Tags

, ,

Some years ago, Leidy Klotz, an engineer and behavioural expert, was playing with his son using Lego bricks. They had made a bridge, but it wasn’t level as one of the columns supporting it was shorter than the other. Klotz turned around to find a brick to add to it, but by the time he turned back, his son (aged 2.5) had simply removed a brick from the longer column. Problem solved.

That set Klotz thinking. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Could it be that humans have a built-in propensity to ‘complexify’? Along with some colleagues, Klotz decided to test this.

One of the experiments involved a Lego structure with a little figure standing under a ceiling precariously supported by a single brick. The subjects had to make the ceiling solid enough so that a standard brick could be placed on top of it without the whole thing collapsing. As the researchers had suspected, most people (59%) tended to add extra bricks instead of simply removing the one brick that made the structure unstable. This tendency was revealed again and again across eight different experiments (Adams et al., 2021).

Adam Alter (2023 – p. 128) summarises the findings succinctly: ‘For whatever reason, people are more likely to add to or complicate a situation before they even consider subtracting from or simplifying it.’ Watch this fascinating 6-minute video: http://tinyurl.com/9zpy9sk6 .

So, is there a moral for educators here? Yes, there is: consider simplification first. Here are three examples:

  • You have a lesson on grammar, but you cannot find an activity to go with the last use of the Past Simple. Why not just remove it?
  • You are writing an essay, you have five ideas on a topic, but if you develop all of them fully, you will go over the word limit. Why not scrap one or two of the ideas?
  • You have a good intermediate group, but one of the students is weak and you find it hard to keep adjusting your activities. Why not move the student to another group?

There are countless possible applications of the same principle, but the basic idea is the same: before complexifying, think about taking something away.

I have to say, when watching the video my favourite example was the one with the kid and the bicycle. How do you help little ones learn to ride on two wheels? You add training wheels, right? Wrong. In fact, a much better idea is to simpy remove the pedals! That means less wobbling, so the child can master the basic skill of balancing before learning to ride properly. Brilliant! Now watch that video again.

[Read: Adam Alter ‘Anatomy of a Breakthrough’ – pp. 128-129]

[Read: Adams, G., Converse, B., Hales, A. & Klotz, L. (2021). People systematically overlook subtractive changes. Nature. 592. 258-261. 10.1038/s41586-021-03380-y.]