Scientific Definition
Feelings act as shortcuts for facts.
Plain-English Definition
Feelings act as shortcuts for facts.
Feynman Explanation
If it feels safe, it must be smart.
Core Principle
Feelings act as shortcuts for facts.
Mechanisms
Feelings act as shortcuts for facts.
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Inputs (Triggers)
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Outputs (Behaviors)
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Behavioral Signature
If it feels safe, it must be smart.
Examples
- A risky bet feels prudent because the team likes the people pitching it.
- Vibes-based investment decisions wrapped in spreadsheet theater.
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Famous Experiments
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Design Principles
- Separate the analysis step from the decision step. Sleep on it.
Measurement Approaches
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Evidence
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The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Separate the analysis step from the decision step. Sleep on it.
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Interactive Mini Network
Click any neighbor to re-center the graph and follow the threads of connection.
Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
Doing something feels safer than doing nothing — even when nothing wins.
Over-reliance on the first number that hits the table.
Adding a clearly worse option steers people toward the option you wanted.
Whatever is pre-selected wins more often than it should.
We value things more once they're ours.
The same information lands differently depending on how it's wrapped.
We disproportionately prefer rewards now over rewards later.
We overvalue things we built ourselves.
Believing more information leads to better decisions, regardless of relevance.
When trivial metrics become the target, the trivial becomes the strategy.
Losses hurt roughly twice as much as equivalent gains feel good.
We treat money differently depending on which bucket it's in.