Self-referencing and Scholarly Impact Through Stigmergic Principles

Abstract This study applies Grassé’s stigmergy theory to scholarly self-referencing, challenging the assumption that it diminishes academic impact. Analyzing 42 human stigmergy publications from a pool of 1289 papers, regression analysis revealed that self-references predict scholarship impact through citations while non-self-references showed no relationship. Findings demonstrate self-referencing functioning as a stigmergic strategy enabling intellectual independence and its contribution to scientific knowledge construction and diffusion.