Examining personality psychology to unpack the peer review system: Towards a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable psychological science

Peer review serves to evaluate the scientific validity and quality of research by other researchers within the same field. Psychology, like many other disciplines, uses peer review to determine whether researchers’ work is published, where it is published, and in what form. However, the peer review system is imperfect, often perpetuating harm, exclusion, and inequities. We believe these problems hinder psychology from becoming a truly representative and valid science. In this paper, we uncover the historical roots of the peer review system in psychology and describe how these roots persist today. Then, using personality psychology as an exemplar, we leverage a social justice lens to: (1) document key contemporary problems in the peer review system; (2) identify global challenges in peer review; and (3) provide recommendations and guiding questions that might help the field become more equitable, diverse, just, and inclusive. To do so, we draw upon three sources of information: our personal experiences, qualitative and quantitative data from 104 self-identifying personality psychologists, and the prior literature. Ultimately, the goal of this work is to give voice to those who have been harmed in peer review, and to inform how we might reimagine peer review in personality psychology and beyond.