Five Classic Causes of Unintended Consequences

Paul Orlando

25 years: Systems specialist

In this video, Paul talks about Robert Merton's mention of the five causes of unintended consequences, which are error, basic values, short-term vs. long-term interests, ignorance, and the self-defeating prophecy.

Organisational Culture Corporate Governance

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Five Classic Causes of Unintended Consequences

13 mins 53 secs

Key learning objectives:

Learn about Robert Merton’s five causes of unintended consequences
Learn about the different types of error
Understand what are basic values
Learn the types of Short-term vs Long-term interests

Overview:

In the paper he wrote in the 1930's, Robert Merton mentioned the five causes of unintended consequences. The five causes are error, basic values, short-term vs long-term interests, ignorance, and the self-defeating prophecy.

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Summary

What are the five causes of unintended consequences mentioned by Robert Merton in his paper?

Error
Ignorance
Basic values
Short - term vs long - term interest
Self defeating prophecy

What are the types of errors?

Systematic errors
Random errors
Blunders
Incentives
P-hacking

What are basic values and their types?

Basic values are long-standing beliefs or ideals about what is good or bad, shared by members of a group. There are both stated (or believed) and practiced basic values. They spring from ideals, culture, history, and more and aren't necessarily ranked in order of goodness or badness.

What are the types of short term and long term interests?

Physiological needs - This is where we choose what feels good in the short term even when there are known long-term consequences
Classical economics - This is where individuals act in their own best interest without considering the whole system and end up producing other outcomes for society which were outside of anyone’s inten
Psychological generator of emotional bias - We do things that feel good now rather than things that might be better later
Trade-offs - Short-term interests have near-term pay-offs
Connectedness - Change one thing and the effect ripples out elsewhere

What are the forms of ignorance?

Ignorance by unawareness
Ignorance from lack of usefulness
Ability ignorance

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Paul Orlando

Paul's writing on "unintended consequences" comes from his work delving into the systems that he works to impact. He is the founder of Startups Unplugged, a consulting firm devoted to helping large organizations execute with the speed of startups. To do this, Paul often builds startup accelerators and incubators, helping organizations generate more revenue and enabling communities to attract new businesses. He is adjunct professor at the University of Southern California, running the institution's Incubator and in the past built other innovation programmes globally including AcceleratorHK in Hong Kong and the Laudato Si startup incubator in Rome. Paul graduated from Cornell University and Columbia Business School.

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