Scientific Definition
Over-reliance on the first number that hits the table.
Plain-English Definition
Over-reliance on the first number that hits the table.
Feynman Explanation
The first slide of the deck becomes the ceiling of the strategy.
Core Principle
Over-reliance on the first number that hits the table.
Mechanisms
Over-reliance on the first number that hits the table.
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Inputs (Triggers)
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Outputs (Behaviors)
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Behavioral Signature
The first slide of the deck becomes the ceiling of the strategy.
Examples
- An opening offer of $1.2M quietly defines a range nobody questions.
- Budget proposals, comp bands, and valuations all silently anchor on the first figure shown.
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Famous Experiments
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Design Principles
- Collect independent estimates in writing before anyone says a number out loud.
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.
- Collect independent estimates in writing before anyone says a number out loud.
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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.
Feelings act as shortcuts for facts.
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.