Between Gift-Giving and Accumulation: Peer Review Economies in Psychology

Peer review is crucial for academic communities to ensure high-quality research, but yields relatively limited formal rewards for the individuals who perform it. Drawing on 39 semi-structured interviews, I study how reviewers for three publishing outlets in psychology experience the tension between community responsibility and various priorities of a more individual kind. Peer review functions as a gift economy, in which authors are expected to repay the work reviewers have invested in their submission by providing peer review for others. This gift economy is embedded in other economies, which are based on the accumulation of various types of capital (reputation, visibility, money etc.). If not kept in check, the competitive dynamics of accumulation tend to undermine the sense of reciprocity required for the continued functioning of peer review. One of the journals studied here is particularly prestigious and operates with a traditional format of pre-publication peer review. The model effectively exploits the tensions between gift giving and accumulation. It exposes reviewers to various undesirable submission practices characteristic of high-impact publishing, but compensates them with a share of its reputation that reviewers can use to advance their own careers. The other two publishing outlets are based on not-for-profit business models and feature elements such as open peer review, portable reviews, and registered reports. Reviewers can thereby more easily see their work as something akin to co-authorship. This alleviates tensions between gift giving and the various encompassing economies, contributing to the sustainability of the respective peer review systems.