The term expresses skepticism about exaggerated attempts at tracking down alleged "influences" among artists, scholars, and their respective works.
The term wpływologia was formed from the Polish wpływ ("influence") and from -logia, a Greek-derived suffix meaning "science."
The term was coined after World War I by Polish literary critic Adam Grzymała-Siedlecki.
[1]) The neologism immediately won currency among Polish scholars and literary critics due to the anti-positivist turn that the humanities had taken in the early 20th century.
Positivist analysis saw these laws as being embodied in "influences" ("wpływy") obtaining among various writers and their works.