Loaded Question is a question with a built-in unproven assumption. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0447, within the Ambiguity Fallacy family. The core principle: a question with a built-in unproven assumption. 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
A question with a built-in unproven assumption.
Plain-English Definition
A question with a built-in unproven assumption.
Feynman Explanation
'When are we going to stop wasting money on this?' Question won.
Core Principle
A question with a built-in unproven assumption.
Mechanisms
A question with a built-in unproven assumption.
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Inputs (Triggers)
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Outputs (Behaviors)
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Behavioral Signature
'When are we going to stop wasting money on this?' Question won.
Examples
- 'Why is morale so bad on your team?' assumes the premise.
- Frames the room before it deliberates.
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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: a question with a built-in unproven assumption. You can recognize it in the field by its signature: 'When are we going to stop wasting money on this?' Question won. 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, frames the room before it deliberates. It is amplified whenever frames the room before it deliberates. Inside organizations that shows up as frames the room before it deliberates. 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 make the desired behavior observable, remove whatever currently pays for its opposite, and attach the reward to the behavior rather than to the noisy outcome downstream of it. Watch for it at the boundaries: handoffs, promotions, incident reviews, and budget cycles are where this element gets its power.
Famous Experiments
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Design Principles
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Measurement Approaches
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Evidence
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The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
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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.
Words chosen to bias the audience toward a conclusion.
Using a word with two meanings as if it meant one.
A phrase that ends thought rather than advancing it.
Assuming the conclusion in the premise.
Attacking the person rather than the argument.
If A then B; B happened; therefore A.
A single story used as proof of a general claim.
It's true because authority says so.
Common sense says so, therefore it's true.
Believing something is true because of the consequences of its truth.
Substituting feeling for argument.
Using fear instead of evidence.
Where Loaded Question 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.
- ReferenceThe incentive glossary
Definitions for every mental model, bias, and fallacy in the corpus.
- 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 Loaded Question
- What is Loaded Question?
- Loaded Question is a question with a built-in unproven assumption. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0447, within the Ambiguity Fallacy family. The core principle: a question with a built-in unproven assumption. 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 Loaded Question?
- Frames the room before it deliberates. The Incentives Lab catalogs everyday, organizational, and historical instances of this element on its Human Behavior Taxonomy™ page (HBT-COG-0447).
- How is Loaded Question exploited?
- Frames the room before it deliberates.
- How do you design around Loaded Question?
- Name the behavior you want in observable terms, remove what currently pays for the opposite, attach the reward to the behavior rather than a lagging proxy, and publish how you will detect gaming.
- Which behavioral dimension does Loaded Question belong to?
- Loaded Question is classified in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™, family "Ambiguity Fallacy", class "Logical Fallacy". Its permanent identifier is HBT-COG-0447 and its evidence grade is B.