Scientific Definition
Start with a prior; update with new evidence.
Plain-English Definition
Start with a prior; update with new evidence.
Feynman Explanation
Beliefs are bets you've placed. Update them when the table changes.
Core Principle
Start with a prior; update with new evidence.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Start with a prior; update with new evidence.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Strategic posture that evolves with evidence instead of defending priors.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
Beliefs are bets you've placed. Update them when the table changes.
Examples
- Updating sales forecasts as the quarter develops.
- Strategic posture that evolves with evidence instead of defending priors.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Force documented prior + update on every major call.
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.
- Force documented prior + update on every major call.
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.
Posterior = (likelihood × prior) / evidence.
Ignoring general statistics in favor of specific, vivid information.
Update beliefs in proportion to the strength of 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.
Bet size optimized to maximize long-run growth without ruin.