How (And Why) to Reason More Complexly
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Short of time? Read the key takeaways.
🎁 Complex reasoning has benefits. The skill of thinking through situations complexly can help you to:
Avoid false dilemmas
Discern when different explanations apply
Make trade-offs between options more carefully
Develop more powerful theories
Understand people you disagree with more deeply
Locate the cruxes of disagreements
🧩 Complex reasoning can be measured. Researchers score "conceptual" or "integrative" complexity on a 1 to 7 scale. Studies of college students’ writing found average scores of just 1.7 to 2.4, while U.S. Supreme Court opinions averaged 2.4 to 4. The scoring system they use is not widely known but is full of insights. This article breaks it down.
👀 Start by seeing more than one angle. Complex reasoning begins with recognizing that outcomes can have multiple causes and that reasonable people see things differently. Crucially, you've got to treat other angles as legitimate (even if you ultimately disagree with them), not simply dismiss them as mistakes. Researchers call this "differentiation".
🔗 Then connect the angles together. The next step is called "integration". It can mean:
Explaining how different angles influence each other (in both directions)
How to trade off between them
Why reasonable people disagree
How to combine different angles into a new, synthesized angle.
🌍 The highest levels require a bigger picture. Just as plate tectonics explains earthquakes, volcanoes, mountain ranges, and ocean trenches, the top-scoring reasoning finds a shared cause, nature, goal, or system that explains not just the different angles but why they interact as they do.
⚖️ Despite its benefits, more complexity isn’t always better. One study found abolitionist politicians reasoned less complexly than those advocating compromise on slavery, yet the abolitionists were right. Some issues are clear-cut. On top of that, simple, low-stakes decisions may not call for complex reasoning.
This article is all about elements of complex reasoning. Of course, more complex reasoning isn’t always better than simpler reasoning, but the capacity to think more complexly is a skill that can serve you well in a wide variety of contexts. Whether you’re reflecting on the potential consequences of an important and life-altering decision (such as whether to move city or whether to marry your partner) or trying to reach the truth of a complex topic (such as the ramifications of a political policy or whether humans have free will), being able to reason more complexly can help you:
Avoid false dilemmas
Discern when different explanations apply
Make trade-offs between options more carefully
Develop more powerful / explanatory theories
Understand people you disagree with more deeply
Locate the cruxes of disagreements
And more.
Researchers have developed a remarkably detailed framework they can use to assess a certain kind of complexity in people’s reasoning, called “conceptual” or “integrative” complexity. This framework allows researchers to give complexity scores on a scale from 1 to 7, where a score of 1 is given to the least complex reasoning and a score of 7 is reserved for the most complex. It applies to any text or spoken word that demonstrates reasoning, whether explicitly or implicitly: If a poem presents an implicit argument for something its author values, it can be assessed. If marketing materials reason that you should buy some product because of some benefit, they can be assessed. And since the arguments you give in favor of your beliefs and behaviors exhibit reasoning, they can too.
Yet, this framework is not widely known outside of the academic circles in which it is used. The fact that it’s fairly long and (perhaps fittingly) complex probably doesn’t help. In this article, we’re going to break down some key insights from this resource to help you understand the elements of complex reasoning and to help you increase the complexity of your reasoning when you want or need to.
The framework in question is referred to as “Conceptual/Integrative Complexity” and is explained thoroughly in the “Coding Manual for Conceptual/Integrative Complexity” by Philip E. Tetlock and his colleagues (below, we’ll just call that “the Coding Manual”).
The Complexity Scale Made Simple
In order to deeply understand the complexity scale in the Coding Manual, you need to see that it is built around two key features of complex reasoning:
Seeing more than one angle (researchers call this “differentiation”). This means things like:
Seeing that an outcome depends on more than one cause
Seeing that reasonable people view things differently
Importantly, it means seeing those different angles as legitimate ways of thinking rather than simply as mistakes to be dismissed or ignored. It’s okay to favor one angle over others, or to think that one angle is unlikely to be correct or useful, but it's valuable to consider multiple angles.
For example: “To perform informative statistical analyses, we need reliable data. But we also need clear, relevant concepts. Some researchers focus more on data quality, while others focus more on conceptual clarity. Both are important.”
