of multiple sub-disciplines in psychology published in the years from 1970 to 2013. Middle initials in author names were overrepresented early (vs. late) in author lists. We discuss implications of our findings for academic decisions on authorship orders, potential avenues of further investigation, and applications.
topic Publications
individual differences
Names
middle initials
Authorshipp Order
url http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00469/full
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