In Folha, Viana explains the 'Abilene Paradox'.

(Reproduction of Marcelo Viana's column in Folha de S. Paulo.) On a hot afternoon in Coleman, Texas, the family is playing dominoes when the father-in-law suggests they go to dinner in Abilene, 80 km away. The daughter says it's a great idea. The son-in-law, despite finding the trip uncomfortable, goes with the group: "Yes, I just hope your mother agrees." And the mother-in-law: "Of course, it's been a long time since I've been to Abilene." The trip is hot, dusty, and long. And dinner is equally bad. They return home four hours later, exhausted. One of them says, dishonestly: "It was great, wasn't it?" But the mother-in-law confesses that she would have preferred to stay home, she only went because the other three were up for it. The son-in-law: "Not me, I only agreed to please everyone." The daughter: "I wasn't crazy enough to want to go out in that heat, I only agreed to make you happy." And the father-in-law reveals that he only suggested the trip because he thought the others were bored. The group sits, perplexed by what has happened: everyone would have preferred to stay home, and yet they collectively decided to take a trip that no one wanted. This little story appeared in the article "Abilene Paradox: Managing Agreement," published in 1974 by the American management expert Jerry Harvey (b. 1935). It illustrates a type of dynamic common in collective decisions, which leads the group to make choices that contradict the preferences of the majority or all of its members. Read more: Elon Lages Lima Award is open for entries OBMEP: Medalist from the interior of ES is approved at IMPA Tech IMPA Tech releases list of those approved for undergraduate studies One characteristic of the Abilene paradox, as this phenomenon became known, is the agreement within the group that the current situation is not satisfactory and something must be done (but members may find the alternatives even worse). Another characteristic is the failure of communication, which leads group members to express as their own preferences what they actually believe to be those of the others. Finally, the paradox is also characterized by the vocalization of collective consensus, built upon erroneous interpretations of the signals given by each member. This phenomenon frequently occurs in decision-making processes in different types of institutions, particularly those lacking diversity—homogeneous human groups are more conformist—or those lacking an internal culture of debate and conflict resolution. A frequently cited example is the process that led to the tragic Challenger space shuttle disaster in 1986, in which several NASA specialists adopted decisions that seemed inappropriate to them, simply "to avoid rocking the boat." Sometimes the Abilene paradox is confused with the phenomenon of "groupthink," in which the collective makes decisions that would not be adopted by its members and, therefore, cause dissatisfaction. But these are distinct phenomena: in groupthink, individuals deceive themselves, allowing their convictions to be shaped by the collective, while in the Abilene paradox, individuals fail to correctly perceive the preferences of others. To read the full article, visit the newspaper's website. Also read: With 2,700 participants, PAPMEM breaks record; Marcelo Viana receives 'IMSA Mathematician's Prize'.