From jcp-skills
Guides development of psychological theory and hypotheses for JCP manuscripts: naming mediators, deriving theory-predicted moderators, and pre-empting rival processes.
How this skill is triggered — by the user, by Claude, or both
Slash command
/jcp-skills:jcp-theory-developmentThe summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
- You have a consumer effect but no explanatory **psychological process**
JCP does not reward effects; it rewards explanations of effects. The theory section must specify a psychological process — a shift in inference, construal, attention, affect, motivation, goal activation, identity, or processing fluency — that generates the consumer outcome, and then derive hypotheses that test that process a priori. The standard frame is a causal chain: antecedent → psychological process (mediator) → consumer outcome, with moderators that the process predicts. A paper whose contribution is "X affects Y" will be desk-rejected or sent back; a paper whose contribution is "X affects Y because it changes mental state M, and only when condition C holds" is a JCP paper.
| Archetype | What the contribution looks like |
|---|---|
| Novel mediator | A familiar effect is shown to run through an unexpected mental process |
| Process adjudication | Two rival mechanisms are pitted against each other; data favor one |
| Moderation-as-theory-test | A theory-predicted moderator turns the effect off, proving the process |
| Boundary / when-not | Specifying conditions under which a "known" effect reverses, via the mechanism |
| New construct | A new consumer-psychological construct, defined, measured, and shown to do work |
【Effect】antecedent → consumer outcome
【Process (mediator)】the named psychological mechanism = the contribution
【Moderators】theory-predicted, with which switch the process on/off
【Rival processes】named + how a study adjudicates
【Study chain】effect → mediation → moderation → boundary (study-by-study)
【What changes in the literature】advance / deepen / overturn which account
【Next skill】jcp-literature-positioning
npx claudepluginhub brycewang-stanford/awesome-journal-skills --plugin jcp-skillsBuilds the conceptual core of a JCR manuscript: psychological process & hypotheses for experiments papers, or interpretive theorization for CCT papers. Does not run studies.
Guides the sharpening of a one-sentence contribution for Journal of Consumer Psychology manuscripts, ensuring the novelty reads as a psychological mechanism rather than an effect. Useful when reviewers say the finding is incremental.
Guides building theoretical models and directional hypotheses for Journal of Applied Psychology manuscripts. Emphasizes mechanism, level specifications, and confirmatory vs. exploratory splits.