This article examines the social mechanisms behind peer review and provides a complementary view to Michèle Lamont’s book, How Professors Think. It emphasizes the need for outlook review of the entire process of evaluation in science in more general terms and suggests the added value of modelling to investigate it. It introduces experimental findings on the relevance of social sanctions and the counter-productive effect of economic incentives on peer review that can support the recent debate about its reform. It illustrates the relevance of reputational incentives to guarantee cooperation between the different figures involved in the evaluation process.