At the 2024 Paris Olympics, organizers opted for an eco-friendly cooling system in athlete housing, skipping central air in favor of a low-energy alternative. Countries responded by bringing their own air conditioning units—a move that undercut the original environmental goal. According to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University’s Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, this misstep is not an outlier, but part of a common thinking error known as “consequence neglect.”
How ‘consequence neglect’ leads to predictable surprises in policy, leadership and everyday life
