Reality.

The decision maker resolves this by:

Declaration: 'Three'

Coercion: 'It's Three or you're fired.'

Intuition: 'I'll tell you when I think you need to know.'

Exclusion: 'It's not Four.'

Whim: 'It's Three today.'

Submission: 'I checked with the boss and she says Three'.

Delegation: 'HR told me Three.'

Committee: 'The ayes have it - Three.'

Bias: 'I hate Four. It's Three.'

Fear: 'Four is up to something. So Three.'

Psychoanalysis: 'You say Four but Your Myers-Briggs Type says you really think Three so I'm going to say Three.'

Avoidance: 'Let's have an off site team building day to create cross-functional capacity in conversations about numeracy.'

Spite: 'As you counted Three without running it by me first you've left me with no choice other than to put you on a warning'

Omission:  'You choose and I'll see what happens next.'