Scientific Definition
Choosing to restrict your future options now, to avoid making a worse choice later.
Plain-English Definition
Choosing to restrict your future options now, to avoid making a worse choice later.
Feynman Explanation
The cleanest way to win an argument with your future self is to disarm them in advance.
Core Principle
Choosing to restrict your future options now, to avoid making a worse choice later.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Choosing to restrict your future options now, to avoid making a worse choice later.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Capital plans, hiring freezes, and review cadences all work as precommitment devices.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
The cleanest way to win an argument with your future self is to disarm them in advance.
Examples
- Auto-investing on payday. Throwing out the snacks before the diet starts.
- Capital plans, hiring freezes, and review cadences all work as precommitment devices.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Identify the temptation. Bind against it before the moment, not in it.
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.
- Identify the temptation. Bind against it before the moment, not in it.
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.
How will I feel about this in 10 minutes / 10 months / 10 years?
Inattention or forgetfulness caused by low attention, hyperfocus, or distraction.
Forgetting to compare an offer with the next-best alternative.
Outcomes that could have happened but did not.
Overthinking a situation so that decision-making stalls.
The first number on the table silently sets the range for every number after it.
Tversky & Kahneman's classic: identical outcomes flip from 'risk averse' to 'risk seeking' when framed as lives saved vs. lives lost.
Our perception is shaped by what we selectively pay attention to.
Favoring suggestions from automated systems over conflicting human judgment.
A color appears different depending on adjacent colors.
Decisions are constrained by available information, cognitive limits, and time.
The ability to focus on one voice in a noisy environment.