Mimetic Desire (Girard) is we want what others want. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0475, within the Social family. The core principle: we want what others want. 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
We want what others want.
Plain-English Definition
We want what others want.
Feynman Explanation
Most ambition is borrowed.
Core Principle
We want what others want.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
We want what others want.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
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Pending editorial review.
Companies copy competitors instead of choosing.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
Most ambition is borrowed.
Examples
- Career envy. Strategy envy. Product envy.
- Companies copy competitors instead of choosing.
Pending editorial review.
Original analysis from The Incentives Lab — how this element behaves inside real payoff structures.
Why this element matters to incentive design
Most organizations meet this element as a personnel problem. It is not one. The mechanism underneath it is straightforward: we want what others want. You can recognize it in the field by its signature: most ambition is borrowed. 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, companies copy competitors instead of choosing. It is amplified whenever companies copy competitors instead of choosing. Inside organizations that shows up as companies copy competitors instead of choosing. 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 examine wants for sources. Decide what you'd want with nobody watching. Watch for it at the boundaries: handoffs, promotions, incident reviews, and budget cycles are where this element gets its power.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Examine wants for sources. Decide what you'd want with nobody watching.
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.
- Examine wants for sources. Decide what you'd want with nobody watching.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
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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.
Where Mimetic Desire (Girard) 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.
- 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 Mimetic Desire (Girard)
- What is Mimetic Desire (Girard)?
- Mimetic Desire (Girard) is we want what others want. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0475, within the Social family. The core principle: we want what others want. 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 Mimetic Desire (Girard)?
- Companies copy competitors instead of choosing. The Incentives Lab catalogs everyday, organizational, and historical instances of this element on its Human Behavior Taxonomy™ page (HBT-COG-0475).
- How is Mimetic Desire (Girard) exploited?
- Companies copy competitors instead of choosing.
- How do you design around Mimetic Desire (Girard)?
- Examine wants for sources. Decide what you'd want with nobody watching.
- Which behavioral dimension does Mimetic Desire (Girard) belong to?
- Mimetic Desire (Girard) is classified in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™, family "Social", class "Mental Model". Its permanent identifier is HBT-COG-0475 and its evidence grade is B.