Boundary Conditions, Scope & Identifiability (psychrev-boundary-conditions)

When to trigger

• Your theory reads as if it explains everything (a red flag to reviewers)
• You have not said where the theory stops holding
• For a formal model: you have not checked whether distinct parameter settings are distinguishable
• A reviewer will ask "what would falsify this?" or "can you even estimate that parameter?"

Why scope is a contribution, not a confession

At Psychological Review, stating where a theory holds and where it fails is part of the theory itself, not a limitations paragraph tacked on at the end. A theory that "explains everything" explains nothing — unbounded scope signals an unfalsifiable model. Editors read explicit boundaries as a sign of theoretical maturity. Three kinds of limit must be stated.

1. Scope (the explanatory boundary)