The impact of geographical bias when judging scientific studies

Abstract

The beauty of science lies within its core assumption that it seeks to identify the truth, and as such, the truth stands alone and does not depend on the person who proclaims it. However, people's proclivity to succumb to various stereotypes is well known, and the scientific world may not be exceptionally immune to the tendency to judge a book by its cover. An interesting example is geographical bias, which includes distorted judgments based on the geographical origin of, inter alia, the given work and not its actual quality or value. Here, we tested whether both laypersons (N = 1532) and scientists (N = 480) are prone to geographical bias when rating scientific projects in one of three scientific fields (i.e., biology, philosophy, or psychology). We found that all participants favored more biological projects from the USA than China; in particular, expert biologists were more willing to grant further funding to Americans. In philosophy, however, laypersons rated Chinese projects as better than projects from the USA. Our findings indicate that geographical biases affect public perception of research and influence the results of grant competitions.

Mapping the field of physical therapy and identification of the leading active producers. A bibliometric analysis of the period 2000- 2018

“…It also enables the assessment of whether research is adjusted to societal health needs, comparing the topics we find with the burden of diseases (Cassi et al, 2017;Yegros-Yegros, van de Klippe, Abad-Garcia, and Rafols, 2020). For that purpose, the identification of productive countries is paramount, as the most powerful ones can set trends in research and introduce geographical biases in physical therapy research (Kowal, Sorokowski, Kulczycki, and Żelaźniewicz, 2022). Moreover, the identification of leading countries and organizations enables the study of the features that are behind their success.…”

How many submissions are needed to discover friendly suggested reviewers?

“…Although we can find publicly available data on peer-review results (e.g. [25,26])allowing to quantify potential biases based on factors such as prestige [27], gender [28][29][30], ethnicity [31,32], and place of origin [33,34]-this data is anonymized to protect the privacy of authors and reviewers. On account of this, it is not possible to track the submission history of a single author across multiple publication venues to determine whether they are biasing editorial decisons through their list of suggested reviewers.…”

Bias Amplification in Gender, Gender Identity, and Geographical Affiliation

“…Another layer of complexity arises from the perception that publication success is influenced also by the geographic location of authors. − Hence, the integrity of peer review has been questioned based on the evidence that outcomes can differ for authors in different countries. − The existence and extension of biases based on author/reviewer nationality and prestige of institutional affiliation have been addressed with varying conclusions. On the one hand, some reports indicate that the income and development level of the origin country impact whether a manuscript is reviewed .…”

“…In conclusion, this commentary calls for a broader definition of gender bias to include gender identity in STEM and for greater attention to the issue of bias amplification due to geographic affiliation in the field of computational chemistry and chemoinformatics. The pathways to greater equity, diversity, and inclusion have already been addressed by several studies. ,,,,,− One common outcome from these reports is the need for organizations to actively seek and promote greater gender identity and geographical diversity on their hiring bodies, evaluation panels, and editorial boards. Another is the need for individuals to act proactively to recognize and counteract implicit or explicit bias.…”

“…The pathways to greater equity, diversity, and inclusion have already been addressed by several studies. 29 , 33 , 39 , 46 , 47 , 49 − 52 One common outcome from these reports is the need for organizations to actively seek and promote greater gender identity and geographical diversity on their hiring bodies, evaluation panels, and editorial boards. Another is the need for individuals to act proactively to recognize and counteract implicit or explicit bias.…”