Dysrationalia is inability to think rationally despite adequate intelligence. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0256, within the Reasoning family. The core principle: inability to think rationally despite adequate intelligence. In incentive terms, it matters because it changes the payoff people perceive before they choose — which means it can be designed for, or exploited.
Scientific Definition
Inability to think rationally despite adequate intelligence.
Plain-English Definition
Inability to think rationally despite adequate intelligence.
Feynman Explanation
Smart people are very good at being wrong elaborately.
Core Principle
Inability to think rationally despite adequate intelligence.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Inability to think rationally despite adequate intelligence.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Hiring for IQ alone doesn't hire for judgment.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
Smart people are very good at being wrong elaborately.
Examples
- Brilliant analysts who fall for crypto scams; PhDs who endorse pseudoscience.
- Hiring for IQ alone doesn't hire for judgment.
Pending editorial review.
Original analysis from The Incentives Lab — how this element behaves inside real payoff structures.
Why this element matters to incentive design
Executives usually notice this element only after it has cost something. By then it looks like a one-off. It is not. The mechanism underneath it is straightforward: inability to think rationally despite adequate intelligence. You can recognize it in the field by its signature: smart people are very good at being wrong elaborately. Every element in the Cognition dimension changes the perceived payoff of an action before the action happens, which is exactly where incentive design has leverage.
How it gets exploited
Left undesigned, hiring for IQ alone doesn't hire for judgment. It is amplified whenever hiring for IQ alone doesn't hire for judgment. Inside organizations that shows up as hiring for IQ alone doesn't hire for judgment. The pattern is the same one Goodhart's Law describes: the measurable proxy attracts the effort, and the purpose behind it quietly loses funding.
How the Lab designs around it
The redesign move is to test for rationality and calibration, not just intelligence. Design against it the way you would design against a known failure mode — assume it will appear, and price the exploit before someone finds it.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Test for rationality and calibration, not just intelligence.
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.
- Test for rationality and calibration, not just intelligence.
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.
Deriving general rules from specific examples; the leap from instance to concept.
The brain evolved to reason adaptively, not always truthfully, to reduce the cost of errors.
We solve problems by adding, even when subtracting would be better.
Assuming that if one option is true, another must be false, when both can be true.
Presuming a purposeful actor behind events that may have no actor at all.
What cannot be settled by experiment is not worth debating.
A finite set of well-defined instructions for solving a problem or performing a computation.
Every model simplifies reality; some are still useful.
Researchers favor conclusions aligned with their school, team, or sponsor.
Using personal stories or isolated examples instead of evidence.
Claiming something is true or better because most people believe it.
Assuming something is true because it is probable or possible.
Where Dysrationalia is cited in the corpus
Essays, field guides, and diagnostics from The Incentives Lab that apply this element.
- EssayGoodhart's Law in the Real World
How measurable proxies capture judgment.
- EssayThe Perverse Incentives Hiding in Your KPIs
Cognitive shortcuts turned into scorecards.
- EssayAI Agents Inherit Your Incentives
How this element propagates into automated systems.
- ReferenceThe Periodic Table of Human Behavior
The full 1,267-element map this page belongs to.
- CourseIncentives 101
The free ten-part primer on reading a payoff structure.
Questions about Dysrationalia
- What is Dysrationalia?
- Dysrationalia is inability to think rationally despite adequate intelligence. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0256, within the Reasoning family. The core principle: inability to think rationally despite adequate intelligence. In incentive terms, it matters because it changes the payoff people perceive before they choose — which means it can be designed for, or exploited.
- What is an example of Dysrationalia?
- Hiring for IQ alone doesn't hire for judgment. The Incentives Lab catalogs everyday, organizational, and historical instances of this element on its Human Behavior Taxonomy™ page (HBT-COG-0256).
- How is Dysrationalia exploited?
- Hiring for IQ alone doesn't hire for judgment.
- How do you design around Dysrationalia?
- Test for rationality and calibration, not just intelligence.
- Which behavioral dimension does Dysrationalia belong to?
- Dysrationalia is classified in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™, family "Reasoning", class "Mental Model". Its permanent identifier is HBT-COG-0256 and its evidence grade is B.