Exponential Explanation Pyramid is six escalating levels of teaching that compound learning: self-explain, simulated other, dialogue, informal teach, full-spectrum teach, professional teach. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0285, within the Learning family. The core principle: six escalating levels of teaching that compound learning: self-explain, simulated other, dialogue, informal teach, full-spectrum teach, professional teach. 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
Six escalating levels of teaching that compound learning: self-explain, simulated other, dialogue, informal teach, full-spectrum teach, professional teach.
Plain-English Definition
Six escalating levels of teaching that compound learning: self-explain, simulated other, dialogue, informal teach, full-spectrum teach, professional teach.
Feynman Explanation
Talking to yourself is level one. Charging for it is level six.
Core Principle
Six escalating levels of teaching that compound learning: self-explain, simulated other, dialogue, informal teach, full-spectrum teach, professional teach.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Six escalating levels of teaching that compound learning: self-explain, simulated other, dialogue, informal teach, full-spectrum teach, professional teach.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Career growth path: every level up multiplies what you retain.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
Talking to yourself is level one. Charging for it is level six.
Examples
- Mental Model Club framework for sequencing teach-to-learn habits.
- Career growth path: every level up multiplies what you retain.
Pending editorial review.
Original analysis from The Incentives Lab — how this element behaves inside real payoff structures.
Why this element matters to incentive design
The mistake with this element is treating it as irrationality. It is almost always a rational response to a payoff nobody wrote down. The mechanism underneath it is straightforward: six escalating levels of teaching that compound learning: self-explain, simulated other, dialogue, informal teach, full-spectrum teach, professional teach. You can recognize it in the field by its signature: talking to yourself is level one. Charging for it is level six. 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, career growth path: every level up multiplies what you retain. It is amplified whenever career growth path: every level up multiplies what you retain. Inside organizations that shows up as career growth path: every level up multiplies what you retain. 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 pick one concept per week and push it up at least one level on the pyramid. 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
- Pick one concept per week and push it up at least one level on the pyramid.
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.
- Pick one concept per week and push it up at least one level on the pyramid.
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.
Forcing yourself to explain a concept reveals exactly where your understanding is hollow.
Your capacity to learn, unlearn, and relearn faster than the environment changes.
Malcolm Knowles's principles of adult learning: self-direction, experience as resource, readiness, problem-centered orientation, intrinsic motivation.
Amishi Jha's research: attention is a finite, depletable, but trainable cognitive resource — short daily mindfulness measurably improves it.
Approach a situation as if you knew nothing.
Unusual or bizarre material is more memorable than common material.
Hierarchy of cognitive learning: Remember → Understand → Apply → Analyze → Evaluate → Create. Benjamin Bloom, 1956 (revised 2001).
Wallace J. Nichols: proximity to water reliably shifts the nervous system toward a calmer, more creative state.
Resourcing past memories with the state you needed at the time, so old triggers stop firing the old response.
Grouping information into familiar units to improve memory and processing.
Compressing many small patterns into one larger unit your mind treats as a single object.
Anchor a peak resourceful state to an imagined spot on the floor; step into it on demand before high-stakes moments.
Where Exponential Explanation Pyramid 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 Exponential Explanation Pyramid
- What is Exponential Explanation Pyramid?
- Exponential Explanation Pyramid is six escalating levels of teaching that compound learning: self-explain, simulated other, dialogue, informal teach, full-spectrum teach, professional teach. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0285, within the Learning family. The core principle: six escalating levels of teaching that compound learning: self-explain, simulated other, dialogue, informal teach, full-spectrum teach, professional teach. 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 Exponential Explanation Pyramid?
- Career growth path: every level up multiplies what you retain. The Incentives Lab catalogs everyday, organizational, and historical instances of this element on its Human Behavior Taxonomy™ page (HBT-COG-0285).
- How is Exponential Explanation Pyramid exploited?
- Career growth path: every level up multiplies what you retain.
- How do you design around Exponential Explanation Pyramid?
- Pick one concept per week and push it up at least one level on the pyramid.
- Which behavioral dimension does Exponential Explanation Pyramid belong to?
- Exponential Explanation Pyramid is classified in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™, family "Learning", class "Mental Model". Its permanent identifier is HBT-COG-0285 and its evidence grade is B.