Scientific Definition
Decisions involve trade-offs between costs and benefits at different times.
Plain-English Definition
Decisions involve trade-offs between costs and benefits at different times.
Feynman Explanation
Now-you and future-you are not always on the same team.
Core Principle
Decisions involve trade-offs between costs and benefits at different times.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Decisions involve trade-offs between costs and benefits at different times.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Capital allocation is intertemporal choice at scale.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
Now-you and future-you are not always on the same team.
Examples
- Investing today for returns tomorrow, or spending today and regretting tomorrow.
- Capital allocation is intertemporal choice at scale.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Use explicit discount rates and future-self empathy exercises.
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 explicit discount rates and future-self empathy exercises.
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.
Exploiting price differences between markets for risk-free profit.
The study of how real humans actually decide — bounded, social, emotional, and inconsistent.
With clear property rights and low transaction costs, parties negotiate to efficient outcomes.
Specialize in what you give up the least to do.
Complements raise each other's value; substitutes lower it.
Fixed costs don't scale with output; variable costs do.
Innovation destroys old industries and creates new ones.
Each additional unit produces less marginal benefit.
A long-run planner self in conflict with a short-run impulsive self.
Owning something raises its valuation — sellers want more to give it up than buyers will pay to acquire.
Bad money drives out good when both are legally equivalent.
The mythical fully rational, self-interested, utility-maximizing agent neoclassical models assume.