Connecting multiple angles together (researchers call this “integration”). This means things like:
Hypothesizing about how the angles affect each other
Explaining how to make trade-offs between the different angles when they oppose each other
Bringing the different angles together into a bigger picture that accounts for or utilizes them all
For example: “Clear concepts help by organizing the data. The data help by giving factual content to the concepts. Combining them both produces knowledge. ”
Since you can’t connect multiple angles together if you haven’t spotted more than one angle, the second feature depends on the first. The seven-point complexity scale reflects that. Here’s a summary of the scale. Examples of scores can be seen in the next section:
This might sound simple, but it can be extremely difficult! Studies of writing by college students have found average complexity scores from 1.7 to 2.4, while studies of U.S. Supreme Court Justice opinions find average ratings from 2.4 to 4. But once you’ve read this article, you’ll have a set of heuristics you can use to construct much more complex reasoning than even those!
How to Reason More Complexly
To understand how to increase the complexity of your own reasoning for the better, let’s look at examples of reasoning with different scores. After each example, we’ll give you a tip for how to move to the next levels of complexity. You might find the examples and tips for levels you’re already comfortable at a bit obvious, but the insights get deeper as complexity increases.
(One caveat: We haven’t been officially trained to apply this framework. That means the following examples are based on our judgment of how it works, but it’s always possible that someone with official training might disagree.)
Example of Level 1
“When I don’t know what to do, I go with my gut. I believe it’s best to trust yourself in those situations because overthinking can lead to paralysis and mean you never get anything done. There’s plenty of evidence of people trusting their guts and getting positive outcomes.”
This example gives a single rule (always go with your gut) for every situation. It does mention another angle (overthinking) but dismisses it as incorrect. Even though this example gives multiple reasons for going with your gut, it’s the lowest form of complexity.
The problem with this example isn’t that “going with your gut” is a low complexity option; it’s that the reasoning about why you should go with your gut lacks complexity. It would be just as simple to say “I always seek the advice of my friends and family.”
A tip for getting to higher levels: Try asking yourself, “Are there alternative angles, and what do they have to offer? Are there circumstances under which I would adopt an alternative angle?”
Make sure to develop each alternative angle so that it stands on its own. You could do this by saying what each angle offers, what makes it reasonable, or explaining when each angle would apply instead of the other(s). Once you’ve done that, you’ll have reached Level 3. Doing it only partially will land you at Level 2.
Example of Level 3
“When I don’t know what to do, sometimes I go with my gut and sometimes I seek advice from others. Going with my gut is great because it’s quick and easy. But when the stakes are high, I seek out the views of people who have been through similar things because they might have insights I don’t.”
At this point, we have two fleshed-out alternative angles. We’ve said something about what each one offers, and we even have conditions for when to use one rather than the other. We’ve now achieved what researchers call “differentiation.” However, we don’t have any idea of how the different angles connect to / interact with each other. We don’t yet have “integration.”
Tips for getting to higher levels: There are lots of ways to connect (integrate) different angles. The Coding Manual talks about four:
Describe how different angles influence each other. For Level 5, it needs to be the case that the different angles mutually affect each other (not just one direction of influence).
Work out how you would trade off between the different angles when you can’t have both.
Explain why some reasonable people take one angle while other reasonable people take a different angle. This might involve pointing to the crux of the disagreement: the most fundamental difference(s) in belief that cause people to adopt different angles.
Combine different angles into a new angle, synthesized from the others.
Hinting at any of these types of connections (even tentatively) takes you to Level 4, but describing at least one of them in detail takes you to Level 5.
Example of Level 5
Imagine this text follows on from the Level 3 example text:
“...However, gut instinct and the advice of others aren’t completely independent. When the advice of my friends and family is particularly compelling, my gut instinct often changes in response to hearing it. And (if I’m totally honest) I know that my cognitive biases mean that I tend to put more effort into seeking out the advice of people who I think will agree with my gut instinct than those who won’t. So the advice I seek out is, in a sense, reflecting my own instinct, even though they are in different words.”
Now the response explains how the two different angles affect each other and explicitly states how and when those interactions occur.
A tip for getting to the next levels: Zoom out and ask yourself what bigger picture explains or organizes the different angles.
For comparison, imagine you’re looking at the behavior of earthquakes, volcanoes, mountain ranges, and ocean trenches. You could analyse the behaviors of them each individually, focusing on features each one has that the others don’t (e.g., earthquake magnitude, types of volcanic eruption, the rate of ocean trench “spreading”, the increasing height of mountain ranges) but the underlying bigger picture that unifies them all and ultimately explains all those individual analyses is the theory of plate tectonics.
To reach the higher levels of complexity, you’re looking for a bigger picture explanation that is, to your different angles, what plate tectonics is to earthquakes, volcanoes, mountain ranges, and ocean trenches.
Some potential bigger pictures include:
A shared cause of all the different angles. This answers the question, “Where do the different angles come from?”
A shared underlying nature that the different angles are just different manifestations of. This answers the question, “What are the different angles more fundamentally?”
