Apr 09, 2021 23:00:00

Humans tend to 'add' new elements to solve problems and are not good at 'removing' existing elements.

For a long time, the best way to learn how to ride a bicycle has been thought to be 'training wheels', but in recent years

running bikes like striders without pedals or training wheels have been practicing bicycles. It has come to be considered preferable. In this way, it is clear that humans tend to add new elements to solve problems and are not good at removing existing elements.

Adding is favoured over subtracting in problem solving
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00592-0

Our Brain Typically Overlooks This Brilliant Problem-Solving Strategy --Scientific American
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/our-brain-typically-overlooks-this-brilliant-problem-solving-strategy/

Just as a running bike is better than training wheels for learning how to ride a bike, in many cases 'getting rid of something' rather than 'adding something' is a better problem-solving solution. There is a case. For example, some European cities use a technique called 'shared space ' that removes traffic lights and road signs to improve road safety, which is the opposite of traditional traffic design.

Lady Crotz, an engineer at the University of Virginia, found that when something went wrong, she rarely tried to solve it by removing the element. So, Mr. Crotz, along with Gabriel Adams, a social psychologist at the university, started a survey on human problem-solving abilities. The two hypothesized that some psychological effect might be working on the reason why 'when a problem occurs, the case of trying to solve the problem by removing the existing element' is rare. I will.

The two conducted a survey to test whether the hypothesis was correct. According to Crotz, literature-driven research could not be done because there were no similar studies. The research team, including Crotz, first asked 91 subjects to create symmetrical patterns by adding or removing multiple colored blocks. It is said that only 18 out of 91 people (20%) created a symmetrical pattern by removing the blocks in this experiment.

In addition, a closer look at the 651 ideas submitted to the next president of the University of Virginia revealed that they would lead to the abolition of existing regulations, practices and programs: 'trying to solve the problem by removing existing elements. It is also clear that 'ideas' accounted for only 11% of the total. In addition, even for tasks that involve essays and itinerary changes, there were few cases in which the problem was solved by removing existing elements in the same way.

The research team also conducted eight experiments on more than 1,500 subjects recruited by

Amazon Mechanical Turk. In an experiment that 'stabilizes a Lego roof supported by a single block placed on a base,' adding one block costs 10 cents (about 11 yen), while removing the block. Was set to be possible for free, and if it succeeded in stabilizing the roof of Lego, a reward of 1 dollar (about 110 yen) was paid.

In this experiment, it is clearly better to 'solve the problem by removing the existing element', but in this way, it is clearly stated that there are 'two ways to add and remove the element' to solve the problem. If so, it has been shown that subjects are more likely to choose a method of solving the problem by removing the element. It is also clear that if you are asked to process another task (such as tracking numbers on the screen) at the same time, there are even fewer cases where the problem is solved by removing the existing element. It has been suggested that problem-solving in the form of removing is a 'more laborious method'.

'It's not always difficult to consider a problem-solving form that removes the elements, but it takes a lot of effort to find a way to do it,' the research team said.

'Finding problem-solving by removing elements tends to be clearly less considered than finding solutions by adding elements,' said Tom Mavis, a consumer psychologist at New York University. I can say with certainty. ' Moreover, it is clear that companies and organizations tend to complicate things (add elements) rather than simplify (remove elements) when solving problems, which is a solution that complicates things. Explains that because people tend to appreciate it.

Does the bias that 'it is better to solve problems by adding elements' generalize throughout the culture, or does it come from childhood experiences, or does it develop over time? Is unknown at the time of writing the article.