Thorngate's postulate of commensurate complexity is the description of a phenomenon in social science theorizing that research in the field of social psychology can – at any one time – achieve only two of the three meta-theoretical virtues of "Generality", "Accuracy" and "Simplicity." One of these aspects therefore must always be subordinated to the others. In a nutshell: “In order to increase both _generality_ and _accuracy_, the _complexity_ of our theories must necessarily be increased.”