Less is More: 㽶ֱpsychologist lauded for research on why simple explanations often win
Contact: Sarah Nicholas
STARKVILLE, Miss.—㽶ֱ Assistant Professor Thalia H. Vrantsidis has received the Psychonomic Society’s 2025 Best Article Award for her paper exploring why people often favor simpler explanations, even when more complex explanations may be more accurate.
The Psychonomic Society, an international organization dedicated to the scientific study of the mind, annually recognizes outstanding research published in its peer-reviewed journals. Recipients of the Best Article Award are honored with a certificate, a $1,000 prize and formal recognition at the society’s annual meeting, this year scheduled for Nov. 22 in Denver.
Published in the April edition of Memory & Cognition, Vrantsidis’ demonstrates that people tend to focus on causes which are present while overlooking absent causes—factors that may be relevant but are not immediately observable. This tendency can lead to an overvaluation of simpler explanations.
“People often prefer simple explanations—this is often reasonable—but there are many factors that push us toward oversimplified reasoning,” Vrantsidis said. “This can be problematic in real-world situations, from understanding economic changes to explaining human behavior. Just because one cause is apparent doesn’t mean there aren’t others at play.”
For example, when evaluating explanations for a patient’s symptoms, participants typically favored a one-cause explanation––a single disease caused the symptoms––even when a more complex, multiple-cause explanation might be more accurate, such as when a combination of two different diseases caused the symptoms.
Vrantsidis said her findings highlight the importance of considering absent or unmentioned causes and explicitly considering whether multiple factors might be at play, which can help reduce reasoning errors caused by oversimplification.
“I’ve always been fascinated by the joy people get from understanding things well—the ‘aha’ moments that come from a clear explanation,” she said. “My work explores what we value in explanations—why simplicity can be helpful and when it can lead us astray.”
The study was coauthored with Tania Lombrozo, Vrantsidis’ former postdoctoral supervisor at Princeton University. Vrantsidis earned her Ph.D. and bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Toronto and completed postdoctoral research at Princeton before joining MSU’s cognitive science program in the Department of Psychology in 2023.
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