From developmental-psychology-skills
Positions a Developmental Psychology manuscript by naming a developmental gap (change, age, mechanism) and stating the contribution, distinguishing the venue from sibling journals.
How this skill is triggered — by the user, by Claude, or both
Slash command
/developmental-psychology-skills:devpsych-literature-positioningThe summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
Developmental Psychology expects an Introduction that names a **developmental gap** — what is unresolved
Developmental Psychology expects an Introduction that names a developmental gap — what is unresolved about change, age, or mechanism — and states the contribution to theory about development, not just to a topic. Positioning is where many submissions are judged "interesting but not developmental"; this skill makes the developmental stakes legible.
| Gap kind | What is unknown | What your contribution adds |
|---|---|---|
| Existence | does the effect change with age at all? | an age contrast or within-person test |
| Form | what shape/timing does change take? | a trajectory (slope/curvature, sensitive period) |
| Population | for whom does the trajectory differ? | a moderated-change finding |
| Mechanism | what process drives the change? | a mediated / transactional test |
| Generality | does a known effect hold across ages/cohorts? | replication across ages with invariance |
A longitudinal self-regulation package wants to position against a large but mostly cross-sectional effortful-control literature. Weak framing: "Prior work has studied effortful control (refs 1–25)." Venue-fit framing:
Stakes: Effortful control is a load-bearing construct in developmental
theories of adjustment, but its within-person growth is under-tested.
Gap (Form + Mechanism): Most evidence is cross-sectional; how effortful
control grows across early childhood, and whether parenting
steepens that growth, is unresolved.
Contribution (by paragraph two): A three-wave latent-growth test (ages 4-8)
estimates the trajectory and tests scaffolding as a driver of slope.
Distinction: Broad developmental-theory advance (life-span change + mechanism),
appropriate to this venue rather than a single-construct topical note.
| Reviewer pushback | Developmental Psychology fix |
|---|---|
| "Not clearly developmental" | recast the gap as change/age/mechanism, not a topic survey |
| "Incremental" | name the specific developmental unknown (form, timing, mechanism) you settle |
| "'First to show' overclaim" | downgrade to "first within-person test of"; cite the cross-sectional priors honestly |
| "Reads like a sibling-journal paper" | state the broad lifespan-development theory advance this venue wants |
【Developmental question + stakes】why the change/mechanism matters for theory
【Gap kind】existence / form / population / mechanism / generality
【Contribution】stated early? what is new about the developmental claim
【Anchor citations】defining works + closest longitudinal/age-comparative priors
【Venue distinction】why Developmental Psychology, not a sibling
【Next】devpsych-study-design
../../resources/exemplars/library.md — verified Developmental Psychology papers by method × developmental domain../../resources/official-source-map.md — scope statement and sibling-journal boundariesnpx claudepluginhub brycewang-stanford/awesome-journal-skills --plugin developmental-psychology-skillsHelps determine whether a research project fits Developmental Psychology (APA) by assessing developmental change focus, and selects the appropriate length tier (brief report, larger report, multi-study/longitudinal).
Positions Psychological Science manuscripts against the literature with sharp gap/contribution framing and ~40 reference budgets. Handles reviewer feedback about incremental contributions.
Positions educational psychology manuscripts for Journal of Educational Psychology by framing the precise advance over closest prior work, not a survey.