About News We instinctively add on new features and fixes. Why don’t we subtract instead? Apr 16, 2021 Benjamin A. Converse, Gabrielle S. Adams, Andrew H. Hales and Leidy E. Klotz We instinctively add on new features and fixes. Why don’t we subtract instead? ‘Less is more’ is a hard insight to act on, it turns out. Xiao Kaixi, 2, rides a balance bike in Wuhan, China, on April 13, 2019. (Yan Cong for The Washington Post)Most people who are now adults learned to ride a bike by first plugging along on tricycles and then wobbling around on bikes with training wheels. Thanks to Ryan McFarland, our kids have it better. In 2007, McFarland found himself frustrated that the products he was using to teach his son to ride a bike were “too large, too heavy, and too complicated.” His insight was that kids would learn better not on contraptions that were like bikes with added parts — namely, extra wheels for stability — but on ones with fewer parts. After experimenting, he settled on a low-set two-wheel bike without a pedal or chains. Now, many children learn the basics of balance by zipping around, Fred-Flintstone style, on one of McFarland’s Strider bikes. As parents of children who have been liberated from clunky contraptions, we are grateful for McFarland’s ingenuity. As behavioral scientists who have been studying how people think as they try to improve objects, ideas and situations, we are impressed by McFarland’s “subtractive insight.” Across a series of studies that we published this month in the journal Nature, we demonstrated that people tend to overlook the option to subtract parts, when asked to change or improve something. We asked research participants to make changes to designs, essays, recipes, itineraries, structures and even miniature-golf holes. Our studies show that people’s first instinct is to change things by adding. When they are able and willing to think a little longer, they are perfectly capable of finding subtractive changes. But they usually don’t think longer. They quickly identify an additive idea that is good enough, put it into action and move on. Overlooking a whole class of ideas is problematic. Imagine all the advantageous subtractions we might be missing. We’ve all heard reminders to think about this category of improvements — “omit needless words,” “less is more,” “keep it simple, stupid.” But the advice is worth little if we don’t think of it at the right time. By understanding the underlying psychology, though, you can set people up — yourself included — to consider all the options. Read full article in The Washington Post Gabrielle Adams Gabrielle Adams is an associate professor of public policy and business administration at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and in the Darden School of Business’s Leadership and Organizational Behavior area. Adams studies the processes and dynamics that give rise to ‘good’ decisions, policies and conditions in organizations. Read full bio Benjamin Converse Benjamin Converse is an associate professor of public policy and psychology at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and the Department of Psychology. His research focuses on motivation, social judgment, problem solving and decision making. He teaches courses related to leadership and negotiations. Read full bio Related Content Gabrielle Adams The “Equal-Opportunity Jerk” Defense: Rudeness Can Obfuscate Gender Bias Research In this research, we identified a barrier that makes sexism hard to recognize: rudeness toward men. We found that observers judge a sexist perpetrator as less sexist if he is rude toward men. Anger Damns the Innocent Research False accusations permeate social life—from the mundane blaming of other people to more serious accusations of infidelity and workplace wrongdoing. Importantly, false accusations can have grave consequences, including broken relationships, job loss, and reputational damage. In this article, we document an equally pernicious phenomenon—the misuse of anger as a cue to predict whether a suspect has been falsely accused. Meeting Overload Is a Fixable Problem News Batten School professor Gabe Adams spoke with American Talk about the benefits of adopting a subtraction mindset and how to get it done. When Less is More: How Harnessing the Power of Subtraction Can Add to Life News There’s a lot of thought that goes into adding things to our routines, our closets, our lives. But how much thought goes into subtracting things? Not enough, according to three University of Virginia professors. Benjamin Converse People systematically overlook subtractive changes Research A series of problem-solving experiments reveal that people are more likely to consider solutions that add features than solutions that remove them, even when removing features is more efficient. Next Week, Next Month, Next Year: How Perceived Temporal Boundaries Affect Initiation Expectations Research To move from commitment to action, planners must think about the future and decide when to initiate. We demonstrate that planners prefer to initiate on upcoming days that immediately follow a temporal boundary. When Less is More: How Harnessing the Power of Subtraction Can Add to Life News There’s a lot of thought that goes into adding things to our routines, our closets, our lives. But how much thought goes into subtracting things? Not enough, according to three University of Virginia professors. Batten's Lipscomb Receives UVA's Prestigious Public Impact-Focused Research Award News Batten professor Molly Lipscomb was honored with the university's Public Impact-Focused Research Award for her work examining the impact of bringing public services to low-income households in countries where services are needed. Stay Up To Date with the Latest Batten News and Events Subscribe
Gabrielle Adams Gabrielle Adams is an associate professor of public policy and business administration at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and in the Darden School of Business’s Leadership and Organizational Behavior area. Adams studies the processes and dynamics that give rise to ‘good’ decisions, policies and conditions in organizations. Read full bio
Benjamin Converse Benjamin Converse is an associate professor of public policy and psychology at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and the Department of Psychology. His research focuses on motivation, social judgment, problem solving and decision making. He teaches courses related to leadership and negotiations. Read full bio
The “Equal-Opportunity Jerk” Defense: Rudeness Can Obfuscate Gender Bias Research In this research, we identified a barrier that makes sexism hard to recognize: rudeness toward men. We found that observers judge a sexist perpetrator as less sexist if he is rude toward men.
Anger Damns the Innocent Research False accusations permeate social life—from the mundane blaming of other people to more serious accusations of infidelity and workplace wrongdoing. Importantly, false accusations can have grave consequences, including broken relationships, job loss, and reputational damage. In this article, we document an equally pernicious phenomenon—the misuse of anger as a cue to predict whether a suspect has been falsely accused.
Meeting Overload Is a Fixable Problem News Batten School professor Gabe Adams spoke with American Talk about the benefits of adopting a subtraction mindset and how to get it done.
When Less is More: How Harnessing the Power of Subtraction Can Add to Life News There’s a lot of thought that goes into adding things to our routines, our closets, our lives. But how much thought goes into subtracting things? Not enough, according to three University of Virginia professors.
People systematically overlook subtractive changes Research A series of problem-solving experiments reveal that people are more likely to consider solutions that add features than solutions that remove them, even when removing features is more efficient.
Next Week, Next Month, Next Year: How Perceived Temporal Boundaries Affect Initiation Expectations Research To move from commitment to action, planners must think about the future and decide when to initiate. We demonstrate that planners prefer to initiate on upcoming days that immediately follow a temporal boundary.
When Less is More: How Harnessing the Power of Subtraction Can Add to Life News There’s a lot of thought that goes into adding things to our routines, our closets, our lives. But how much thought goes into subtracting things? Not enough, according to three University of Virginia professors.
Batten's Lipscomb Receives UVA's Prestigious Public Impact-Focused Research Award News Batten professor Molly Lipscomb was honored with the university's Public Impact-Focused Research Award for her work examining the impact of bringing public services to low-income households in countries where services are needed.