Theory & Hypotheses (joap-theory-and-hypotheses)

JAP is theory-first. A paper lives or dies on whether it makes a theoretical contribution to I-O science — a new mechanism, boundary condition, integration of frameworks, or construct clarification — and whether the hypotheses follow from that theory. The cardinal honesty rule: state theory and confirmatory hypotheses before the data, and label anything generated after seeing data as exploratory.

When to trigger

• Building the theoretical model and deriving hypotheses
• Writing a preregistration / pre-analysis plan
• Reconciling what you predicted with what you found
• A reviewer flagged the work as "atheoretical," "post hoc," "HARKed," or "no contribution"

Build the argument