Factors of Unintended Consequences

Unintended Consequences,

When looking into unintended consequences, I have found that most researchers focus purely on the outcomes of large-scale actions, such as policies, that have explicit, pre-determined outcomes. This makes sense to me from an analytical standpoint to understand the impact of large scale decisions, but I find that unintended consequences permeate life in more personal, unconscious ways as well.

My goal in creating and describing this model is to help myself create a structural mindset I can use to analyze future cases that I encounter.

My Model

Following is my theoretical model of the factors to consider in analyzing unintended consequences, in no particular order yet. This is a work in progress and I may make updates or changes, in this or newer posts.

  • Intentionality
  • Planning
  • Scope
  • Outcomes

Intentionality

Intentionality examines whether the action was made with a specific outcome as the goal. Sometimes people have a subconscious intentionality that they may only be peripherally aware of, so I would consider three primary categories here: intentional, semi-intentional (this might be more reactive, will ponder), and unintentional.

An intentional act may be ‘asking someone to do the dishes’ or ‘doing the dishes’, there is a goal in mind (clean dishes), and methods you are using to reach that goal.

A semi-intentional act may be ‘responding to someone yelling at you’, you may have to make a split second decision based on previous experiences and will have less, if any, time for planning your reaction. The goal may be to ‘protect yourself’ or ‘calm the situation down’ depending on your relationship to the person, your experiences, etc. But even with that goal in mind, the automatic response might be to yell back, to push them, to run, etc. It’s possible that in emergency situations, the goal becomes more important than how you get there, and the effectiveness of the action may not be able to be analyzed in a short period of time.

An unintentional action might be ‘using “how are you?” as a greeting,’ this is a common usage, but getting an actual response from anyone on how they genuinely are doing is unexpected and not the purpose of the question-turned-statement.

Planning

If the action was intentional, what level of planning went into it? Were the consequences anticipated, but the instigator was unable or unwilling to plan for them? Or was it something that couldn’t be anticipated for some reason?1

Scope

This refers to the impact level of the action, targets may range from individuals to large groups. Does it affect a geological area, an ethnic group, a specific neighbor, a single coworker?

Outcomes

There are a wide variety of possible outcomes, and multiple outcomes can of course occur. Things to consider are short term outcomes vs long term, positive/negative, intentional/unintentional, anticipated/unanticipated, etc. My previous post on the cobra effect is one type of outcome, often known as a ‘perverse’ consequence because the result becomes worse than the original issue.

  1. Some reasons are defined in the early works of American sociologist Robert K. Merton, I will go over these in a separate post. [↩]

The Cobra Effect

Unintended Consequences,

The effect is named after a book by German economist Horst Sibert, Der Kobra-Effekt, which describes a situation where the ‘solution’ inadvertently makes a problem worse. This is one of the most well-known examples of a perverse consequence. The book is said to detail many other examples of perverse consequences & the cobra effect, however I have not yet read the text.1

The following anecdote from the book explains the issue:2

Officials in colonial India wish to reduce the cobra population, and therefore introduce an incentive—payment for every dead cobra. In response, industrious individuals create cobra breeding programs as a form of income, doing little to nothing to curb the actual number of cobras. When the officials learn about this tactic they immediately end the incentive program. With no reason for breeders to hold on to their snakey captives, the cobras are released back into the wild, resulting in a greater number of cobras than before.3

From this description it seems evident that there are actually two points where issue emerged: one was the unanticipated/unacknowledged possibility of people taking advantage of the economic incentive, and the second was ending the program without considering a way to prevent captive cobras from being released. My ruling as judge and jury is that this consequence could have been anticipated, and that the plan could have been better implemented to improve these loopholes.

  1. It is written in German, and the best I can say for my skills in the German language is that they are emerging. Slowly. [↩]
  2. English explanations about the Cobra Effect imply that this actually occurred, however after briefly researching the event and failing to find specifics on where or when it happened, it seems very likely that this is a fictional anecdote. My question is: why? This seems like a phenomena with fascinating, real examples, why would the author need to make this one up? [↩]
  3. It is notable that another issue with this plan, be it real or fake, is that cobras are celebrated by Hindus which might put a damper on the execution of the idea. [↩]

Unintended ≠ Unanticipated

Unintended Consequences,

This post is the result of me comparing different definitions of unintended consequences from varied authors and researchers.

At first, I found what I expected. The credit for the popularization of ‘unintended consequences’ is given to American sociologist Robert K. Merton, whose initial published work (1936) on the topic was titled, “the unanticipated consequences of purposive social action.”1You may notice, as I did, that this title uses the term ‘unanticipated’ opposed to ‘unintended.’ You may additionally, like me, briefly acknowledge the difference and then decide that those are essentially the same thing and conclude the nuance is meaningless.

