Reviewer bias in single- versus double-blind peer review

Tomkins, A., Zhang, M., & Heavlin, W. D. (2017). Reviewer bias in single- versus double-blind peer review. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(48), 12708-12713.

Type

Journal article

Intellectual base

Primary research

Year

2017

Volume

114

Issue

48

Pages

12708-12713

DOI

10.1073/pnas.1707323114

DOI registrant

National Academy of Sciences

Link

https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1707323114

Cited from

library_information_science

Cited by

3 citations across 3 artifacts.

Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.

Primes

• Peer Review
  • A controlled experiment at WSDM 2017 found that single-blind reviewers favored famous authors and high-prestige institutions relative to double-blind reviewers in that setting, but this result does not establish one universal effect size or prove that anonymization removes all bias.

Mechanisms

• Blind or Double-Blind Review
  • That makes it unusually robust — it does not depend on a reviewer's goodwill or self-awareness — and it directly interrupts status-driven bias
• Double-Blind or Identity-Masked Review
  • It earns its keep wherever prestige, gender, seniority, or institutional halo would otherwise bleed into a merit judgment, and where the object of evaluation can be meaningfully separated from its author.

    This sourceFinds that visible author identity and affiliation can bias review toward famous authors and prestigious institutions.

Verification

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