Priming and Prejudice: The Bias Effect of Origin Information on Peer Review, Judgment and Evaluation

Abstract

The peer review system is a core tenet of scientific publishing, and has been studied throughout the years. Recent discussions on judgment and evaluation biases have highlighted the importance of priming effects on those processes. We have conducted two experiments with evaluation tasks (a scientific article evaluation, with professors and PhD students as participants, and a chocolate tasting, with undergraduates) in which they were exposed to a footnote acknowledging financial support from a fictional agency. In one condition, the
agency’s name was associated with the African continent, while in another condition, it was associated with the European continent. There were statistically
significant differences in judgments on both tests, with individuals on the European condition giving better evaluations of the article and the chocolate, even though
the stimuli were subtle enough not to be remembered by 92.5 % of all participants. We also found evidence of a moderating effect of academic experience on the
priming process.

Keywords: Peer review, priming, cognitive bias, judgment.