The law of unintended consequences, defined by sociologist Robert K. Merton in 1936, explains how actions, particularly on a large scale, can have unexpected positive, negative, or neutral outcomes. Five reasons for this include ignoring possible effects, making mistakes, self-interest, limited value systems, and self-destructive prophecy. Even small actions can have unforeseen consequences, and larger actions like social welfare programs or the advent of antibiotics can alter society as a whole.
The law of unintended consequences is the result of many theories, but was probably best defined by the sociologist Robert K. Merton in 1936. Merton wrote an article, The Unintended Consequences of Intentional Social Action, which covers five different ways where actions, particularly those taken on a large scale such as by governments, can have unintended consequences. These “reactions” can be positive, negative, or just plain neutral, but they deviate from the intent of the initial action. Merton also described five reasons why a “law” or change could fall under the title of the law of unintended consequences.
The two main reasons why the law of unintended consequences work, according to Merton, is that the authors of a social change either ignore the possible far-reaching effects of the law or make mistakes when developing a change that does not have the desired effects. Other reasons why we sometimes see changes occur after any kind of event, new scientific development or treaty has been approved may have to do with “self-interest” so much so that a person who desperately wants to see a change does not value the final effects of this change.
A person’s value system may also fail to make him look beyond his own system when he takes action of any kind to consider how the law of unintended consequences might work. The fifth cause of the law of unintended consequences is the self-destructive prophecy. In this case, Merton was specifically referring to how society might incorrectly predict a potential threat to society and, in order to avoid it, might change society in a major or drastic way.
Any action, from the smallest to the largest, can have unexpected results. In one sense this is to be expected because even in the smallest systems, such as a single family, individuals are intensely complex beings. When you look at a society as a whole, its workings are so convoluted and extraordinarily challenging, that you can expect almost anything that could affect that society to have unintended results.
You could look at how the law of unintended consequences occurs in a family system. For example, you might decide to sit down with the kids to watch a family movie. The intent may be partly selfish, since you want to see the film, and if you’ve never seen it before you may be ignorant of the possibility of consequences that occur from watching the film. Suppose the family’s five-year-old is severely frightened by something you would consider innocent.
While the goal may have been to watch the movie and have some family time, one unexpected outcome rears its head, and then you have a child who interrupts your sleep for the next year by having nightmares. Sometimes you can’t imagine what an unintended consequence could be. A child could alternately be so impressed by the film that they become an actor, screenwriter or director. Those aren’t the goals of family movie night; they are unforeseen consequences. But the example suggests that even the smallest action can have negative repercussions or life-altering effects that you probably wouldn’t have considered.
More frequently, people evaluate how the law of unintended consequences operates on a much larger scale. For example, social welfare programs, designed to help families in financial difficulty, have led to the unintended consequence of some people deliberately remaining on welfare and “abusing the system”. This led to welfare reform, particularly as it emanated from the Clinton era of the 1990s, when people were given limited time to get their lives back together.
An unintended consequence of welfare reform has been the hardship it has put many single mothers in. Since they’ve had to go back to work and may still lack the training to do a high-paying job, they’ve had to struggle to find childcare that’s cheap enough. Some women who participated in the U.S. child welfare program found themselves in even greater poverty once they started working, and the need for affordable child care overburdened the child welfare system. childhood and occasionally placed children in child care programs that were not well managed.
Almost every law, every invention, every treaty, and every large-scale action has unintended consequences, which can alter society as a whole. The advent of antibiotics has ushered in cures for diseases that had previously proved death sentences, but one unintended consequence has been the development of superbugs that resist antibiotic treatment. It may be impossible to fully anticipate how any change in a society could ultimately affect it, in many ways, until those effects already occur. It is a law that is often best observed in hindsight.
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