Scientific Definition
Novices experiencing early success, often due to variance and small samples.
Plain-English Definition
Novices experiencing early success, often due to variance and small samples.
Feynman Explanation
First-timers win because they have not yet learned how hard it is.
Core Principle
Novices experiencing early success, often due to variance and small samples.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Novices experiencing early success, often due to variance and small samples.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Early wins can build dangerous overconfidence.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
First-timers win because they have not yet learned how hard it is.
Examples
- A new trader's first three bets win, convincing them they are gifted.
- Early wins can build dangerous overconfidence.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Track long-term performance before scaling up a beginner's approach.
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.
- Track long-term performance before scaling up a beginner's approach.
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.
Ignoring general statistics in favor of specific, vivid information.
Posterior = (likelihood × prior) / evidence.
Update beliefs in proportion to the strength of new evidence.
Start with a prior; update with new evidence.
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.