That’s what I thought until I stumbled across Frank de Zwart’s (2015), “unintended but not unanticipated consequences.”2 In this piece, De Zwart explains how the two concepts became conflated into the near exclusive usage of ‘unintended consequences’ (with charts from Google Ngram to demonstrate), and how unanticipated takes the backseat as a simple synonym. The key difference is that it is fully possible, and true in many cases, that the problematic ‘unintended’ outcomes were anticipated by designers or decision makers. The first example provided in the above journal article refers to possible, known side effects from medications — unintended to cause death, for example, but a known outcome for a small number of cases.

De Zwart provides additional examples of things that generally fall under unintended consequences in public consciousness, but are really both ‘unintended but anticipated.’ One of these is China’s previous one-child policy. Along with the intended outcome (curbing population growth), there was the unintended outcome (abandoning and killing female infants, leading to a deficit of females to males. De Zwart provides citations indicating that policy makers and government officials anticipated this outcome. These included forbidding scholars and the public from talking about probable action resulting from known gender preferences, and an initiative to train people in rural areas about gender equality in order to refute the cultural idea that daughters were inferior to sons.

My analysis of this is similar to De Zwart’s, but I suspect he, in an attempt to be more cordial to possible readers, kept his conclusion tame. He notes that people tend to believe that drastic negative consequences are unintended and unanticipated because ‘if they knew this was a possibility, surely they would have not done X or would have informed the public of this possible outcome.’ But when these decisions are examined more closely, it becomes apparent that that is not the case. Other authors and experts quoted in this journal article indicate that decision makers do often know about these possibilities, but have to make difficult decisions with limited resources. The article ends with a brief conclusion describing multiple, plausible reasons for why the decision makers made whichever choice; these include ‘the lesser of two evils’, ‘indifferent to future harm’, and ‘willing to gamble.’

I, however, would like to state that my primary concern learning this circles around the most insidious of these choices, that if some negative outcomes were anticipated but decision makers were ‘indifferent to future harm’, particularly for people of certain financial and social backgrounds, of specific skin colors, or other heavily discriminatory measures.

Based on this information, I will attempt to assess and mark whether I believe the future unintended consequence posts were anticipated or unanticipated.

  1. Merton, R. (1936). The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action. Published in American Sociological Review. [↩]
  2. De Zwart, F. (2015). Unintended but not Unanticipated Consequences. Published in the journal of Theory and Society. [↩]

Grapefruit

Mini Research

** Note that my personal opinion about grapefruit has changed since this post was originally written. I now believe that some grapefruit are delicious and they do not all taste like liquid garbage.

The Instigator

The morning of February 9th, I ate a grapefruit. Not because I particularly wanted or enjoy grapefruit, but because we had one, and I assumed it was an orange.

I made this assumption based on the following logic and known information:

  1. My partner bought the fruit
  2. My partner does not like grapefruit
  3. Most importantly, grapefruit look essentially the same as oranges, (Note: sphereical, orangish color) especially to people who are unfamiliar with them, e.g., myself. 

Regardless of how this situation came to be, the fact is that I ate the grapefruit and it made me think of a couple of things.

First, it is a ‘trash fruit’, a category of fruit I have derived, reserved for fruit that are simultaneously delicious and disgusting. Much like the durian, known for its charming blend of creamy vanilla and rotting garbage, grapefruit has a delicious background notes masked by the bitter flavor, with a simultaneous numbing effect. Despite the inherent flaws of the grapefruit (e.g. partially disgusting, falsifying itself as an orange), it’s a fruit I would eat without complaint.

Secondly, eating this grapefruit sparked the memory of ‘The Grapefruit Diet’, a fad I heard much about while I was growing up, and an important question – why? Why grapefruit and not a more delicious fruit? Is there something about grapefruit that makes it better for you than say, its delectable cousin the orange?

The Hypotheses

In pondering this question, I have come up some hypotheses before I do some online research into the possible whys:

  1. After you eat a grapefruit, the acidity makes everything that comes after it taste like dirty socks and wet cardboard, assisting oneself from preventing additional consumption
  2. There is a believed benefit to grapefruit that people think other fruit lack
    • People possibly believe this because there’s a weird phenomenon where people think things that taste terrible are good for you

The Research

Origin of the Grapefruit

Grapefruits originate from Barbados – an island in the Caribbean close to South America – and is a hybrid of two citrus species, the (sweet) orange and pomelo. Interestingly, the orange itself is a hybrid between the pomelo and the mandarin; therefore the grapefruit is something like mandarin x pomelo x pomelo.

  • Grapefruits are high in fiber and vitamin C. 
  • Interesting and important fact: there is substantial evidence that grapefruit can interfere with certain medications, particularly for blood pressure or arrhythmia.
    • This occurs because the grapefruit (and some related fruits, including the pomelo) contain furanocoumarins, a class of chemicals that disrupt the absorption of certain medications. In most cases, the furanocoumarins allow the medications to enter the bloodstream more quickly, increasing the likelihood of side-effects such as liver damage.
    • There are other foods that interact with other medications, please be sure to read about these possible interactions in the inserts that come with your medication. You can read more about these interactions at STAT news and USA Today.

