Theory Development (jcp-theory-development)

When to trigger

• You have a consumer effect but no explanatory psychological process
• Hypotheses read as "A increases B" with no account of why it happens in the mind
• A reviewer wrote "the theory is thin" or "this is an effect in search of a process"
• Your moderators feel like a robustness dump rather than tests of the mechanism
• You cannot name, in one clause, the mediator that produces the effect

At JCP the mechanism IS the contribution

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.

Build the process, not the prediction

• Name the mediator concretely. "Increased motivation" is too vague; "an inflated sense of personal control that lowers perceived risk" is a process. The mediator should be a known or definable psychological construct with established measurement.
• Derive moderation from the mechanism. The most persuasive JCP moderators are ones that switch the process on or off: if the effect runs through M, then blocking M (cognitive load, an alternative goal, a manipulation that satisfies the need M serves) should attenuate or reverse it. That is a theoretical claim, not a sensitivity check.
• State hypotheses a priori; avoid HARKing. Each study should test a distinct link in the chain (effect → mediation → moderation → boundary). Post-hoc explanations dressed as predictions are the rigor-era's cardinal sin and reviewers look for it.
• Pre-empt rival processes. A JCP reviewer will propose a competing mechanism (demand, mood, a confounded construal). Name the leading rivals and design the theory so a study can adjudicate — ideally a moderator that your process predicts but the rival does not.

Theory archetypes JCP rewards

Checklist

• [ ] The mediator is named as a concrete psychological construct, not a vague "motivation/感觉"
• [ ] The causal chain antecedent → process → outcome is explicit
• [ ] At least one moderator is derived from the mechanism (switches the process on/off)
• [ ] Hypotheses are a priori and map onto a planned study chain
• [ ] The leading rival process(es) are named and there is a plan to rule them out
• [ ] The theory engages and changes an existing account, not just labels an effect

Anti-patterns

• Effect in search of a process: a robust result with no mechanism — the classic JCP reject
• Mediator-as-restatement: a "mediator" that is just the dependent variable measured earlier
• Moderator dump: boundary conditions with no theoretical rationale tied to the process
• HARKing: presenting post-hoc accounts as a priori hypotheses
• Borrowed-label theory: invoking a construct's name (e.g., "construal level") without using its logic or measuring it
• Single rival blindness: ruling out one alternative while ignoring the one the reviewer will actually raise

Output format

【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