Hasnain says:

Very interesting study and it does reinforce some behaviors I’ve seen.

“we propose that the bias towards additive solutions might be further compounded by the fact that subtractive solutions are also less likely to be appreciated. People might expect to receive less credit for subtractive solutions than for additive ones. A proposal to get rid of something might feel less creative than would coming up with something new to add, and it could also have negative social or political consequences — suggesting that an academic department be disbanded might not be appreciated by those who work in it, for instance. Moreover, people could assume that existing features are there for a reason, and so looking for additions would be more effective. Finally, sunk-cost bias (a tendency to continue an endeavour once an investment in money, effort or time has been made) and waste aversion could lead people to shy away from removing existing features2, particularly if those features took effort to create in the first place.”

Posted on 2021-04-09T20:02:24+0000