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Abilene Paradox
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The Abilene paradox is a scenario where a group decides upon a course of action that none of the individual members actually want to do because they falsely assume the others want it. Poor communication causes this. Individuals fail to say what they really want, resulting in an erroneous impression of what the group as a whole wants, and every person thinks that they're the only dissenter. So, whether out of misguided generosity or fear of the majority's wrath, no one speaks out against the plan, and everyone winds up unhappy with the end result. Only after it's over do they realize that they Could Have Avoided This if someone, anyone, had just spoken up and said what they really wanted. The trope name comes from Jerry B. Harvey, who described the paradox in 1974. His article "The Abilene Paradox" illustrated it with an anecdote about his family in Coleman, Texas. The family made a hundred-mile round trip from Coleman to Abilene and back, suffering through a miserable four-hour-long journey in Texas heat for bad food. It was only when the family got back to Coleman that they realized each individual family member would have preferred to stay home, but didn't say anything because they incorrectly assumed that everyone else wanted to go. In the field of Social Psychology, this phenonemon is alternatively referred to as pluralistic ignorance. Sub-Trope of "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot, Poor Communication Kills, Two Rights Make a Wrong, and Dramatic Irony. Compare with Gift of the Magi Plot and Milholland Relationship Moment, which ends in a similar way, but without the participants collaborating at all, and Too Many Cooks Spoil the Soup, when the more people there are working on something, the less likely they are to succeed. Frequently occurs when the issue is Inherent in the System, as a bad bureaucracy can streamline the action without bothering to ask the motivation. Also compare with Outhumbling Each Other, where two people knowingly argue in favor of what the other wants, and Only One Finds It Fun for when one person genuinely enjoys something but they're alone. Examples |
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The Simpsons: In "Boy Scoutz N-the-Hood", Bart must invite Homer on a father-son river-rafting expedition. In a variation, Bart knows that Homer won't want to go, and Homer knows that Bart doesn't want him to go, but both of them independently decide to express interest and rely on the other to decline: | |
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The Orville: In "Command Performance", Ed Mercer and Kelly Grayson reminisce about the time they smoked weed before attending an opera, which escalated into ending their friendship with another couple. Ed admits that he was happy to cut ties, then Kelly admits she felt the same way, and they realize they have no idea why they befriended that couple in the first place. Both Ed and Kelly just tolerated that other couple, mistakenly thinking that the other liked them. | |
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On Jane the Virgin, one episode has Petra invite Jane and her family to a Mother's Day brunch before Anezka throws a wrench into their friendship. Jane, her mother, and her grandmother don't want to do go because it interferes with their established traditions for Mother's Day; later, Jane and Petra fight on the phone due to poor communication, and both refuse to cancel because they want to seem like the bigger person. Rafael also doesn't feel like being there because of external problems, but all parties go for the sake of their large mixed family (it's a long story). This results in a lunch so awkward that the narrator invites the audience to make a Drinking Game out of it. | |
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Star Trek: Picard: in season 1, we meet Riker and Troi living with their daughter Kestra on an idyllic planet called Nepenthe, where they moved in a failed attempt to keep their son Thad alive for as long as possible. After his death, they stayed there. In season 3, the two have a heart-to-heart and learn that both hate living there and would much rather move to a more civilized world, but each thought the other wanted to stay. | |
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RWBY fanfic at least it was here: Pyrrha and Jaune break off their Friends with Benefits relationship because they both believe they are holding the other back, and that they deserve a real relationship. They are of course unaware that they are both madly in love with each other. | |
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Our Dreams at Dusk has a rather sad example. Seichirou, Tsaiko's gay partner of thirty years, is finally reconnecting with his adult son as he's dying of an illness. Tsaiko purposely spends less time with Seichirou and gives up his chance of staying at his deathbed to avoid meeting his son and risk their homosexuality causing tension between the two of them. Seichirou assumes that Tsaiko is ashamed and doesn't want his family to know about him, and so doesn't say that all he really wants is to keep the man he loves by his side until he dies. | |
