brycewang-stanford Topic Selection & Theory-Fit Screening (psychrev-topic-selection)
When to trigger
- You have an idea but are unsure it rises to a Psychological Review problem
- You have a rich empirical finding and are tempted to send it here
- You cannot say what existing theory fails to explain
- A collaborator asks "is this a Review paper or a JEP paper?"
The first gate: is this theory at all?
Psychological Review is theory-only. Before anything else, run the empirical-contribution test: if the manuscript's contribution is the data — a new effect, a better method, a clean experiment — it is desk-rejected and redirected (to the JEP family, Psychological Science, or a specialty venue). Data belong here only to motivate the problem or constrain the theory. Ask:
- Could the paper survive if its data were replaced by someone else's already-published data? If yes, the contribution is the theory — good. If the paper collapses without your new experiment, it is empirical — wrong venue.
- Is the novelty a phenomenon or a mechanism? Review wants the mechanism.
The second gate: is the problem big enough?
Review papers earn their length by generality. A theory that explains one paradigm in one subfield rarely clears the bar; the journal prizes accounts that unify phenomena, adjudicate between standing theories, or formalize something previously verbal. Screen on:
| Dimension | Strong Review problem | Weak / wrong-venue |
|---|---|---|
| Generality | Spans paradigms, tasks, or subfields | One effect in one paradigm |
| Theoretical tension | Standing theories make conflicting predictions | A gap that is merely unstudied |
| Form of advance | New mechanism / formal model / synthesis | A new measure or a methodological fix |
| What it replaces | Names a prior account it improves on | "No one has modeled this yet" |
| Falsifiability | Yields predictions that could be wrong | Restates a phenomenon in new words |
Four routes onto the journal (pick one, name it early)
- New formal/computational model of a phenomenon currently explained only verbally.
- New theoretical framework (conceptual mechanism) that reorganizes a literature.
- Adjudication between two or more standing theories using existing evidence and/or a formal contrast — a "systematic evaluation of alternative theories" (the journal's own phrasing).
- Major synthesis that yields new theory (not a survey) — note this is the boundary with Psychological Bulletin; if you only summarize, it is Bulletin.
Scoping questions to answer before building
- What is the explanandum — the precise set of phenomena the theory must account for?
- Which of those phenomena are diagnostic (rival theories disagree on them)?
- What existing data already exist to constrain the theory (so you need no new experiment)?
- Is the target a process (how) or only a pattern (what)? Review wants the how.
Checklist
- The contribution is a theory/model, not a dataset (empirical-contribution test passed)
- The problem spans more than one paradigm or adjudicates standing theories
- A specific prior account the paper improves on is named
- The explanandum is stated as a concrete list of phenomena
- Existing (published) data suffice to motivate and constrain — no new experiment is the contribution
- The advance is a mechanism/formalism, not a measure or method
- The route onto the journal (model / framework / adjudication / synthesis) is explicit
Anti-patterns
- Sending an empirical paper with a "theory" section bolted on — the defining desk-reject
- A "model" that is a redescription of the data with free parameters and no commitments
- A synthesis that only summarizes (that is Psychological Bulletin's lane)
- A problem so narrow it explains one effect in one task
- "No one has modeled X" offered as the contribution, with no phenomenon that demands a model
- Claiming generality the theory cannot deliver
Output format
【Fit】theory not empirical (passed empirical-contribution test): yes / fix
【Route】new model | new framework | adjudication | synthesis
【Explanandum】[concrete list of phenomena the theory must explain]
【Prior account improved on】[named]
【Constraining data】[existing published data; no new experiment is the contribution]
【Next step】psychrev-literature-positioning (name rivals) → psychrev-theory-construction