80/20 Rule Partially Explains 7 Plus Minus 2 Law: General System-Based Analysis

Authors

Griselda Acosta, The University of Texas at El PasoFollow
Eric Smith, The University of Texas at El PasoFollow
Vladik Kreinovich, The University of Texas at El PasoFollow

Publication Date

8-2019

Comments

Technical Report: UTEP-CS-19-87

Abstract

The 80/20 rule and the 7 plus minus 2 law are examples of difficult to explain empirical facts. According to the 80/20 rule, in each activity, 20% of the people contribute to the 80% of the results. The 7 plus minus 2 law means that we divide objects into 7 plus minus 2 groups -- i.e., into 5 to 9 groups. In this paper, we show that there is a relation between these two facts: namely, we show that, because of the 80/20 rule, the number of classes cannot be smaller than 5. Thus, the 80/20 rule explains the lower bound (5) on the 7 plus minus 2 law.