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The scientific project in the Western world is based on publications being reviewed by competent peers who represent the international scientific community. But a perversion of this evaluation may arise when that community is limited to the representatives of a particular culture, especially in ideologically sensitive disciplines. This is the case for the psychological disciplines, and more particularly for social psychology. The author, who is a social psychologist, endeavors to show that assessment of researchers and their teams by the impact factor confirms and aggravates this perverse effect, as this measure actually measures the involvement (or co-opting) of researchers in the scientific community of the United States. This involvement leads researchers who seek publication in so-called international journals (that are in fact US-based or US-inspired) to accept certain cultural dogmas that underlie North American social psychology, and to acquiesce to some of the consequences of the evaluation and publication practices entailed by North American mores and culture. This perversion fits in with the broader geopolitical framework of imperialism.