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Explanatory preferences for complexity matching.

Jonathan B Lim1, Daniel M Oppenheimer2

  • 1School of Business, UC Riverside, Riverside, California, United States of America.

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Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

People prefer explanations that match the complexity of the event. Simple events need simple explanations, while complex events require complex ones, according to the complexity matching hypothesis.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Philosophy of Science

Background:

  • Understanding what constitutes a satisfying explanation is a key question in cognitive science.
  • Existing research presents conflicting views on whether simple or complex explanations are preferred.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To propose and test the complexity matching hypothesis, suggesting explanation satisfaction is linked to matching event complexity.
  • To reconcile differing perspectives on explanation preferences.

Main Methods:

  • Four studies were conducted involving scenario-based tasks.
  • Participants predicted, generated, and evaluated explanations for events of varying complexity.
  • Study 4 employed a different complexity manipulation to ensure robustness.

Main Results:

  • Consistent evidence was found supporting the complexity matching hypothesis.
  • Participants preferred simple explanations for simple events and complex explanations for complex events.
  • The findings held across different experimental paradigms.

Conclusions:

  • The complexity matching hypothesis provides a unified framework for understanding explanation satisfaction.
  • People intuitively seek explanations that mirror the intricacy of the phenomena they describe.
  • Further research is needed to explore the underlying cognitive mechanisms of this preference.