A preference for open peer review may reflect a historical, predominantly individualistic rather than collectivist cultural perspective
“Journal peer review is often time‐consuming, arduous, and fraught with suspicion, not least because the identities of reviewers usually remain hidden from the authors.”1 Such a bias against blinded peer review may be traced back to the First International Congress on Peer Review in Biomedical Publication held in Chicago in 1989.2 This point of view was possibly kindled by a randomised trial on the effects of blinding on the quality of peer review3 and fuelled by subsequent investigations of the effects of blinding, masking and unmasking on peer review quality.4,5
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Jose Florencio Lapeña is Editor‐in‐Chief of the Philippine Journal of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, Peter Munk is Editor‐in‐Chief of the Canadian Association of Radiologists Journal, Aik Saw is Chief Editor of the Malaysian Orthopaedic Journal, and Wilfred Peh is Advisor and former Chief Editor of the Singapore Medical Journal.