Six-Step Reframe is a negotiation between conscious goals and the unconscious 'positive intention' behind a problem behavior. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0620, within the Behavior family. The core principle: a negotiation between conscious goals and the unconscious 'positive intention' behind a problem behavior. 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
A negotiation between conscious goals and the unconscious 'positive intention' behind a problem behavior.
Plain-English Definition
A negotiation between conscious goals and the unconscious 'positive intention' behind a problem behavior.
Feynman Explanation
The bad habit is on your team. It's just running its own KPI.
Core Principle
A negotiation between conscious goals and the unconscious 'positive intention' behind a problem behavior.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
A negotiation between conscious goals and the unconscious 'positive intention' behind a problem behavior.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral change in coaching engagements and executive transitions.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
The bad habit is on your team. It's just running its own KPI.
Examples
- Bandler & Grinder's structured reframing protocol.
- Behavioral change in coaching engagements and executive transitions.
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: a negotiation between conscious goals and the unconscious 'positive intention' behind a problem behavior. You can recognize it in the field by its signature: the bad habit is on your team. It's just running its own KPI. 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, behavioral change in coaching engagements and executive transitions. It is amplified whenever behavioral change in coaching engagements and executive transitions. Inside organizations that shows up as behavioral change in coaching engagements and executive transitions. 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 identify the positive intention first. Find three new behaviors that satisfy it. The leverage is not in explaining the behavior to people. It is in changing what the behavior earns.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Identify the positive intention first. Find three new behaviors that satisfy 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 positive intention first. Find three new behaviors that satisfy 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.
Pairing a sensory cue with a desired internal state until the cue reliably evokes the state.
Firing two opposing emotional anchors simultaneously to neutralize a negative state.
Alignment between verbal message, tone, posture, and underlying intent. Audiences detect the gap.
Rapidly replacing an unwanted internal image with a desired one to disrupt a habitual response.
Following the group instead of using private information or independent judgment.
How will I feel about this in 10 minutes / 10 months / 10 years?
Basics first (health/finances), then depth (mastery/impact), then altruism (widening circle).
A group decides on a course of action that nobody actually wants, because everyone assumes others prefer it.
Inattention or forgetfulness caused by low attention, hyperfocus, or distraction.
Deriving general rules from specific examples; the leap from instance to concept.
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
We attribute our own actions to situations but others' actions to their character.
Where Six-Step Reframe 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.
- CourseIncentives 101
The free ten-part primer on reading a payoff structure.
- ReferenceThe incentive glossary
Definitions for every mental model, bias, and fallacy in the corpus.
- ReferenceThe Periodic Table of Human Behavior
The full 1,267-element map this page belongs to.
Questions about Six-Step Reframe
- What is Six-Step Reframe?
- Six-Step Reframe is a negotiation between conscious goals and the unconscious 'positive intention' behind a problem behavior. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0620, within the Behavior family. The core principle: a negotiation between conscious goals and the unconscious 'positive intention' behind a problem behavior. 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 Six-Step Reframe?
- Behavioral change in coaching engagements and executive transitions. The Incentives Lab catalogs everyday, organizational, and historical instances of this element on its Human Behavior Taxonomy™ page (HBT-COG-0620).
- How is Six-Step Reframe exploited?
- Behavioral change in coaching engagements and executive transitions.
- How do you design around Six-Step Reframe?
- Identify the positive intention first. Find three new behaviors that satisfy it.
- Which behavioral dimension does Six-Step Reframe belong to?
- Six-Step Reframe is classified in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™, family "Behavior", class "Mental Model". Its permanent identifier is HBT-COG-0620 and its evidence grade is B.