Scientific Definition
Who, what, when, where, why — the minimum facts for any account.
Plain-English Definition
Who, what, when, where, why — the minimum facts for any account.
Feynman Explanation
Skip a W and you've left the story unfinished.
Core Principle
Who, what, when, where, why — the minimum facts for any account.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Who, what, when, where, why — the minimum facts for any account.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Communication quality requires all five.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
Skip a W and you've left the story unfinished.
Examples
- Incident reports, journalism, project briefs — all built on the Five Ws.
- Communication quality requires all five.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Audit briefs and announcements for missing Ws before sending.
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.
- Audit briefs and announcements for missing Ws before sending.
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.