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In Peep Show, Mark invites a depressed Jez along as a third wheel on an early-days couples' weekend with Sophie. Their respective internal monologues reveal neither of them actually wants this, but Mark feels obliged to keep Jez company while he awaits medical test results, and Jez thinks Mark's inviting him for moral support because he's terrified of sex. | |
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In Tales of Vesperia, you can get a special skit of Yuri suddenly complaining about a meal if you make it way too often. This is followed by each party member passing the blame onto the next person in line, until they all realize that none of them actually want the meal in question, and kept putting up with it because they assumed someone in the group had to really like the meal. The party immediately and unanimously agrees to make something different. | |
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The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You: Both Chiyo and Rentarou are very uncomfortable at the Adult Theme Park, but neither is willing to admit their discomfort, assuming that their companion is having fun. Kishika wants to be pampered like a child, but keeps it a secret because she thinks her mother wants her to be a reliable caretaker for her siblings. A bonus chapter reveals that her mother wants to pamper her (and even secretly pretends to do so with a pillow when no one's around), but thinks Kishika doesn't want to be treated like a child. Defied by Mimimi. Rentarou learns that the play she's starring in (and just dropped out of) had a kiss added to the script. He vents his frustration at the idea of his girlfriend kissing someone she doesn't love elsewhere before urging Mimimi not to drop out of the play to spare his feelings. Mimimi coldly informs him that the thought of kissing someone besides him disgusts her and that it was her own decision. She then asks him to tell her about his own feelings rather than bend over backwards to appease her. He admits that he also hates the idea, and the two go to inform the muse-ical club about her decision, resulting in the kiss being cut from the script to keep Mimimi from dropping out. |
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Dilbert: Dogbert states that a sign of living in a democracy is when a group of people who want all want outcome A get together and settle on outcome B. | |
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King of the Hill: Invokes it in the episode "Church Hopping", the family is left without their regular pew at their church. After a string of bad experiences, Peggy suggests they try the Megachurch and Hank refuses. Peggy then threatens an Abilene Paradox with the family living the "barren, empty lives of secular humanists". | |
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In one episode of Mickey Mouse we have Mickey and Minnie on a date with matching sweaters that are really itchy. Mickey hates them, but doesn't want to hurt her feelings. At the end he admits that he cannot stand the sweaters, only for her to reveal that she also hates them but thought it would be romantic to wear them, so then both of them can get rid of the things. | |
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The Big Bang Theory: In "The Comic-Con Conundrum", Leonard invites Penny to Comic-Con solely because he thinks she wants to go, and Penny accepts solely because she thinks Leonard wants her to come along. Both want the other to be happy, so it becomes an emotional Game of Chicken as neither wants to be the one to admit that they'd rather Penny not come. It only ends when Sheldon and Amy, who they individually confided in, talk to each other, realize what is going on, and subsequently tell the couple what they are too afraid to say to each other. | |
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Late in Higurashi: When They Cry, it's revealed that despite shunning the Houjou siblings (ostensibly because their parents betrayed the village), none of the people of Hinamizawa actually hate them. However, most of them (including the village leaders) believe that everyone else does and won't even say anything for fear of also being seen as traitors. | |
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House, M.D.: One episode has a side plot in which an elderly son and his even more elderly father still live together. They separately bribe House to recommend that the father move to a retirement home because of his illness, because neither will admit that they don't want to live together anymore. At the end, House figures out how to treat the illness, and returns their bribes, telling them to spend it on family therapy. | |
