Red Herring is introducing an irrelevant topic to distract from the issue. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0567, within the Relevance Fallacy family. The core principle: introducing an irrelevant topic to distract from the issue. 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
Introducing an irrelevant topic to distract from the issue.
Plain-English Definition
Introducing an irrelevant topic to distract from the issue.
Feynman Explanation
Pivot the question. Win the room. Lose the year.
Core Principle
Introducing an irrelevant topic to distract from the issue.
Mechanisms
Introducing an irrelevant topic to distract from the issue.
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Inputs (Triggers)
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Outputs (Behaviors)
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Behavioral Signature
Pivot the question. Win the room. Lose the year.
Examples
- Pivoting from 'did we hit our number?' to 'look at this exciting pipeline.'
- Performance conversations sidetracked by adjacent narratives.
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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
This element is common enough to feel like human nature and specific enough to be engineered around. The mechanism underneath it is straightforward: introducing an irrelevant topic to distract from the issue. You can recognize it in the field by its signature: pivot the question. Win the room. Lose the year. 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, performance conversations sidetracked by adjacent narratives. It is amplified whenever performance conversations sidetracked by adjacent narratives. Inside organizations that shows up as performance conversations sidetracked by adjacent narratives. 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. Measure the behavior, not the sentiment. A survey will tell you how people feel about this; only observed action tells you whether it changed.
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.
Attacking the person rather than the argument.
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.
Claiming something is true because it hasn't been proven false (or vice versa).
If it's 'natural,' it's good.
It's better because it's newer.
It's right because it's how we've always done it.
I can't believe it; therefore it isn't true.
Saying it enough times until it sounds true.
It's true because many believe it.
Asking the other side to disprove an unsupported claim.
Where Red Herring 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.
- 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 Red Herring
- What is Red Herring?
- Red Herring is introducing an irrelevant topic to distract from the issue. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0567, within the Relevance Fallacy family. The core principle: introducing an irrelevant topic to distract from the issue. 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 Red Herring?
- Performance conversations sidetracked by adjacent narratives. The Incentives Lab catalogs everyday, organizational, and historical instances of this element on its Human Behavior Taxonomy™ page (HBT-COG-0567).
- How is Red Herring exploited?
- Performance conversations sidetracked by adjacent narratives.
- How do you design around Red Herring?
- 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 Red Herring belong to?
- Red Herring is classified in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™, family "Relevance Fallacy", class "Logical Fallacy". Its permanent identifier is HBT-COG-0567 and its evidence grade is B.