You may know this work already but some of these ideas could be relevant: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/.... Also, my lab manager & I currently revising a paper where we think about religion through the lens of social power - happy to share when it's ready if you'd like.

Being able to think together with people during the Q&A (and in individual meetings).

That sounds like a lovely feed!

Oh for sure! Psych norm is to send reviewer comments along with decision letter so authors see all the comments as well as editor decision. This sounds like a frustrating experience & I'm sorry it happened this way for you.

This is rare in psych in my experience. Thank you for the context!

In general I think reviewer comments matter differently than number of pos vs neg reviews. Eg I can see rejecting a paper with 1 neg review & rest very positive if reviewers have different expertise; I've done this when positive reviews come from content area experts & neg come from stats expert.

Not clear to me that they discounted positive reviews but I see what you're saying - thought the problem was sending it to R4 in the first place. For this critique I think it depends on what R4 said; could see rejecting on the basis of this review if they noticed a fatal flaw that others missed.

. . .or whether I should place more weight on one set of reviews (eg because one set of arguments is stronger for a reason that, as an outsider, I don't understand, or because some reviewers are just more positive/negative as individuals, etc)

. . .if editor lacks expertise in something the paper covers, could want more opinions to help them understand the mixed original reviews. Eg if I get some very pos & some very neg reviews on a paper outside my area, I don't know whether split reflects controversy in the field. . .

I wouldn't necessarily have done this but here's one possible train of thought: don't want to send it back to just neg reviewer bc that seems unfair to authors (what if the neg reviewer is just a cranky person who hates everything)? Also. . . (more in next post)

Why? As an editor, this makes sense to me. Don't want to send to originally positive folks; will likely stay positive after authors respond to their comments, so it's a waste of their time. Don't want to send only to neg person, seems unfair to authors. Genuinely curious about your thinking here!

20. Would love to hear if others have different views or questions about any of this. Good luck! /End

19. More than 3 people might seem a bit scattered but that's just intuition on my part, not a clear cut rule.

18. I suggest more than 1 mentor for a few reasons: Maybe one person isn't taking students, is looking for different experience than what you're bringing, etc. Also many programs value collaboration across labs & some require multiple faculty to support your application to invite you to interview.

17. Eg: "I am especially excited to pursue this research (whatever you proposed in the previous paragraph) with Drs. X & Y. Dr. X's focus on morality & Dr. Y's focus on culture perfectly complement my desire to study punishment across cultures." Show research fit with 2-3 possible mentors.