Scientific Definition
Ignoring general statistics in favor of specific, vivid information.
Plain-English Definition
Ignoring general statistics in favor of specific, vivid information.
Feynman Explanation
The forest is full of oaks; you are still describing one leaf.
Core Principle
Ignoring general statistics in favor of specific, vivid information.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Ignoring general statistics in favor of specific, vivid information.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Base rates are the most underused tool in executive hiring.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
The forest is full of oaks; you are still describing one leaf.
Examples
- A 'perfect' candidate is hired despite a low base rate of success in that role.
- Base rates are the most underused tool in executive hiring.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Start every prediction with the base rate, then adjust.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Start every prediction with the base rate, then adjust.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
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.
Treating real-world uncertainty like a game with clear, known rules.
Posterior = (likelihood × prior) / evidence.
Update beliefs in proportion to the strength of new evidence.
Start with a prior; update with new evidence.
Novices experiencing early success, often due to variance and small samples.
High-impact, hard-to-predict, retrospectively explainable events.
Striking pattern that is statistically expected in large samples.
Reasoning in distributions — ranges and probabilities — rather than points.
Average outcomes across the population differ from outcomes across time for one person.
A rough calculation using order-of-magnitude reasoning.
In quantum mechanics, certain pairs of properties cannot both be precisely known.
We ignore sample size when judging probability.