There was a fascinating study published in the journal Nature that studied how people solve different types of problems. Gabrielle Adams and her colleagues at the University of Virginia found that people will often choose a more complicated solution by adding something when the best answer instead would be to remove something. One of the problems they presented was a house made of Legos that had a flat roof supported by one unstable column. Participants were instructed to modify the Lego house so it would support a single brick placed on the roof. There are two ways this problem could be solved. You could either add three columns to hold up the unstable roof or choose a simpler solution. That solution is to remove the single unstable column and lay the flat roof down on the sidewalls of the house. Most people choose to add three columns, while the simple answe would be removing the one unstable column and lowering the roof.
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