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Zondag Met Lubach: Lubach describes strategic voting this way when it comes to Dutch politics. With a pluralistic parliamentary systemnote Exacerbated because politicians reserve the right to keep on to their seat if they break with their own party, so short-lived splinter parties are a frequent phenomenon, Dutch voters tend to "vote their conscience", but in 2012 voters consolidated behind the right-wing Liberal Party (VVD) and the left-wing Labour Party (PvdA) for fear that the other party would win. The result: both parties gained so many seats that they formed an alliance after the election and shut out all smaller parties. Lubach compares this to choosing what's for dinner between item 1 and 2 by going along with everyone else and going for item 1 because you really don't want item 2, when in fact you would have preferred item 3. | |
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Dragon Ball Z Abridged: On Namek, Krillin decided that he, Gohan and Vegeta should be called Team Three-star, which the other 2 begrudgingly went along with. Later, Gohan finally tells Krillin that he hates the name, to which he admits he hates the name too and only kept using it despite Vegeta's threats because he thought Gohan liked it. | |
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The Powerpuff Girls (1998): In the episode "Town And Out," the Powerpuff family moves to the town of Citysville for a new job offer, a better school and a chance to be superheroes in the big leagues. It sucks: the school picks on kid superheroes and doesn't let them leave in the middle of class, the citizens ignore anything above their newspapers, and the majority of the population don't even like living there to the point where they commute from far, far away (which gets worse when the Powerpuffs end up destroying a bridge which was its main source of commuting). The girls only stay because their father exuberantly claims to love the city. He doesn't; he eventually reveals that he hates working in a big underfunded lab where everyone is either envious or arrogant. It doesn't help that from our perspective of the girls' misadventures, Utonium is REALLY overselling it. | |
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Zig-zagged in Sword Art Online Abridged. After they have sex for the first time, Kirito and Asuna have no idea what they're supposed to do next with this whole "relationship" thing. Because they're both young and highly traumatized. Kirito suggests they get married, and Asuna accepts- though neither have any idea why those words came out of their mouths. Following that, the two make increasingly questionable decisions because neither is willing to admit that they were wrong. This continues even after they both become aware of the situation. In order: they accept Heathcliff's orders to hang out on floor 22 because he calls it their honeymoon; they adopt Yui to make her a pawn; and they attempt to purchase an "orphanage" to further deflect. At the end of the episode, they have a very frank conversation where they admit that marriage was a bad idea, but they're both willing to stick with it. Then they both groan because they realize how easy that was. Also Played With in regard to Yui's "death": it turns out she was just trying to play a prank on her new parents, but because Kirito didn't know it, he accidentally trapped her in an And I Must Scream situation. Naturally, neither wanted that and it could've been avoided if Yui had just told them about her doubts- or if Kirito and Asuna had been more up front about their growing love for her. |
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Mass Effect 3: If Tali survives through 2, this becomes part of her reasoning for voting "yes" on the Geth-Quarian War. She didn't want to split the quarian people, even though the deciding vote's between five admirals; two warhawks, one firmly opposed, and Admiral Raan just going with the majority. Making it worse, a following mission shows the quarian people were split anyway - the civilian fleet understandably didn't want to go to war in the first place, much less die in it. And the geth would rather just leave the quarians alone, but the quarians keep attacking them. | |
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The Emperor's New Clothes is the Trope Codifier, to the point that the story is often referenced in cases of real-life pluralistic ignorance. In the story, two con men swindle countless riches out of a narcisistically dandy emperor by "making" him an "outfit" made of a "magical fabric" that they swear is invisible to those who are incompetent at their jobs. Obviously, the emperor and everyone in his court can't see anything. But because saying that they can't see the outfit means that they would have to admit to being incompetent, they all keep their mouths shut. The embarrassment comes when the emperor organizes a parade to showcase his "clothes", and a child bluntly asks his family why the emperor is naked. A child having no work or enough knowledge of the world to be considered "incompetent" at anything, he can only be right. "Pluralistic indifference" and collective pride is what drives everybody to keep saying there is an invisible fabric until there is no turning back. Had any of them actually spoken up, the con would have died early. | |
