How often has this happened to you: your family gets together for the holidays and ends up doing something — going out for food, playing some game, going to see a movie — that nobody actually wants to do? This happened to me over the holidays when my family planned a trip to a local restaurant. We all agreed to go at a certain time, because each of us assumed that everybody else wanted to go. But secretly, nobody wanted to go. We caught the situation at the last minute when somebody piped up and confessed that he didn’t particularly want to go out. “Oh, me neither!” we all agreed.
There’s a name for this situation, my brother then told us: the Abilene paradox. According to Wikipedia:
The Abilene paradox is a paradox in which a group of people collectively decide on a course of action that is counter to the preferences of any of the individuals in the group. It involves a common breakdown of group communication in which each member mistakenly believes that their own preferences are counter to the group’s and do not raise objections.
Of course, in my case somebody did raise an objection — but there must have been countless instances where we’ve done something (like seen a particular movie, etc.) which actually none of us particularly wanted to do. Read more about the Abilene paradox after the jump.
More from Wikipedia:
It was observed by management expert Jerry B. Harvey in his article The Abilene Paradox and other Meditations on Management. [Now expanded into a book -Higgins] The name of the phenomenon comes from an anecdote in the article which Harvey uses to elucidate the paradox:
“On a hot afternoon visiting in Coleman, Texas, the family is comfortably playing dominoes on a porch, until the father-in-law suggests that they take a trip to Abilene [53 miles north] for dinner. The wife says, “Sounds like a great idea.” The husband, despite having reservations because the drive is long and hot, thinks that his preferences must be out-of-step with the group and says, “Sounds good to me. I just hope your mother wants to go.” The mother-in-law then says, “Of course I want to go. I haven’t been to Abilene in a long time.”
The drive is hot, dusty, and long. When they arrive at the cafeteria, the food is as bad. They arrive back home four hours later, exhausted.
One of them dishonestly says, “It was a great trip, wasn’t it.” The mother-in-law says that, actually, she would rather have stayed home, but went along since the other three were so enthusiastic. The husband says, “I wasn’t delighted to be doing what we were doing. I only went to satisfy the rest of you.” The wife says, “I just went along to keep you happy. I would have had to be crazy to want to go out in the heat like that.” The father-in-law then says that he only suggested it because he thought the others might be bored.
The group sits back, perplexed that they together decided to take a trip which none of them wanted. They each would have preferred to sit comfortably, but did not admit to it when they still had time to enjoy the afternoon.
Have you experienced the Abilene paradox? Share your experiences in the comments…and remember to speak up the next time you don’t want to do something!
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It seems that this type of experience happens more often when a group of people are content with doing nothing or being left alone in a “get-together” environment. We are social beings and when nobody wants to be social it is understandable that something feels wrong and we fell we should do something even if we really don’t want to. In my life though, it seems that this type of thing happens more frequently in the flux of an argument. Two or more parties engage in an activity with the intent of the other party or parties having a bad time. I don’t know if this is the “Abilene Paradox” or some other quirky paradox. Maybe like the “Annendale Paradox” paradox or something. People ussually seem pretty pissed off there.
posted by Gary on 1-24-2008 at 2:23 pm
Isn’t this how we choose presidents? We hold primaries to find out which candidates might be popular with other people and then we vote for the same candidates.
posted by Paul on 1-24-2008 at 2:37 pm
thanks, H. i think you just described my wedding planning thusfar.
posted by terri on 1-24-2008 at 2:41 pm
That happened to my friends and I. We decided to hang out together and go to Santa’s Enchanted Forest [Christmas theme park; carnival] which we go to every year. The car ride to the park took forever [almost 2 hours] because everyone in Miami was going and the line for the tickets was huge. We were half way to the ticket booth [1 hour in line waiting] when someone admitted that they didn’t want to be there. Then everyone admitted that they didn’t want to be there either. We just picked that place because it’s almost a tradition for us to go there every year. So we decided to drive all the way back to the mall. Good thing someone spoke up too, because as soon as we were leaving, it started to rain and all the rides were shut down.
posted by Carla on 1-24-2008 at 2:42 pm
This happens to me and my husband all the time.
We’ll be sitting around, enjoying ourselves when he asks: Do you want to do something?
I’ll think: Great, he’s bored. Better entertain him or he’ll never leave me alone.
But all he’s doing is making sure I’m not secretly bored and harboring resentment because he’s not a super-duper activity planner– which I’m not, I really really want to finish this book I’m reading. But I’ll say:
Sure! What do you have in mind?
And then he thinks: Awww! But I was watching Law & Order!
But he says: Let’s play a board game.
See, because you can watch tv and play these things at the same time.
I think: No! I don’t want to play Monopoly for three hours!!
