Appeal to Common Sense is common sense says so, therefore it's true. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0042, within the Relevance Fallacy family. The core principle: common sense says so, therefore it's true. In incentive terms, it matters because it changes the payoff people perceive before they choose — which means it can be designed for, or exploited.
Scientific Definition
Common sense says so, therefore it's true.
Plain-English Definition
Common sense says so, therefore it's true.
Feynman Explanation
Common sense said the earth was flat for most of history.
Core Principle
Common sense says so, therefore it's true.
Mechanisms
Common sense says so, therefore it's true.
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Inputs (Triggers)
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Outputs (Behaviors)
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Behavioral Signature
Common sense said the earth was flat for most of history.
Examples
- Dismissing counterintuitive data on instinct.
- Discovery atrophies in cultures that lean on 'obviously.'
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Original analysis from The Incentives Lab — how this element behaves inside real payoff structures.
Why this element matters to incentive design
This element is common enough to feel like human nature and specific enough to be engineered around. The mechanism underneath it is straightforward: common sense says so, therefore it's true. You can recognize it in the field by its signature: common sense said the earth was flat for most of history. Every element in the Cognition dimension changes the perceived payoff of an action before the action happens, which is exactly where incentive design has leverage.
How it gets exploited
Left undesigned, discovery atrophies in cultures that lean on 'obviously.'. It is amplified whenever discovery atrophies in cultures that lean on 'obviously.'. Inside organizations that shows up as discovery atrophies in cultures that lean on 'obviously.'. The pattern is the same one Goodhart's Law describes: the measurable proxy attracts the effort, and the purpose behind it quietly loses funding.
How the Lab designs around it
The redesign move is to make the desired behavior observable, remove whatever currently pays for its opposite, and attach the reward to the behavior rather than to the noisy outcome downstream of it. The leverage is not in explaining the behavior to people. It is in changing what the behavior earns.
Famous Experiments
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Design Principles
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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.
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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.
It's true because authority says so.
Believing something is true because of the consequences of its truth.
Claiming something is true because it hasn't been proven false (or vice versa).
If it's 'natural,' it's good.
It's better because it's newer.
It's right because it's how we've always done it.
Attacking the person rather than the argument.
I can't believe it; therefore it isn't true.
Saying it enough times until it sounds true.
It's true because many believe it.
Asking the other side to disprove an unsupported claim.
Concluding that because an argument contained a fallacy, its conclusion must be false.
Where Appeal to Common Sense is cited in the corpus
Essays, field guides, and diagnostics from The Incentives Lab that apply this element.
- EssayGoodhart's Law in the Real World
How measurable proxies capture judgment.
- EssayThe Perverse Incentives Hiding in Your KPIs
Cognitive shortcuts turned into scorecards.
- CourseIncentives 101
The free ten-part primer on reading a payoff structure.
- ReferenceThe Periodic Table of Human Behavior
The full 1,267-element map this page belongs to.
Questions about Appeal to Common Sense
- What is Appeal to Common Sense?
- Appeal to Common Sense is common sense says so, therefore it's true. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0042, within the Relevance Fallacy family. The core principle: common sense says so, therefore it's true. In incentive terms, it matters because it changes the payoff people perceive before they choose — which means it can be designed for, or exploited.
- What is an example of Appeal to Common Sense?
- Discovery atrophies in cultures that lean on 'obviously.' The Incentives Lab catalogs everyday, organizational, and historical instances of this element on its Human Behavior Taxonomy™ page (HBT-COG-0042).
- How is Appeal to Common Sense exploited?
- Discovery atrophies in cultures that lean on 'obviously.'
- How do you design around Appeal to Common Sense?
- Name the behavior you want in observable terms, remove what currently pays for the opposite, attach the reward to the behavior rather than a lagging proxy, and publish how you will detect gaming.
- Which behavioral dimension does Appeal to Common Sense belong to?
- Appeal to Common Sense is classified in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™, family "Relevance Fallacy", class "Logical Fallacy". Its permanent identifier is HBT-COG-0042 and its evidence grade is B.