psychbull-workflow

Psychological Bulletin Workflow Router (psychbull-workflow)

The orchestrator for a Psychological Bulletin submission. Figure out the stage and the synthesis type, then send the user to the matching skill. Psychological Bulletin publishes research syntheses — systematic reviews and meta-analyses — not original primary studies, so the router's first job is to confirm the project is a synthesis of existing work, not a new experiment or pure theory.

When to trigger

• Starting a new Psychological Bulletin review/meta-analysis and unsure where to begin
• Mid-project and unsure which skill applies next
• Deciding which synthesis type fits (meta-analysis vs. systematic vs. qualitative review)
• Returning with a decision letter (route to psychbull-rebuttal)

First question: is this even a Bulletin paper, and which type?

Situation	Synthesis type	Route to
Many comparable studies with extractable effect sizes	Meta-analysis	full pipeline below
Large literature, appraisal needed but pooling uncertain	Systematic review (PRISMA)	pipeline, lighter on meta-analysis-methods
Synthesizing across prior reviews or qualitative findings	Meta-review / meta-synthesis	topic-selection + theory-integration
Database resists quantitative pooling	Qualitative / narrative review	topic-selection + theory-integration
New data / a new experiment	Off-fit — primary study	another APA empirical journal
Pure new theory	Off-fit	Psychological Review

If you have original data or a brand-new theory with no synthesis, stop: Psychological Bulletin is the wrong venue. It synthesizes what already exists.

Routing map (stage → skill)

Review-worthy / meta-analyzable?    → psychbull-topic-selection
How do I find all the studies?      → psychbull-literature-search-strategy
Which studies are in, and coded?    → psychbull-inclusion-and-coding
How do I pool the effects?          → psychbull-meta-analysis-methods
What moves the effect? Bias?        → psychbull-moderators-and-bias
What does it all mean theoretically?→ psychbull-theory-integration
Are the exhibits MARS-ready?        → psychbull-tables-figures
Does it read in APA 7th / MARS?     → psychbull-writing-style
Protocol, data, code transparent?   → psychbull-open-science-and-transparency
Ready to submit?                    → psychbull-submission
Got an R&R / decision?              → psychbull-rebuttal

Default order

topic-selection → literature-search-strategy → inclusion-and-coding → meta-analysis-methods → moderators-and-bias → theory-integration → tables-figures → writing-style → open-science-and-transparency → submission → rebuttal

Iterate: most syntheses loop search ↔ coding ↔ analysis as new studies surface. Register the protocol (open-science-and-transparency) before screening, even though it appears late in the default order.

Anti-patterns

• Treating Psychological Bulletin like a primary-study journal — it publishes syntheses, not new data
• Sending original theory here instead of to Psychological Review
• Starting analysis before a documented, reproducible search (no PRISMA trail)
• Pooling without a protocol — preregister before screening

Where syntheses stumble at the APA review flagship

The router exists because most Psychological Bulletin failures are stage-misalignment failures: work done out of order, or a step skipped, at the APA's flagship synthesis journal. The diagnostic table:

Symptom	Missed stage	Route to
"Is this even a Bulletin paper?"	Fit not tested	psychbull-topic-selection
Analysis underway with no PRISMA trail	Search undocumented	psychbull-literature-search-strategy
Coders disagree, no κ reported	Coding/reliability	psychbull-inclusion-and-coding
Pooled number, no I²/PI	Heterogeneity unmodeled	psychbull-meta-analysis-methods
"Competent but not a contribution"	No theory	psychbull-theory-integration
"Available on request"	No deposit	psychbull-open-science-and-transparency

Worked vignette — routing a synthesis end to end

Illustrative figures only. A team with ~40 randomized self-affirmation trials enters at topic-selection (confirmed: a meta-analyzable synthesis, not new data), registers the protocol on OSF before screening, runs the documented search to k = 42, double-codes (κ = 0.81), fits a random-effects /RVE model (g = 0.34, I² = 68%), probes the delivery-format moderator and converging bias diagnostics, then integrates the result into a refined theoretical account before building MARS-ready exhibits and the masked submission. Each arrow below is one hop in that path; the protocol step is pulled early even though it sits late in the default order.

Referee/editor pushback the router pre-empts

• "No reproducible search underlies this analysis." → The router blocks analysis until literature-search-strategy has produced a PRISMA trail.
• "This is original data, not a synthesis." → The first-question table flags it as off-fit and redirects to a primary-study journal or Psychological Review.
• "The protocol postdates screening." → The default-order note forces preregistration before screening.

Output format

【Stage】topic / search / coding / analysis / moderators-bias / theory / exhibits / writing / transparency / submit / rebut
【Synthesis type】meta-analysis / systematic / meta-review / qualitative (or OFF-FIT → which journal)
【Route to】psychbull-<skill>
【Why】one line
【Then】the next skill after that

Supplementary resources

• ../../resources/external_tools.md — synthesis lifecycle tooling by stage
• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — official Psychological Bulletin URLs behind every fact in this pack