Scientific publications that use promotional language in the abstract receive more citations and public attention

Researchers often use promotional language ("hyping") in scientific publications to draw attention to their findings. Here we examined whether promotional language is indeed associated with higher academic impact and public attention. A content analysis of over 130,000 abstracts published in three major interdisciplinary outlets (PNAS: 84,603; Science: 25,142; Nature: 26,870) between 1991 and 2023 showed that promotional language predicted more citations and more full-length paper views, more paper mentions in online media and higher Altmetric scores. Further, additional analyses by first and last author gender (first female author n = 15,368, first male author n = 32,873, last female author n = 10,218, last male author n = 46,606) showed that despite women being often advised to engage in more self-promotion, following this advice was not significantly associated with a smaller gender gap in impact indicators. If anything, promotional language predicted a larger gender gap with men (vs. women) receiving even more citations, paper views and mentions in the media. Our findings highlight the role of communication strategies in academic impact and public attention, as well as gender diversity in academia.