brycewang-stanford Psychological Bulletin Workflow Router (psychbull-workflow)
The orchestrator for a Psychological Bulletin submission. Figure out the stage and the synthesis type, then send the user to the matching skill. Psychological Bulletin publishes research syntheses — systematic reviews and meta-analyses — not original primary studies, so the router's first job is to confirm the project is a synthesis of existing work, not a new experiment or pure theory.
When to trigger
- Starting a new Psychological Bulletin review/meta-analysis and unsure where to begin
- Mid-project and unsure which skill applies next
- Deciding which synthesis type fits (meta-analysis vs. systematic vs. qualitative review)
- Returning with a decision letter (route to
psychbull-rebuttal)
First question: is this even a Bulletin paper, and which type?
| Situation | Synthesis type | Route to |
|---|---|---|
| Many comparable studies with extractable effect sizes | Meta-analysis | full pipeline below |
| Large literature, appraisal needed but pooling uncertain | Systematic review (PRISMA) | pipeline, lighter on meta-analysis-methods |
| Synthesizing across prior reviews or qualitative findings | Meta-review / meta-synthesis | topic-selection + theory-integration |
| Database resists quantitative pooling | Qualitative / narrative review | topic-selection + theory-integration |
| New data / a new experiment | Off-fit — primary study | another APA empirical journal |
| Pure new theory | Off-fit | Psychological Review |
If you have original data or a brand-new theory with no synthesis, stop: Psychological Bulletin is the wrong venue. It synthesizes what already exists.
Routing map (stage → skill)
Review-worthy / meta-analyzable? → psychbull-topic-selection
How do I find all the studies? → psychbull-literature-search-strategy
Which studies are in, and coded? → psychbull-inclusion-and-coding
How do I pool the effects? → psychbull-meta-analysis-methods
What moves the effect? Bias? → psychbull-moderators-and-bias
What does it all mean theoretically?→ psychbull-theory-integration
Are the exhibits MARS-ready? → psychbull-tables-figures
Does it read in APA 7th / MARS? → psychbull-writing-style
Protocol, data, code transparent? → psychbull-open-science-and-transparency
Ready to submit? → psychbull-submission
Got an R&R / decision? → psychbull-rebuttal
Default order
topic-selection → literature-search-strategy → inclusion-and-coding → meta-analysis-methods → moderators-and-bias → theory-integration → tables-figures → writing-style → open-science-and-transparency → submission → rebuttal
Iterate: most syntheses loop search ↔ coding ↔ analysis as new studies surface. Register the protocol
(open-science-and-transparency) before screening, even though it appears late in the default order.
Anti-patterns
- Treating Psychological Bulletin like a primary-study journal — it publishes syntheses, not new data
- Sending original theory here instead of to Psychological Review
- Starting analysis before a documented, reproducible search (no PRISMA trail)
- Pooling without a protocol — preregister before screening
Where syntheses stumble at the APA review flagship
The router exists because most Psychological Bulletin failures are stage-misalignment failures: work done out of order, or a step skipped, at the APA's flagship synthesis journal. The diagnostic table:
| Symptom | Missed stage | Route to |
|---|---|---|
| "Is this even a Bulletin paper?" | Fit not tested | psychbull-topic-selection |
| Analysis underway with no PRISMA trail | Search undocumented | psychbull-literature-search-strategy |
| Coders disagree, no κ reported | Coding/reliability | psychbull-inclusion-and-coding |
| Pooled number, no I²/PI | Heterogeneity unmodeled | psychbull-meta-analysis-methods |
| "Competent but not a contribution" | No theory | psychbull-theory-integration |
| "Available on request" | No deposit | psychbull-open-science-and-transparency |
Worked vignette — routing a synthesis end to end
Illustrative figures only. A team with ~40 randomized self-affirmation trials enters at
topic-selection (confirmed: a meta-analyzable synthesis, not new data), registers the protocol on OSF
before screening, runs the documented search to k = 42, double-codes (κ = 0.81), fits a random-effects
/RVE model (g = 0.34, I² = 68%), probes the delivery-format moderator and converging bias diagnostics,
then integrates the result into a refined theoretical account before building MARS-ready exhibits and
the masked submission. Each arrow below is one hop in that path; the protocol step is pulled early even
though it sits late in the default order.
Referee/editor pushback the router pre-empts
- "No reproducible search underlies this analysis." → The router blocks analysis until
literature-search-strategyhas produced a PRISMA trail. - "This is original data, not a synthesis." → The first-question table flags it as off-fit and redirects to a primary-study journal or Psychological Review.
- "The protocol postdates screening." → The default-order note forces preregistration before screening.
Output format
【Stage】topic / search / coding / analysis / moderators-bias / theory / exhibits / writing / transparency / submit / rebut
【Synthesis type】meta-analysis / systematic / meta-review / qualitative (or OFF-FIT → which journal)
【Route to】psychbull-<skill>
【Why】one line
【Then】the next skill after that
Supplementary resources
../../resources/external_tools.md— synthesis lifecycle tooling by stage../../resources/official-source-map.md— official Psychological Bulletin URLs behind every fact in this pack