Scientific Definition
Giving polite rather than honest answers to avoid offense.
Plain-English Definition
Giving polite rather than honest answers to avoid offense.
Feynman Explanation
Politeness corrupts more research than fraud does.
Core Principle
Giving polite rather than honest answers to avoid offense.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Giving polite rather than honest answers to avoid offense.
Pending editorial review.
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Customer-feedback systems systematically over-report satisfaction.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
Politeness corrupts more research than fraud does.
Examples
- Customer interviews where everyone says they 'love' the feature they won't use.
- Customer-feedback systems systematically over-report satisfaction.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Use behavioral data over self-reported data. Make dissent comfortable.
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.
- Use behavioral data over self-reported data. Make dissent comfortable.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
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Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
We attribute our own actions to situations but others' actions to their character.
We favor people who are similar to us or who like us.
Systematic errors in explaining the causes of behavior — yours or others'.
Faces and brands look more appealing in a group than individually.
Avoiding contact with people or things perceived as 'contaminated'.
Judging phenomena by the standards of one's own culture.
A group decides on a course of action that nobody actually wants, because everyone assumes others prefer it.
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Sacrificing for others without expecting a personal reward.
Masking the sponsors of a message to make it appear grassroots.
Disagreement grows more extreme as the parties think more about the issue.
We accept vague, general statements as personally meaningful.