Unintended Consequences - Causes

Causes

Possible causes of unintended consequences include the world's inherent complexity (parts of a system responding to changes in the environment), perverse incentives, human stupidity, self-deception, failure to account for human nature or other cognitive or emotional biases. As a sub-component of complexity (in the scientific sense), the chaotic nature of the universe—and especially its quality of having small, apparently insignificant changes with far-reaching effects (e.g., the butterfly effect)—applies.

Robert K. Merton listed five possible causes of unanticipated consequences in 1936:

1. Ignorance (It is impossible to anticipate everything, thereby leading to incomplete analysis)
2. Error (Incorrect analysis of the problem or following habits that worked in the past but may not apply to the current situation)
3. Immediate interest, which may override long-term interests
4. Basic values may require or prohibit certain actions even if the long-term result might be unfavorable (these long-term consequences may eventually cause changes in basic values)
5. Self-defeating prophecy (Fear of some consequence drives people to find solutions before the problem occurs, thus the non-occurrence of the problem is not anticipated.)

In this paper, Merton vowed to write a book on the history and anaylsis of unintended consequences - but this remained unfinished when he died in 2003.