Are peer reviewers influenced by their work being cited?

Area of Science:

• Bibliometrics
• Scholarly Communication
• Research Integrity

Background:

• Peer review is crucial for scientific quality assurance.
• Concerns exist regarding reviewer citation practices, including potential coercion.
• Open peer review systems offer transparency into reviewer behavior.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the influence of reviewer self-citation on peer review outcomes.
• To differentiate the impact of citations in early versus later manuscript versions.
• To assess whether reviewer citation requests affect recommendation likelihood.

Main Methods:

• A matched observational study design was employed.
• Analysis included over 37,000 peer reviews from four open peer review journals.
• Statistical analysis examined the relationship between reviewer citations and recommendation favorability.

Main Results:

• Reviewers cited in post-first versions were more likely to receive favorable recommendations (OR=1.61).
• Reviewers requesting self-citation were less likely to recommend approval (OR=0.15).
• Reviewers were more likely to approve manuscripts that cited their work (OR=3.5).

Conclusions:

• Reviewer recommendations can be influenced by self-citation or citation requests.
• This suggests peer review may sometimes become transactional rather than purely objective.
• Ensuring objective critique requires addressing potential biases in reviewer citation practices.