Does the Need for Agreement Among Reviewers Inhibit the Publication of Controversial Findings?

As Cicchetti indicates, agreement among reviewers is not high. This conclusion is empirically supported by Fiske and Fogg (1990), who reported that two independent reviews of the same papers typically had no critical point in common. Does this imply that journal editors should strive for a high level of reviewer consensus as a criterion for publication? Prior research suggests that such a requirement would inhibit the publication of papers with controversial findings. We summarize this research and report on a survey of editors.