Cognitive Engineering

We can all think of situations where a small minority is seen to be ruining it for the rest of us. Whether it’s someone littering or people talking loudly in a cinema, there seem to be endless examples of a small number of people creating a disproportionately large imposition on others. But what can we put this effect down to and what should we do about it? In this week’s episode, we discuss the annoying few. We unpack the Pareto principle, personality types and analyse rates of crime in New York. We explore why phenomena we tend to think of as evenly distributed turn out to be highly concentrated and finally, we share moments when we were part of the annoying minority ourselves A few things we mentioned in this podcast: - The Pareto Principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle - A Tiny Number of Shoplifters https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/15/nyregion/shoplifting-arrests-nyc.html - The Cart Narcs https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClMUlr8yHymYgSe58DpUH7w - Are we the baddies? https://www.youtu