Background of the Grapefruit Diet

According to multiple sources, the grapefruit diet has existed since at least the 1930s in the US, and either is, or was, commonly known as the Hollywood Diet. It appears to be one of the longest lasted diet fads.

Logistics of the Grapefruit Diet

Length of Time

Classically, a short term diet ranging from 10 to 12 days.

Sustenance and Caloric Intake

Generally, a low caloric diet, restricting caloric intake to under 1,000 calories a day, generally considered too few calories for most people. Many versions of this diet seem to emphasize consumption of protein. 

According to Web MD, the classic version of this diet also includes:

  • Cutting back on sugars and carbs
  • Avoiding certain foods, such as celery and white onion (what, why?)
  • Eating more foods high in protein, fat, and/or cholesterol (e.g. eggs, red meat)
  • Having grapefruit or grapefruit juice with/before every meal

One source calls it a very low-calorie diet (VLCD), which is not a good weight loss solution for many people. 

  • I did some minimal research into VLCDs, and found that some people/organizations, including the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition, seem to believe they are acceptable and healthy when used appropriately. At UCLA, the primary use of VLCDs is for ‘severely or morbidly obese individuals who must lose or with to lose large amounts of weigh as rapidly as possible in a safe manner.’
  • Despite looking into them and seeing they seem… accepted, I think that other options are generally better (BUT I’M NO EXPERT)

There are also more recent versions of this diet, which appear to be less focused on starving yourself (good), but tout the fat-burning idea (… probably not true).

How it Works (Supposedly)

The reason the diet is so popular stems from people claiming that an ‘enzyme’ in grapefruit helps our bodies burn fat. According to sources, there is no evidence of this enzyme. 

Outcomes and Effectiveness

Overall, you can lose weight on this diet. However, you can lose weight on any diet – if no one lost weight using it, it probably wouldn’t be so popular. Most diets that consist of short term changes, where an individual reverts back to their previous dietary and exercise habits, are known to gain any lost weight back.

Web MD cites Kathleen Zelman (MPH, RD) who says “grapefruit doesn’t burn fat”, and suggests the diet works by making participants feel more full, possibly from the water content of the fruit.

Studies that test the impact of grapefruit

*I have not verified or validated these studies.

Free dieting [7] cites a study by the Scripps Clinic that claims that the grapefruit assists in fat loss. Over a 12 week pilot study, 100 men and women participated by either eating half a grapefruit with each meal, or drinking a serving of grapefruit juice three times a day. These participants, on average, lost more than 3 pounds. However, this website fails to describe other components of the study, such as other dietary or exercise requirements.

App for health [3] provides details on two studies, the first simply stating that “a new study (no citation) reported women who ate grapefruit [were] thinner and has smaller waistlines than those who didn’t eat the fruit.” Without knowing more about the study, my immediate thoughts are that this is a study that is looking solely at second hand data, which might just mean that people who eat more grapefruit are aware of the grapefruit diet and are more concerned about their weight. Additionally if this is a study with an experiment and control group, there should be a third group that eats other fruit with similar nutritional properties (orange? pomelo?) in place of grapefruit to test if the impact is just from… adding a fibrous and nutritious fruit to one’s diet.

A second study is cited by App for health [3] was conducted by Vanderbilt University. Researchers placed obese participants on a 12-week diet that included grapefruit or grapefruit juice at every meal (similar to the Scripps Clinic study). In this study, participants lost an average of 15 pounds (the difference in weight loss between this and the Scripps study is likely that Scripps Clinic participants were not obese).

The Conclusion

The grapefruit diets kind of works, but not really, but maybe. My recommendation, as a person who of all the diets that exist, has only done minimal research on this one, is that… you can add grapefruit to your diet if you want, especially if you like grapefruit. I would only integrate the limited calorie or other recommendations based on your own needs, and ideally a conversation with a dietician. 

Looking back at my hypotheses:

  1. After you eat a grapefruit, the acidity makes everything that comes after it taste like dirty socks and wet cardboard, assisting oneself from preventing additional consumption 
  2. There is a believed benefit to grapefruit that people think other fruit lack
    • People possibly believe this because there’s a weird phenomenon where people think things that taste terrible are good for you

1 is kind of true, except that it appears to be based on water content and fullness, opposed to disgustingness and lack of appetite. 

2 is definitely true, whether they are correct is a different mystery.

Hooray! Research! Kind of! Secondary sources!

Sources
  1. Web MD
  2. Healthline
  3. App for Health
  4. Womans World
  5. Live Strong
  6. Very Well Fit
  7. Free Dieting
  8. Wikipedia
  9. UCLA Center for Human Nutrition
  10. Your total health