Scientific Definition
Psychological distance shifts thinking between abstract and concrete.
Plain-English Definition
Psychological distance shifts thinking between abstract and concrete.
Feynman Explanation
The 5-year plan is poetry. The Q3 forecast is plumbing.
Core Principle
Psychological distance shifts thinking between abstract and concrete.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Psychological distance shifts thinking between abstract and concrete.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Strategy and execution need different language because they sit at different construal levels.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
The 5-year plan is poetry. The Q3 forecast is plumbing.
Examples
- Long-horizon plans framed in values; near-term ones in mechanics.
- Strategy and execution need different language because they sit at different construal levels.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Match the abstraction of your communication to the time horizon.
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.
- Match the abstraction of your communication to the time horizon.
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.
People value gains and losses asymmetrically, and judge relative to a reference point.
People operate in promotion focus (chasing gains, eager) or prevention focus (avoiding losses, vigilant).
Otto Scharmer's U-shaped process for moving from habitual response to sensing what wants to emerge.
How will I feel about this in 10 minutes / 10 months / 10 years?
Inattention or forgetfulness caused by low attention, hyperfocus, or distraction.
Forgetting to compare an offer with the next-best alternative.
Outcomes that could have happened but did not.
Overthinking a situation so that decision-making stalls.
The first number on the table silently sets the range for every number after it.
Tversky & Kahneman's classic: identical outcomes flip from 'risk averse' to 'risk seeking' when framed as lives saved vs. lives lost.
Our perception is shaped by what we selectively pay attention to.
Favoring suggestions from automated systems over conflicting human judgment.