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Ah Ain't Got no Ack-cent!: When they get invited to the Equestrian Agriculture Conference and Exhibition, Rarity convinces Applejack to put on a posh Manehattanite accent to better fit in with the wealthy potential clients. AJ plays along and nearly lasts through the first day, but eventually decides she can't do it anymore, launching into a rant in her natural Southern accent. In response, all the wealthy ponies at the EACE drop their posh accents as well, revealing they normally sound just as "country" as AJ. Nearly everyone at the con had been putting on fake accents for fear of being the only one to stick out. | |
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In Gunnerkrigg Court, Mort is stuck in one of these. The chapter "See Ya!" reveals he's been ready to move on to the Ether for some time, but he lingers as a ghost because he thinks the Realm Of The Dead gave him a "pretty important" job haunting the Court. But the ROTD is really just giving Mort busywork because they think he wants to stay. | |
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Mentioned in "I'm an Ordinary Man" from My Fair Lady as one of the reasons he's unmarried. | |
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One episode of Regular Show has Muscle Man enlist Mordecai and Rigby's help to convince his girlfriend's parents that he's a sophisticated gentleman when he meets them for the first time. Starla claims that her parents are extremely posh and refined and Muscle Man becomes worried that they'll disavow his relationship if he doesn't live up to their standards. Once the episode's shenanigans are over, Starla's parents reveal they were only pretending to be posh and sophisticated to impress Muscle Man and are normally just as uncouth as he is. | |
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Murder, She Wrote: "Corned Beef and Carnage": Howard and Victoria both secretly dislike her job with Mr. Kinkaid. However, neither has told the other, both because of a lack of personal time and because each thinks the other benefits somehow — Howard thinks his wife should get her shot at the big time, and Victoria wants to make enough money that her husband can continue his acting career. Jessica nudges them both towards confessing and they do eventually sort it out. "Just Another Fish Story": Grady and Donna both have false ideas as to what the other wants after they're married. Donna hates being an accountant and would prefer to give up her career to raise a family, but she thinks Grady won't like it, because he's been so gung-ho about her being a career woman. Grady confesses to Jessica that he'd actually rather have a wife who's a homemaker, but he hasn't told Donna because he doesn't want to hold her back. Donna ultimately breaks the silence. |
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The Screwtape Letters: In "Letter 26", Screwtape suggests fostering exactly this sort of disagreement, to twist "unselfishness" into a way for humans to be selfish and hypocritical about it. | |
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Modern Family: In "Aunt Mommy", Phil and Claire are on a double date with Cam and Mitch. Drunkenly, the four of them decide Claire will donate one of her eggs so the former couple can have a child who has both of their genetics. The next day with clear minds, and some family argument, they realize both couples think it's a bad idea. | |
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In A Prairie Home Companion, Garrison Keillor often mentioned that Minnesotans were raised "never to express personal preference", and jokes about the consequences of this. In one episode, he talked about a Minnesota family planning a vacation, but nobody would say where they wanted to go, so they ended up staying somewhere no one wanted to go. | |
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While You Were Sleeping does this twice: A mistaken identity plot results in Lucy getting engaged to Peter (who she's had a crush on for some time, but now she realizes he's nothing like she had imagined) while actually falling in love with his brother Jack. So the night before her wedding, Lucy asks Jack if he can think of any reason not to marry Peter, desperately hoping for an excuse to break things off and pursue a relationship with Jack instead. And Jack wants Lucy for himself just as badly, but says he can't think of any reason, because he thinks she really loves Peter. Jack wants to start his own carpentry business, but is afraid to say anything because his father seems dead-set on him inheriting the family furniture business. When Jack finally does come clean, dad is only disappointed that Jack didn't say anything sooner: a few years back, he had turned down several offers to sell the furniture business because he thought Jack wanted to take over. |
