Scientific Definition
Treating two things that move together as one causing the other.
Plain-English Definition
Treating two things that move together as one causing the other.
Feynman Explanation
Ice cream sales correlate with drownings. Outlaw ice cream.
Core Principle
Treating two things that move together as one causing the other.
Mechanisms
Treating two things that move together as one causing the other.
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Inputs (Triggers)
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Outputs (Behaviors)
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Behavioral Signature
Ice cream sales correlate with drownings. Outlaw ice cream.
Examples
- 'Top performers all use this tool, so the tool produces top performance.'
- Performance management built on confounded variables.
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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.
If A then B; B happened; therefore A.
Reasoning backward from outcomes to motives.
With this, therefore because of this.
If A then B; not A; therefore not B.
Stacking so many tenuous links that the conclusion sounds clever.
B followed A, therefore A caused B.
Assuming one cause where many are at play.
A small step inevitably leads to extreme consequences.
Small step → catastrophic outcome, without the intermediate causal links.
Attacking the person rather than the argument.
A single story used as proof of a general claim.
It's true because authority says so.