Conceptual diagram of building modules and solving problems.
As the saying goes, less is more, but why do people always like to add?
In an article published in Nature recently, researchers in the United States and Denmark found that people rarely choose subtractive solutions when they need to improve their situation, improve objects or ideas.
The research team said that this discovery also revealed the root causes of some phenomena, such as people struggling to cope with heavy schedules, institutions falling into a quagmire of red tape, and humans are depleting the earth's resources.
Leidy Klotz, the author of the paper and associate professor in the Department of Engineering Systems and Environmental Engineering Systems and Environment at the University of Virginia, said that people love to do addition, which not only happens in engineering design, but also in writing, cooking, and anything else.
Klotz's research explored the overlap between engineering science and behavioral science.
Why do people systematically default to addition? They either have ideas about both possibilities and give up subtraction disproportionately, or ignore subtraction altogether.
"The idea of addition comes to mind quickly and easily, while the idea of subtraction requires more cognitive effort," said Converse of the University of Virginia Department of Psychology and the College of Arts and Sciences and Graduate School, "because people They often act quickly and do what they think of, so they finally accepted the solution of addition without considering subtraction at all.
Researchers believe that there may be a self-reinforcing effect behind it.
A week after the publication of the paper in Nature, Klotz also published a book "Subtraction: Less Unexploited Science", which explored the topic from a broader perspective.
Related article information: org/10.
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