Scientific Definition
Don't attribute to malice what's explainable by incompetence — or incentives.
Plain-English Definition
Don't attribute to malice what's explainable by incompetence — or incentives.
Feynman Explanation
The villain in your story is probably just responding to their comp plan.
Core Principle
Don't attribute to malice what's explainable by incompetence — or incentives.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Don't attribute to malice what's explainable by incompetence — or incentives.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Diagnosing dysfunction without manufacturing villains.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
The villain in your story is probably just responding to their comp plan.
Examples
- The 'dysfunctional team' is usually a well-designed response to misaligned incentives.
- Diagnosing dysfunction without manufacturing villains.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Default to structure. People are last on the list.
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.
- Default to structure. People are last on the list.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Systematic errors in explaining the causes of behavior — yours or others'.
We accept vague, general statements as personally meaningful.
Adding the word 'because' (with any reason) increases compliance dramatically.
Behaviors spread through groups via observation and imitation.
We come to like people we've done a favor for, more than people who've helped us.