Literature Positioning (jpsp-literature-positioning)

In JPSP the introduction and literature review are long and load-bearing — they justify the whole multi-study package and set up the theory. Reviewers in your section judge whether you have engaged the right literatures and located a real, non-trivial gap. This skill positions the paper; the argument itself lives in jpsp-theory-and-hypotheses.

When to trigger

• Drafting or restructuring the introduction / literature review
• A reviewer said the contribution is "incremental" or "misses key work"
• Reconciling competing findings the paper claims to resolve

What the long-format introduction must do

1. Engage the section's core literatures. ASC readers expect the attitudes/social-cognition canon; IRGP readers expect the relationships/groups literatures; PPID readers expect the personality/individual-differences traditions. Cite the work the editor will expect to see.
2. Locate a specific gap or tension. Not "X is understudied" but a precise puzzle: conflicting predictions, an unexplained boundary condition, a missing mechanism, an untested construct.
3. Frame the contribution as theoretical. State early what the paper adds to theory, then let the studies serve that claim.
4. Acknowledge points of connection and disconnection to related theories — JPSP reviewers reward honest mapping of where your account agrees with and departs from existing accounts.
5. Set up the multi-study logic. Foreshadow why it takes several studies (e.g., establish the effect, then mechanism, then boundary conditions, then generalization).

Positioning checklist

• Section's key literatures cited; no obvious canonical omission
• Gap is specific and consequential, not a generic "more research needed"
• Contribution framed as a theoretical advance, stated up front
• Competing/alternative accounts named and contrasted
• Introduction foreshadows the study set without over-promising
• Self-citations neutralized for masked review (see jpsp-submission)

Anti-patterns

• A literature review that summarizes everything but argues nothing
• Citing only your own subfield niche and missing the section's main debates
• Burying the contribution until the General Discussion
• A long introduction that the studies never actually deliver on
• Ignoring work that predicts the opposite of your claim

"Incremental" — the reviewer charge and the section-specific fix

"The contribution is incremental" is the most common JPSP positioning rejection. The fix differs by what the reviewer distrusts:

Worked example: sharpening a PPID gap statement

Illustrative — invented to show the move, not a real literature.

Weak: "Self-control and well-being are understudied together" — a PPID reviewer reads a topic, not a gap. Sharper: "Trait self-control predicts well-being, yet whether it does so by avoiding temptation or resisting it is unresolved — two process accounts make opposite predictions in high-temptation contexts." This names the construct, the tension, and a diagnostic test, and foreshadows the multi-study package needed to dissociate the two processes.

Positioning pass for Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Treat this skill as an executable review pass, not a prose hint. First lock the construct validity, study sequence, power/robustness plan, and boundary conditions; then judge whether the current manuscript answers the venue's real reader: psychology reviewers who need a theoretical construct, validated measurement, and cumulative-study logic.

• Do the pass: Build a three-column map: incumbent conversation, unresolved tension, and this manuscript's delta; include one sibling-venue omission that would make a referee doubt the fit.
• Return a ledger: give claim / evidence / risk / manuscript location rows, so the next agent can edit rather than rediscover the issue.
• Sibling guard: compare against Psychological Science for shorter general-interest findings, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin for field scope, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology for experiment-centered claims; if a sibling owns the contribution, recommend re-routing before polishing format.
• Stop condition: do not give submission-ready advice until the pack's resources/official-source-map.md has been checked for volatile rules and the manuscript has one concrete fix for the largest venue-specific risk.

Output format

【Section literatures engaged】list the 3–5 the editor will expect
【Gap / tension】one precise sentence
【Theoretical contribution】one sentence, stated up front
【Competing accounts】named + how the paper adjudicates
【Study-set foreshadow】why N studies are needed
【Next】jpsp-theory-and-hypotheses

Supplementary resources

• ../../resources/external_tools.md — reference managers + APA 7th formatting
• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — section remits and house format