brycewang-stanford Literature Positioning (jcp-literature-positioning)
When to trigger
- A reviewer wrote "we already know this" or "how is this different from [classic effect]?"
- Your contribution overlaps a well-known consumer-psych phenomenon and the delta is unclear
- The paper could be read as JCR / JMR / Psychological Science and you must claim the JCP lane
- Your literature review is a citation list, not an argument about what is missing
- You are unsure whether to position against an effect or against a process in prior work
Position the process against the field, not the effect
At JCP the contribution is a mechanism, so positioning means showing what the field believes about the process and how you change it — not just that your effect is novel. The strongest JCP positioning identifies a gap in causal understanding: prior work documented the effect but mis-specified or never identified the process; or a dominant account predicts the wrong moderation; or two literatures make conflicting process claims your paper reconciles. Frame the review as a debt the field owes the consumer's mind, then pay it.
A useful test: write the sentence "Prior work shows that X affects consumer Y and attributes it to process P; we show the real (or an additional) process is P′, which implies M." If you cannot fill in P (what the field currently thinks the mechanism is), your positioning is still effect-level and a reviewer will say the contribution is incremental.
Staking the JCP lane against siblings
| Sibling | How it overlaps | Your one-sentence differentiation |
|---|---|---|
| JCR | Both run consumer experiments | "Our contribution is a psychological mechanism, tested experimentally — not interpretive/CCT theorizing of consumption meaning." |
| JMR / Marketing Science | Both study consumer data | "We explain a mental process; we do not introduce a measure, model, or method." |
| Journal of Marketing | Both touch consumer outcomes | "Our outcome is the consumer's psychology, not a firm/strategy decision." |
| Psychological Science / JPSP / JEP | Both study cognition/affect | "The phenomenon is consumption-specific and matters to consumer-psychology theory and practice." |
If a reviewer suggests the paper "belongs in JCR," the fix is usually to foreground the mechanism and its measurement (JCP's center) rather than the broad consumption-meaning framing (JCR's). If they suggest "Psych Science," foreground the consumer stakes and the consumer-psychology audience.
Building the positioning argument
- Cite the process incumbents, not just the effect papers. Show you know what the field thinks the mechanism is.
- Make the gap a contradiction or an absence, not a "no one has looked at this context."
- Quantify the delta in understanding: a new mediator, an overturned moderation, a reconciliation of conflicting findings.
- Engage SCP-community work: JCP reviewers are SCP members; ignoring the relevant JCP/consumer-psych canon reads as outsider work.
- Be honest about adjacency: name the closest prior paper and say precisely what it did not establish.
Checklist
- The review states what the field currently believes the process is, then changes it
- The gap is a contradiction or genuine absence, not "a new context/category"
- One sentence differentiates the paper from each plausible sibling (JCR / JMR / Psych Sci)
- The closest prior paper is named and its limitation stated precisely
- Relevant consumer-psychology (SCP-community) work is engaged, not just general-psych classics
- The claimed delta is process-level (mediator / moderation / reconciliation), not effect-level
Anti-patterns
- Effect-level novelty: "no one has shown X→Y in this setting" presented as a contribution
- Strawman incumbents: misrepresenting the dominant account so your delta looks bigger
- Sibling avoidance: never naming JCR/Psych Science when the reviewer obviously will
- Citation carpet: thirty references with no argument about the missing mechanism
- Canon blindness: skipping the obvious JCP/consumer-psych precedents a Division-23 reviewer reads weekly
Output format
【Field's current process belief】what prior work thinks the mechanism is
【Gap】contradiction / absence at the process level (one sentence)
【Our delta】new mediator / overturned moderation / reconciliation
【Closest prior paper】citation + what it did not establish
【Sibling lane】why JCP not JCR / JMR / Psych Science (one line each as needed)
【Next skill】jcp-methods