From psychological-review-skills
Screens whether an idea is a genuine theoretical problem with the scope and generality Psychological Review demands, distinguishing theory from empirical reports.
How this skill is triggered — by the user, by Claude, or both
Slash command
/psychological-review-skills:psychrev-topic-selectionThe summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
- You have an idea but are unsure it rises to a Psychological Review problem
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:
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:
| Dimension | Strong Review problem | Weak / wrong-venue |
|---|---|---|
| Generality | Spans paradigms, tasks, or subfields | One effect in one paradigm |
| Theoretical tension | Standing theories make conflicting predictions | A gap that is merely unstudied |
| Form of advance | New mechanism / formal model / synthesis | A new measure or a methodological fix |
| What it replaces | Names a prior account it improves on | "No one has modeled this yet" |
| Falsifiability | Yields predictions that could be wrong | Restates a phenomenon in new words |
【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
npx claudepluginhub brycewang-stanford/awesome-journal-skills --plugin psychological-review-skillsRoutes users to the correct psychrev-* sub-skill based on the current stage of a Psychological Review theory manuscript, from problem framing through revision.
Pressure-tests whether a cognition project fits Cognitive Psychology (Elsevier) by evaluating theoretical advance, integrative scope, formal modeling, and reproducibility. Guides contribution shape and fit scoring.
Evaluates whether a research question fits Perspectives on Psychological Science (PoPS) — broad, integrative, theoretical, or meta-scientific — and routes it to the correct venue.