Scientific Definition
Treating an abstraction as if it were a concrete thing.
Plain-English Definition
Treating an abstraction as if it were a concrete thing.
Feynman Explanation
'The market doesn't want this.' The market is not a person.
Core Principle
Treating an abstraction as if it were a concrete thing.
Mechanisms
Treating an abstraction as if it were a concrete thing.
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Inputs (Triggers)
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Outputs (Behaviors)
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Behavioral Signature
'The market doesn't want this.' The market is not a person.
Examples
- 'Culture decided' — culture doesn't decide.
- Accountability dissolved by personifying systems.
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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.
Assuming the conclusion in the premise.
The conclusion is hidden inside the premise.
What's true of the parts is assumed true of the whole.
Because there's no sharp line, no distinction exists.
Quietly redefining a term mid-argument.
What's true of the whole is assumed true of the parts.
Constraining the option set to bias the decision.
Insisting on a word's original meaning over its current one.
Treating two things as comparable when they're not.
Assuming the truth must lie between two extremes.
Deriving 'is' from 'ought.'
Changing success criteria whenever the prior criteria are met.