How status seeking leads to bad decision-making

Whenever I use the security lane at an airport, I enjoy watching people retrieving their bags and metallic items when they emerge from the X-ray machine. You can quickly divide the population into two: a small minority of ‘logistically aware’ systems-thinkers and the logistically challenged majority.

To anyone with a grasp of systems thinking, it is obvious that the throughput of a security line is reduced when only a few people can retrieve their belongings at once. People who self-importantly collect their stuff as soon as it exits the scanner are slowing the queue by 70 per cent or more. The answer is first to remove empty trays from the end of the belt, pushing any full trays as far as they can travel; this leaves far more full trays in reach of their owners at any one time, freeing many people to retrieve their laptops, car keys and coins simultaneously.