Feighner et al., invisible colleges, and the Matthew effect

A citation analysis of an article published by Feighner et al. in 1972 has shown that it had a major impact on the literature about psychopathology. In fact, the Feighner article had over 70 times more citations than an average article published in the same journal. The Feighner article attracted attention partly because it had been created and promoted by the prolific St. Louis/Iowa group. The researchers associated with this group have advocated a neo-Kraepelinian approach to classification, and have had a powerful effect on classifications within American psychiatry during the 1970s. The influence of the neo-Kraepelinians provides an example of a process suggested by Deutsch (1966) concerning how changes in classificatory systems occur.