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SpongeBob SquarePants: Happens in the episode "Bossy Boots", when Mr. Krabs' daughter Pearl works at the Krusty Krab during her summer vacation. Krabs eventually sees Pearl's frivolous spending on improvements for the restaurant as harmful, but he doesn't have the heart to fire her, then tasking SpongeBob to do it. However, before he can, Pearl reveals to SpongeBob that she didn't want to be there either, and was staying only to impress her dad while attempting to get fired on purpose. SpongeBob breaks the loop by "pretending" to fire her so he can take the heat from Krabs, which ends up pleasing all parties. In "Roller Cowards", both SpongeBob and Patrick are terrified of going on a rollercoaster, but they won't admit it because both of them think the other wants to go on it. Just before the ride starts, they finally admit that they don't want to go on the ride, after which the ride breaks down. Realizing that neither of them wants to go on it, the two of them are about to leave until the employee fixes the ride, causing them to go on it anyway. They end up loving the ride, even though they lost their spines in the process. |
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El Goonish Shive: Narrowly avoided in the "So a Date at the Mall", where Elliot and Ashley are discussing whether to eat immediately or to wait until later. Both of them are hungry, but let the other make the decision as to whether to eat immediately. They both assume the other isn't hungry and agree to delay eating. Thankfully a combined stomach growl gives them an excuse to do what they both want to do. Shortly after it's established that Raven is Noah's guardian, Raven objects to being called "Sir Raven", saying "You should call me 'Mr Raven' at school, and 'Adrian' or 'Raven' anywhere else." Some time later, Noah is shown rehearsing asking Raven if he can call him "Dad", before deciding it's too awkward a topic, given Raven's background. At the end of that storyline, he accidentally calls Raven "Dad", and Raven's response is to embrace him and call him "son", suggesting that the whole time, he saw their relationship the same way, but was equally unfomfortable with raising the subject, given Noah's background. |
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A variation of this trope keeps appearing in Beetle Bailey. It always goes like this: The officers, and sergeant Snorkel, receive a written order from the general, with one obvious spelling error that changes the meaning completely (tacks, not tanks, toot check, not tooth check, buns, not guns, etc.). Everyone knows that the general didn't mean to write this, and that he's probably completely oblivious of the spelling error, but everyone is afraid of upsetting him by pointing out the error to him (the exact words "But who dares to tell the general that he did a mistake?" are usually uttered at one point). To simply just ignore the mistake is apparently never considered an option, as this would technically be insubordination. In the end, they carry out the order, exactly the way it's written, even though they know that it makes no sense. Of course, this always upsets the general anyway, which makes one wonder why the officers thought this course of action was going to keep them out of trouble, | |
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My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In "Green Isn't Your Color", Fluttershy pretends to enjoy being a fashion model, despite her stage fright and overall discomfort at getting any attention, because of how much Rarity seems to support the idea. Meanwhile, Rarity is actually upset that her unfashionable friend is getting so much more attention than her, but acts extra happy and encouraging because she doesn't want her jealousy to bring down Fluttershy's moment. They have both also come clean to Twilight but because Twilight gave a Pinkie Promise to them that she wouldn't tell the other (a promise that Pinkie goes to Implacable Man levels of pursuit to enforce), she can't stop this mess herself. In "Non-Compete Clause", Applejack and Rainbow Dash are placed in charge of a field trip, but have differing ideas of what to do. At first they try to do their own things, but after that goes terribly, Twilight threatens to take over the event herself if they can't work together. Instead both overcompensate and end up butting heads again, this time wanting to follow the other's ideas but not being able to agree. |
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Scarlet Lady: "Zombizou" opens with the whole class — aside from Chloé — preparing to celebrate Mme. Bustier's birthday and praising everything she does for them. At the end of the episode, it's revealed that the whole class was actually tired of dealing with Bustier being a Misplaced Kindergarten Teacher who constantly gave Chloé free passes for her bullying while blaming her victims and pressuring them to "lead by example" and act like Extreme Doormats. When they learn that Marinette hit her Rage Breaking Point and called her out, they all praise her for being the first to finally stand up to their teacher, enabling them all to acknowledge their issues with her. | |
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This very nearly turns out to be the case in Steven Universe: Future when one of the Rose Quartzes misinterprets Steven's words as an invitation to live with him, and Steven finds himself unable to refuse. In the end, though, they all agree that they don't want to live in the same house and only agreed for each other's sake. | |
