Focalism and the Failure to Foresee Unintended Consequences

From drug policy to environmental initiatives, well-intentioned actions have often led to dramatic unintended consequences. The present research demonstrates that individuals focus on what is intended in a way that leads them to not sufficiently consider important unintended consequences. Participants fail to sufficiently weight the unintended consequences of attempts to satisfy preferences in a computer simulation (Study 1). Focus on intended consequences, and the resulting error in prediction, is reduced when the interrelatedness of variables within a system is highlighted (Studies 2 and 3). This research can inform means of improving predictions within complex systems.