This is usually how we end up playing Scrabble.
posted by Andie on 1-24-2008 at 3:00 pm
Look at just about any corporate reorg and you will find it. By the time it is done, no one knows why they did it.
posted by Pragmatic Cynic on 1-24-2008 at 3:21 pm
Wow, this happened to me almost exactly 1 month ago. Explaining the situation would take too much effort to bother with, but at the time I had the very distinct feeling that it was happening. What a great post. Sometimes it just nice to put a name to a certain effect!
posted by Jeremy on 1-24-2008 at 3:28 pm
Just more evidence that humans weren’t quite ready to hit the shelves yet.
RECALL!
posted by Sarah on 1-24-2008 at 3:40 pm
Never happens to me, because I don’t mind being rude. If somebody suggests something and I don’t want to do it, I just say so. If there is overwhelming disagreement with me, I’ll go along.
Most of my friends are like this, too.
posted by Moon on 1-24-2008 at 3:46 pm
I have never experienced the abeliene paradox, but I just read about this for my government administration class. Weird!
posted by Nick Hansen on 1-24-2008 at 3:50 pm
Wow it has a name!
Junior year of high school, (13 years ago! *sniff*) my best girlfriends and I took our very first “alone” road trip that took us to Duluth, MN to check out UMD.
We were scheduled for a tour, and as we sat down to wait for the program to begin, we all looked at each other and said, “Do you really want to go here? Nope me either, let’s go find a party.”
The trip ended up going down in history. We laugh about it to this day! :D
posted by mrs.djs on 1-24-2008 at 4:33 pm
When you make decisions with your significant other, try rolling a dice and let the numbers make your decisions…you’ll find out what you really want.
posted by Bob on 1-24-2008 at 4:47 pm
Wow, it’s great to know there’s a name for it.
One time, at a sleepover thing with my friends, all four of us ended up watching “A Cinderella Story” – and none of us had any idea why, or who had even suggested it, by the time it was over. Everyone seemed to think someone else had wanted to watch it. *cough* I don’t think I have anything against Hilary Duff, but it’s just not my kind of movie, really. None of ours, in fact.
posted by Eileen on 1-24-2008 at 5:12 pm
Goes along with the (at least to me) unnamed theorem “The quality of movie rented is inversely proportional to the number of people in the group picking out the movie”
posted by Stephen on 1-24-2008 at 5:54 pm
The closest thing to an Abilene Paradox that I have experienced on a regular basis is an entire group of people ending up going to Chili’s because they are unable to decide on a restaurant, but it’s not exactly the same thing, I admit. Still, it is a group of people going along with an activity in which they would rather not participate; specifically, eating at Chili’s.
Okay, this was pretty thin, I admit. I will be stepping off my soapbox now (seriously though, it’s not a good restaurant).
posted by Gerald on 1-24-2008 at 7:15 pm
This is how just about every day is at work for me, lol. We all pretend to busy and are really polite and (fairly) productive, but not a single one of us wants to be there.
posted by adrienne on 1-24-2008 at 7:29 pm
Hmm that sounds like something that happens to stoners a lot…
posted by kevin on 1-24-2008 at 8:09 pm
Well if I ever decide to give a title to my marriage you have found it for me….
posted by Toni on 1-25-2008 at 12:38 am
Gerald, are you secretly one of my friends? >.> We do the Chili’s thing CONSTANTLY.
Most recently, this happened when a friend of mine that moved away last summer came to town unexpectedly. Because he was here, we felt compelled to do SOMETHING. So we all went to B-dubs. Where two people ordered food and the rest of us ordered drinks because we weren’t hungry and one of my friends practically fell asleep at the table, and my out-of-town friend was mooshed into a corner and could basically only interact with me and about three other people in the group of 9+. ^^; oops.
posted by Ashley on 1-25-2008 at 10:59 am
This sort of thing is actually pretty commonplace. For example, vanilla is the best selling flavor of ice cream. However, very few people list it as their favorite flavor. Then why is it the best seller? Simple. Most people will eat it, even though it’s not their favorite. Same thing with cars. For years, Accords, Camrys, and Tauruses (Tauri?) were the best selling cars, despite being on almost no ones list of favorite cars. Why did they sell so well? They were the vehicular equivalent of vanilla ice cream.
posted by Anthony on 1-25-2008 at 11:52 am
Two words: Putney Swope.
posted by Jenn on 1-28-2008 at 10:33 am
I show the video “Abilene Paradox” to my graduate management classes. One year, I asked my wife and our 18 and 15 year old daughters to watch it with me. The girls got it and totally agreed with it. Some time later, we all were in the car, ready to go to a local baseball game with prepaid tickets. It was a dragging day, thunder in the far distance, and we were in the car in the driveway. My oldest said, “we’re headed to Abilene.” We got out, pitched the tickets, and spent a better afternoon at home. I’m glad they understand Abilene.
posted by MGG on 1-31-2011 at 11:41 pm