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This was the main reason for Genesis attempting to continue as a band after the departure of Phil Collins. Neither Tony Banks nor Mike Rutherford wanted to keep going without Collins, but each one assumed that the other wanted to go ahead. Because they never sat down and talked the matter over, they decided that they had nothing left to lose, hired Ray Wilson as their frontman, and put together ...Calling All Stations..., the negative reception of which finally broke up the band. | |
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British comedy/drama Auf Wiedersehen, Pet has this occur when the group are trying to decide on what colour to paint a room, and as an experiment they try to use Proportional Representation as a way to democratically vote on the best outcome. It backfires when the winning colour - Yellow - is NO ONE'S first or second choice and comes out as the winner just because everyone picked it as their third option, which they didn't believe would make a difference to the outcome. | |
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Becoming the Mask: After Barbara learns that Jim is a Changeling, he stops addressing her as "Mom" for a time. Neither one is happy about this, but they both keep silent on the matter, not wanting to risk pressuring the other into trying to maintain their original relationship if the other isn't comfortable with that. | |
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In the Hey Arnold! episode, "Fishing Trip", Gerald, Sid, Harold, Eugene, their dads, Arnold, and his grandpa go camping in the woods for a fishing trip. Things quickly go south when they fail to catch any fish and lose the rest of their food to a bear (except for cans of beans). The boys and their dads/grandfather are all miserable, but both groups refuse to tell the other out of fear of disappointing them. After much suffering, they eventually come clean and go to a resort across the lake. | |
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A New England Nun: Louisa, thinking about how marriage will change her quiet life, decides she would rather not marry, but she has no intention of breaking the engagement after Joe has waited fifteen years to marry her. She overhears Joe talking with Lily Dyer. Joe mentions some unexplained event which let slip his feelings for Lily, but, given that he's engaged to Louisa, he tells her nothing can come of it. Now aware of this, Louisa calmly tells Joe, without letting him know about the eavesdropping, that she's a little reluctant to change her way of life. | |
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In How I Met Your Mother, the episode "46 Minutes" has a discussion of "Early Relationship Chicken." According to Future Ted, it's the phase where both partners agree to every activity the other suggests, because they want to seem interesting, adventurous, and open-minded. This eventually leads to them getting roped into activities that neither of them wants, because they're afraid to be the first to say "No"—until one of them finally caves, much to the relief of both parties. In the episode itself, Kevin and Robin play Early Relationship Chicken, which leads to them birdwatching in Central Park, bungee jumping, and attending a butcher class before they come to their senses. | |
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the high road (Miraculous Ladybug): As Marinette's classmates gradually figure out that Lila really is a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing, they all assume that they're the only one who has realized the Awful Truth. Since nobody believed Marinette when she tried to warn them, they focus on trying to convince her instead of turning to each other for help. It takes Adrien hitting his Rage Breaking Point for the whole class to compare notes and realize that they'd all individually figured out the truth. | |
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In Recess: Taking the Fifth Grade a Board of Education recently made some changes that make the kids lives worse (like changing cafeteria food for "nutrition paste" and getting rid of their playground). T.J. skips school to protest about it and convinces Principal Prickly to protest as well. After seeing the Principal risking his job, one member of the board confesses that he actually hates the changes that were made, but didn't want to go against the crowd, with the other members revealing the same feeling, and deciding to overturn the whole thing. | |
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Star Trek: The Next Generation: Crusher makes elaborate breakfasts for her regular meals with Picard, but when they suddenly gain the ability to read each other's mind, she discovers that Picard would much rather just have coffee and a croissant. She's been slaving away at new recipes because she was under the impression that he has exotic tastes, while he's been enduring her meals out of the same assumption about her. | |
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