Scientific Definition
Perceiving meaningful connections in unrelated things.
Plain-English Definition
Perceiving meaningful connections in unrelated things.
Feynman Explanation
Conspiracy theories. Org-chart conspiracies. Same wiring.
Core Principle
Perceiving meaningful connections in unrelated things.
Mechanisms
Perceiving meaningful connections in unrelated things.
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Inputs (Triggers)
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Outputs (Behaviors)
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Behavioral Signature
Conspiracy theories. Org-chart conspiracies. Same wiring.
Examples
- Reading deep meaning into a coincidental sequence of executive moves.
- Internal narratives constructed from random correlations.
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Famous Experiments
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Design Principles
- Ask 'what would chance look like?' before declaring meaning.
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.
- Ask 'what would chance look like?' before declaring meaning.
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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.
People look better in groups than as individuals.
Seeing patterns in random data.
Prior solutions block better new ones.
Seeing things only in their conventional use.
Familiarity breeds approval.
Bad lands harder than good.
Doing something feels safer than doing nothing — even when nothing wins.
Feelings act as shortcuts for facts.
We prefer known risks to unknown ones, even when the unknown is better.
Over-reliance on the first number that hits the table.
We judge frequency by how easily examples come to mind.
We ignore underlying probabilities in favor of vivid specifics.