For better outcomes in the review process, send your editor some food and drink

If the results from a recently published article on the factors affecting judges making parole decisions are analogous to that of a journal editor making accept/revise/reject decisions on manuscripts, then send your editor some food and encourage them to take a break.

Danziger, S., J. Levav, and L. Avnaim-Pesso, 2011: Extraneous factors in judicial decisions. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., doi: 10.1073/pnas.1018033108.

The authors found that “the percentage of favorable rulings [parole granted] drops gradually from about 65% to nearly zero within each decision session and returns abruptly to about 65% after a break.” The figure from the article below tells the whole story.

The authors argue that such external factors affect the presumed judicial impartiality based only upon the facts of the case and the relevant laws.

Do the same outside influences affect editor decisions at journals? Hard to say. Rarely do I have a day where I have to make a large number of decisions in a row. That being said, if I do have several decisions to make, I usually handle the easiest ones first (those tend to be the accept or revise decisions first). Rejections generally involve more weighing of the reviews and the manuscript, require more thought, and take more time to write the decision letter. So, if the same effect happens in journals, it is likely because I ordered my workload that way.