Latticework Density is how richly interconnected your mental models are across disciplines — higher density means more cross-pollination per new fact. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0428, within the Learning family. The core principle: how richly interconnected your mental models are across disciplines — higher density means more cross-pollination per new fact. 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
How richly interconnected your mental models are across disciplines — higher density means more cross-pollination per new fact.
Plain-English Definition
How richly interconnected your mental models are across disciplines — higher density means more cross-pollination per new fact.
Feynman Explanation
A fact in isolation is a trivia card. The same fact in a lattice is a strategy.
Core Principle
How richly interconnected your mental models are across disciplines — higher density means more cross-pollination per new fact.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
How richly interconnected your mental models are across disciplines — higher density means more cross-pollination per new fact.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Strategic creativity scales with lattice density, not headcount.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
A fact in isolation is a trivia card. The same fact in a lattice is a strategy.
Examples
- Munger explicitly designs his reading to add cross-discipline links.
- Strategic creativity scales with lattice density, not headcount.
Pending editorial review.
Original analysis from The Incentives Lab — how this element behaves inside real payoff structures.
Why this element matters to incentive design
This element is common enough to feel like human nature and specific enough to be engineered around. The mechanism underneath it is straightforward: how richly interconnected your mental models are across disciplines — higher density means more cross-pollination per new fact. You can recognize it in the field by its signature: a fact in isolation is a trivia card. The same fact in a lattice is a strategy. 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, strategic creativity scales with lattice density, not headcount. It is amplified whenever strategic creativity scales with lattice density, not headcount. Inside organizations that shows up as strategic creativity scales with lattice density, not headcount. 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 when you learn something, ask: 'What three models from other fields does this connect to?'. The test of any redesign here is simple: after the change, can you name what the organization is now doing less of? If not, the payoff structure did not actually move.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- When you learn something, ask: 'What three models from other fields does this connect to?'
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.
- When you learn something, ask: 'What three models from other fields does this connect to?'
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 diverse set of models from many disciplines, used together.
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 Latticework Density 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.
- CourseIncentives 101
The free ten-part primer on reading a payoff structure.
- ReferenceThe Periodic Table of Human Behavior
The full 1,267-element map this page belongs to.
Questions about Latticework Density
- What is Latticework Density?
- Latticework Density is how richly interconnected your mental models are across disciplines — higher density means more cross-pollination per new fact. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0428, within the Learning family. The core principle: how richly interconnected your mental models are across disciplines — higher density means more cross-pollination per new fact. 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 Latticework Density?
- Strategic creativity scales with lattice density, not headcount. The Incentives Lab catalogs everyday, organizational, and historical instances of this element on its Human Behavior Taxonomy™ page (HBT-COG-0428).
- How is Latticework Density exploited?
- Strategic creativity scales with lattice density, not headcount.
- How do you design around Latticework Density?
- When you learn something, ask: 'What three models from other fields does this connect to?'
- Which behavioral dimension does Latticework Density belong to?
- Latticework Density is classified in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™, family "Learning", class "Mental Model". Its permanent identifier is HBT-COG-0428 and its evidence grade is B.