In a paper featured on the cover of Nature, University of Virginia researchers explain why people rarely look at a situation, object or idea that needs improving in all kinds of contexts and think to remove something as a solution. Instead, people almost always add some element, whether it helps or not. The team’s findings suggest a fundamental reason that people struggle with overwhelming schedules, which institutions bog down in proliferating red tape, and, of particular interest to researchers, that humanity is exhausting the planet’s resources. When considering two broad possibilities for why people systematically default to addition either they generate ideas for both possibilities and disproportionately discard subtractive solutions or they overlook subtractive ideas altogether the researchers focused on the latter.
“Additive ideas come to mind quickly and easily, but subtractive ideas require more cognitive effort,” Batten public policy and psychology faculty associate professor Benjamin Converse said. He further said, “Because people are often moving fast and working with the first ideas that come to mind, they end up accepting additive solutions without considering subtraction at all.”
“The more often people rely on additive strategies, the more cognitively accessible they become,” Batten public policy and psychology faculty associate professor Gabrielle Adams said. Adam added, “Over time, the habit of looking for additive ideas may get stronger and stronger, and in the long run, we end up missing out on many opportunities to improve the world by subtraction.”
Leidy Klotz, Copenhaver Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering Systems and Environment has a book that takes a wider view of the topic, “Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less,” coming out a week after the Nature paper. Although the timing is coincidence, both the paper and book are products of the interdisciplinary and collaborative research environment at UVA, he said.
Although, study explains the human tendency to look at a situation, or object, that needs improvement in different contexts, and instead, generally believe adding an element is a better solution than removing one.
