Double-edged sword of interdisciplinary knowledge flow from hard sciences to humanities and social sciences: Evidence from China

Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) increasingly absorb knowledge from Hard Sciences, i.e., Science, Technology, Agriculture and Medicine (STAM), as testified by a growing number of citations. However, whether citing more Hard Sciences brings more citations to HSS remains to be investigated. Based on China’s HSS articles indexed by the Web of Science during 1998–2014, this paper estimated two-way fixed effects negative binomial models, with journal effects and year effects. Findings include: (1) An inverse U-shaped curve was observed between the percentage of STAM references to the HSS articles and the number of citations they received; (2) STAM contributed increasing knowledge to China’s HSS, while Science and Technology knowledge contributed more citations to HSS articles. It is recommended that research policy should be adjusted to encourage HSS researchers to adequately integrate STAM knowledge when conducting interdisciplinary research, as over-cited STAM knowledge may jeopardize the readability of HSS articles.人文社科（Humanities and Social Sciences, HSS）对硬科学领域知识的吸纳程度日益加深，这一点可从逐年增长的引用量得到佐证。硬科学即科学、技术、农业与医学（Science, Technology, Agriculture and Medicine, STAM）。然而，增加对硬科学的引用是否能为人文社科论文带来更多引用，仍有待进一步探究。本研究以1998年至2014年间Web of Science（科学引文索引）收录的中国人文社科论文为样本，构建了包含期刊效应与年份效应的双向固定效应负二项模型。研究结果显示：其一，人文社科论文中STAM参考文献占比与该论文获得的总引用量之间呈倒U型曲线关系；其二，硬科学领域知识对中国人文社科研究的贡献度逐年提升，而其中科学与技术知识对人文社科论文的引用增益效果更为显著。据此本研究建议调整科研政策，鼓励人文社科研究者在开展跨学科研究时适度融合硬科学知识，因为过度引用硬科学知识可能会损害人文社科论文的可读性。