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:

Four routes onto the journal (pick one, name it early)

1. New formal/computational model of a phenomenon currently explained only verbally.
2. New theoretical framework (conceptual mechanism) that reorganizes a literature.
3. 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).
4. 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