A shared goal that the different angles are different routes towards (in this case, make sure to explain the basis of trade-offs between them). This answers the question, “What are the different angles for?”
A shared system or process that the different angles are different stages or components of. This answers the question, “How do the different angles affect or work with each other?”
This doesn’t mean the different angles have to all agree on some level. They can stand in all sorts of different relationships to each other. They might be opposites, mutually exclusive, complementary, etc. But the key thing is that they all participate in some bigger picture that explains how and why they relate the ways they do. That unifying explanation is what takes you to the higher levels.
Example of Level 6-7
In this final example, we see the highest levels of complexity reached:
For Level 6: “When I don’t know what to do, it helps to recognize that the different approaches I might take (i.e., going with my gut or seeking the advice of others) are just different forms of the same thing: drawing on experience. My gut instinct is trained by my own experiences, and the advice of others comes from their own experiences. The principle that explains why different experiences will be more or less informative is what you might call ‘The Informative Experience Principle’, which states: Experience is only informative if it came from situations like the one I’m facing and it came with clear feedback so that it was possible to learn from it. When my own experience meets that standard, ‘going with my gut’ is likely to be reliable enough that I’m happy to trust it. When someone else’s experience meets that standard better (or the combination of multiple other people’s experiences does), then I should seek the advice of others. The two courses of action also affect each other: Hearing advice from others changes my gut instincts when it sounds compelling enough, and my cognitive biases mean that my gut instincts can limit who I seek advice from – meaning I may only seek advice from people with experiences similar to mine.” Adding this takes it up to a 7: “But the ideal interactions between the two courses of action are also explained by this same Informative Experience Principle: Other people’s advice should change my gut instincts only when their experience satisfies the principle better than my own (not just when the advice sounds compelling), and the reason my gut instincts are betraying me when they lead me to seek out only the advice of people who have experiences similar to mine is that those peoples’ experiences will fail to satisfy the principle in the same ways my own do, so they are not likely to give me extra information.”
The Level 6 part of the reasoning explains:
(a) That the two angles (going with your gut or seeking the advice of others) have the same fundamental nature and are directed towards the same goal: acquiring useful information from relevant experience.
(b) When each angle is better than the other.
(c) How the two angles affect each other.
But the Level 6 reasoning treats (c) as a separate insight. It sits next to the other insights, but isn’t fully integrated with them. Pointing out that one principle explains it all gives a more unified explanation. That one principle now organizes and explains the whole response, pushing it up to a score of 7.
Tying it all together
In general terms, lower and higher levels of this kind of complexity have been characterized like this:
Lower complexity: “rigid, black-and-white thinking, intolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty, a desire for rapid closure, and not recognizing the validity of other viewpoints.”
Higher complexity: “flexible, broad thinking that recognizes multiple aspects and possible interpretations of an issue and sees connections and dynamic tensions between perspectives.”
If you’re someone who values careful and clear thinking, you probably recognize more of what you value in the “higher complexity” list than the “lower complexity” one. You probably also value the benefits of complex thinking that we listed at the start of this article.
Why more complex isn’t always better
That being said, complex reasoning isn’t always better than simple reasoning. A study drawing on historical writings about slavery found that politicians advocating the abolition of slavery had a lower average complexity than politicians who advocated compromise (e.g., tolerating slavery in the South but preventing it spreading farther). The abolitionists were right about that one, of course, even though their reasoning was less complex. Sometimes issues really are clear-cut and other viewpoints aren’t valid. And sometimes the situation you’re in just doesn’t call for more complex reasoning (e.g., simple, low-stakes decisions such as which meal to order at a restaurant). But for the many situations where complexity can improve your outcomes, the framework explored above gives some advice for how to make your thinking more complex. Now, here’s some of that advice summarized.
A few easy heuristics:
Don’t stick to one angle. Find other angles that have things to offer you and explicitly state what they offer.
Connect the angles together in one or more of these ways:
Describing how they influence each other (in both directions)
Working out how you would trade-off between them
Explaining why reasonable people take different angles (finding the crux)
Combining different angles into a new angle
Zoom out and look for a bigger picture that unifies them. Example bigger pictures include:
A shared cause
A shared underlying nature
A shared goal
A shared system or process
Provide a unified explanation by pointing out one fundamental principle that explains not only the shared feature that the angles have in common, but also why they connect and interact in the ways they do.
If you enjoyed this article, you might enjoy our free, interactive mini-course about nuanced thinking techniques. It teaches you to recognize 3 common binary thinking traps and the nuanced thinking techniques you can use to combat them.
