Although peer review is an important tool in the construction of scientific knowledge, its validity often gets criticized and the understanding of possible underlying mechanisms biasing rejection decisions is limited. It is proposed in the present study, that scientists perceiving oppositional scientific opinions as incompatible might experience a competence threat when reviewing an article representing perspectives diverging from their own. In consequence, these scientists would reject such articles more severely in order to prevent a possible competence loss. The hypothesis that participants reject merely equally high competent peers' participations in an advanced internship the more severely the higher they feel competent in a negatively interdependent comparison context, was corroborated only when taking into account the subjectively felt competence in the pure lie detection task...