Less is more: Why our brains struggle to subtract

When solving problems, humans tend to think about adding something before they think of taking something away - even when subtracting is the better solution. Experiments show that this newly discovered psychological phenomenon applies across a range of situations from improving a physical design to solving an abstract puzzle.

[KenMathis]

The tendency to want to add instead of subtracting to solve a problem is likely due to people seeing all existing components as necessary. By only adding, there is less of a chance to break any ongoing functionality. You can see this with computer code where programmers are hesitant to modify code they inherit, but will just add onto it to do any new functionality needed.

By only adding also allows you to modify something without having to fully understand it, so cognitively it is less work.

[davidvandrunen]

Is part of the problem is the inherited idea that to fix the "thing", the "thing in it's entirety" needs to still exist in the solution?

[gcKukie]

This explains why everyone keeps adding to the problem instead of removing it...

[shmugg]

I think it relates to trust. Our society is built on trust, therefore we tend not to question what has been before we basically trust it and try to improve on the top.

[denniswood]

I repaired business equipment for most of my career. When a new product was presented, I would study how the design was simplified. I knew it was more difficult to to make something simple.

[Zehra]

Knowing these kind of things could make us understand the way we look all kind of things in the universe and also make it easy to understand universe itself. Awasome

[FSexpert]

I am interested to see what people's responses are when asked "how would you go about fixing this wobbly bridge?" while the investigators not displaying the free lego pieces!

I think seeing the available pieces encourages people to add instead of subtracting.

[Ramdas_Devadiga]

Interesting topic indeed.

Deliberate substraction might require us to understand the given on a whole, at it's fundamental level. Solving, correcting or positively altering the given subject matter via subtraction on a random basis or partial understanding of the subject matter might be due to the influence of luck in the equation.

To add something to the given subject/challenge might be cognitively easier because additive approach can be responsible for letting us focus on a small part of the subject that needs amelioration of any sort, thus this path is preferred by the brain since it literally has to spend less energy doing so, unless specifically instructed to do otherwise.
No?

[leeroychang]

The earliest bikes didn't have pedals. They were adult versions of the kids balance bike...

[michaelreeves]

It's so easy to assume that phenomena like these are independent of time or culture. But there are lots of culture-dependent explanations. For example in a culture that has developed in the context of a nation that has very old infrastructure, you would expect that the people are acclimated to solving problems in which, more likely than not, some component of a system has broken or gone bad and needs to be replaced, which is a kind of 'adding' something that is seen to be missing. But in cultures that have been growing and further developing their infrastructure for a few generations, you might expect to see the process of subtraction to be a more common approach since it is a very effect a priori design approach.

[aleksanteri_r]

This is pure speculation, but could it be that this heuristic prevents people from breaking things?

[Blake-Urizen]

Ah, but why might we default to adding? Imagine a wobbly table with one short leg ... close to hand are a saw and a sheet of paper. Which tool suggests the quicker, less risky solution?

[keithedwards]

"I have made this [letter] longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter." -- Blaise Pascal, 1657

[arielleung]

02:09 Why show a portrait of Sun Simao (a medical scientist 581-682) lol although I couldn't make it out that the guy was talking about Laozi either. Had to google the sentence.

[mimilookamie]

Is it just simply that when faced with a puzzle or problem we assume all the original elements are essential and have some purpose we may not fully understand because we weren't there in the initial building stage and so it's easier to add something rather than reverse engineer all the components to analyze eachs value towards the whole in order to remove one of them while still keeping the integrity of the original structure?

[johnkirke]

When I was young we were taught mental arithmetic e.g. how to calculate change when shopping by adding, not substracting..

[saumitrachakravarty]

I was eating ramen while watching this video and I suddenly felt the urge to make the food better. My first thought was to "add" egg in it!

[chrysant]

I hope we could have deeper discussions on heuristic thinking.

[decept]

Maybe it also has to do with our hoarding tendencies why we don't like to get rid of things but always acquiring things

[zonernz]

I think they are reading into it too much. If those little meaningless lego bricks were much bigger and weighing a ton each and you had to evaluate the time, cost and peoplepower to move or add a brick then you would go for the cheapest and more efficient solution thus ADDing time and money to your life etc. People tend to choose the easiest and quickest option and placing meaningless bricks next to them they will go for that option. We tend to create things around us and that is a good thing as it gives us something to do. Engineers, architects and people who work with aerodynamics for example would be constantly minimalizing their projects. We can't all be programmed to think a certain way, people are born with certain insights and natural abilities.