Topic Selection & Theory-Fit Screening (psychrev-topic-selection)

When to trigger

• You have an idea but are unsure it rises to a Psychological Review problem
• You have a rich empirical finding and are tempted to send it here
• You cannot say what existing theory fails to explain
• A collaborator asks "is this a Review paper or a JEP paper?"

The first gate: is this theory at all?

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: