Advanced Studies in Psychology

Graduate-level inquiry into psychology as a discipline

About this series

This series is written for advanced undergraduate and graduate students of psychology. It engages the field as a discipline, examining foundational assumptions, theoretical frameworks, research methods, and the limits of psychological explanation. The work prioritizes conceptual rigor and disciplinary context over summary or persuasion.

Orientation for Advanced Readers

Ethics Beyond IRB Compliance

This essay argues that ethics in psychology extends beyond IRB approval and professional codes. It examines how procedural compliance can obscure deeper ethical questions about power, representation, interpretation, and downstream impact, and calls for ethics to be understood as an ongoing disciplinary practice rather than a regulatory hurdle.

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Psychology in the Courtroom: Authority Without Consensus

This essay examines psychology’s authority in the courtroom, arguing that legal reliance on psychological expertise often exceeds the field’s internal consensus. It explores how decisional demands, expert testimony, and institutional trust create the appearance of certainty, and why greater transparency about disagreement is essential for ethical practice.

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Applications and Limits RJ Starr Applications and Limits RJ Starr

Diagnosis as Administrative Tool Rather Than Scientific Category

This essay interrogates psychological diagnosis as a regulatory and administrative instrument rather than a discovery of natural kinds. It examines how diagnostic categories function across healthcare, legal, educational, and research systems, and explores the epistemic and ethical costs of treating administrative classifications as settled scientific entities.

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Applications and Limits RJ Starr Applications and Limits RJ Starr

Where Psychological Intervention Must Stop

This piece examines where psychological intervention reaches its legitimate limits. It argues that extending psychological treatment into domains rooted in structural, moral, or political conditions risks individualizing systemic problems and enforcing adaptation rather than change. The piece calls for professional restraint, boundary recognition, and ethical judgment in determining when psychology should intervene and when it must step aside.

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Applications and Limits RJ Starr Applications and Limits RJ Starr

When Psychological Language Replaces Interpretation

This piece examines how psychological language increasingly replaces interpretation in public and interpersonal contexts. It argues that while psychological terms promise clarity, their uncritical use often forecloses inquiry, moral reasoning, and engagement with ambiguity. The piece calls for interpretive responsibility and restraint in applying psychological language beyond its proper scope.

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Applications and Limits RJ Starr Applications and Limits RJ Starr

When Everything Becomes Psychological

This piece examines the risks of psychological overreach, arguing that as psychological explanations expand, they can displace moral, social, and political forms of understanding. It analyzes how pathologization and category inflation individualize structural problems and narrow interpretation, calling for greater conceptual restraint and epistemic humility in applied psychology.

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Applications and Limits RJ Starr Applications and Limits RJ Starr

When Psychological Insight Becomes Instrumental Power

This piece examines how psychological knowledge changes when it is applied at scale, arguing that it often becomes a form of instrumental power rather than neutral insight. Drawing on institutional and ethical analysis, it explores how applied psychology shapes norms, redistributes responsibility, and governs behavior, calling for greater reflexivity about influence, authority, and unintended consequences.

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Applications and Limits RJ Starr Applications and Limits RJ Starr

When Psychological Knowledge Leaves the Lab

This piece examines what happens when psychological knowledge moves from laboratory research into applied settings. It argues that application is not a linear transfer of findings, but an interpretive act shaped by context, meaning, and institutional structure. By analyzing common translation failures, the piece calls for greater epistemic humility and conceptual rigor in applied psychology.

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