Exploring the influence of social activity on scientific career

For researchers, does activity in academic society influence their careers? In scientometrics, the activity can be expressed through the number of collaborators and scientific careers through the number of publications and citations of authors. We provide empirical evidence from four datasets of representative journals and explore the correlations between each two of the three indices. By using a hypothetical extraction method, we divide authors into patterns which can reflect the different extent of preference for social activity, according to their contributions to the correlation between the number of collaborators and that of papers. Furthermore, we choose two of the patterns as a sociable one and an unsociable one and then compare both of the expected value and the distribution of publications and citations for authors between sociable pattern and unsociable pattern. Finally, we draw a conclusion that social activity could be favorable for authors to promote academic outcomes and obtain recognition.