Scientific Definition
We judge harm by action more harshly than the same harm by inaction.
Plain-English Definition
We judge harm by action more harshly than the same harm by inaction.
Feynman Explanation
Killing the project gets you fired. Letting it bleed forever does not.
Core Principle
We judge harm by action more harshly than the same harm by inaction.
Mechanisms
We judge harm by action more harshly than the same harm by inaction.
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Inputs (Triggers)
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Outputs (Behaviors)
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Behavioral Signature
Killing the project gets you fired. Letting it bleed forever does not.
Examples
- A leader who shuts down a failing program faces more flak than one who lets it limp.
- Decay subsidized; decisiveness punished.
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Famous Experiments
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Design Principles
- Audit inaction. Make slow death visible on the same dashboard as active failures.
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.
- Audit inaction. Make slow death visible on the same dashboard as active failures.
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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.
Doing something feels safer than doing nothing — even when nothing wins.
Feelings act as shortcuts for facts.
Over-reliance on the first number that hits the table.
Adding a clearly worse option steers people toward the option you wanted.
Whatever is pre-selected wins more often than it should.
We value things more once they're ours.
The same information lands differently depending on how it's wrapped.
We disproportionately prefer rewards now over rewards later.
We overvalue things we built ourselves.
Believing more information leads to better decisions, regardless of relevance.
When trivial metrics become the target, the trivial becomes the strategy.
Losses hurt roughly twice as much as equivalent gains feel good.