Complexity and its measurement

Ryan Oprea

Chapter 3 in Handbook of Experimental Methods in the Social Sciences, 2026, pp 106-162 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: In this essay, I propose an operationalization of the word “complexity” for the social sciences, drawing on ideas from computer science and cognitive science. I show that this operationalization predicts a series of behavioral responses to complexity, and argue that we can use these predicted regularities to measure complexity and empirically detect its influence on human behavior. Motivated by these behavioral predictions, I review a number of empirical techniques that have been used in the experimental literature to measure and detect complexity. I explain how these techniques have been used to empirically isolate the influence of complexity from other motivational, epistemic and cognitive drivers of behavior. Finally, I review a recent literature that attempts to measure complexity by studying what characteristics of tasks and algorithms predict behavioral signatures of complexity.

Keywords: Complexity; Cognitive Limitations; Cognitive Economics; Behavioural Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035312627
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