Slippery Slope (cause/effect form) is small step → catastrophic outcome, without the intermediate causal links. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0623, within the Causation Fallacy family. The core principle: small step → catastrophic outcome, without the intermediate causal links. 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
Small step → catastrophic outcome, without the intermediate causal links.
Plain-English Definition
Small step → catastrophic outcome, without the intermediate causal links.
Feynman Explanation
Allow PTO requests on Mondays and the entire company will collapse.
Core Principle
Small step → catastrophic outcome, without the intermediate causal links.
Mechanisms
Small step → catastrophic outcome, without the intermediate causal links.
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Inputs (Triggers)
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Outputs (Behaviors)
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Behavioral Signature
Allow PTO requests on Mondays and the entire company will collapse.
Examples
- 'If we let one team use the AI tool, soon nobody will write anything themselves.'
- Reasonable changes blocked by imagined cascades.
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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 is one of the elements leaders describe as a values gap. It is a payoff gap. The mechanism underneath it is straightforward: small step → catastrophic outcome, without the intermediate causal links. You can recognize it in the field by its signature: allow PTO requests on Mondays and the entire company will collapse. 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, reasonable changes blocked by imagined cascades. It is amplified whenever reasonable changes blocked by imagined cascades. Inside organizations that shows up as reasonable changes blocked by imagined cascades. 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. Watch for it at the boundaries: handoffs, promotions, incident reviews, and budget cycles are where this element gets its power.
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
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Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
A small step inevitably leads to extreme consequences.
If A then B; B happened; therefore A.
Reasoning backward from outcomes to motives.
Treating two things that move together as one causing the other.
With this, therefore because of this.
If A then B; not A; therefore not B.
Stacking so many tenuous links that the conclusion sounds clever.
B followed A, therefore A caused B.
Assuming one cause where many are at play.
Attacking the person rather than the argument.
A single story used as proof of a general claim.
It's true because authority says so.
Where Slippery Slope (cause/effect form) 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 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 Slippery Slope (cause/effect form)
- What is Slippery Slope (cause/effect form)?
- Slippery Slope (cause/effect form) is small step → catastrophic outcome, without the intermediate causal links. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0623, within the Causation Fallacy family. The core principle: small step → catastrophic outcome, without the intermediate causal links. 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 Slippery Slope (cause/effect form)?
- Reasonable changes blocked by imagined cascades. The Incentives Lab catalogs everyday, organizational, and historical instances of this element on its Human Behavior Taxonomy™ page (HBT-COG-0623).
- How is Slippery Slope (cause/effect form) exploited?
- Reasonable changes blocked by imagined cascades.
- How do you design around Slippery Slope (cause/effect form)?
- 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 Slippery Slope (cause/effect form) belong to?
- Slippery Slope (cause/effect form) is classified in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™, family "Causation Fallacy", class "Logical Fallacy". Its permanent identifier is HBT-COG-0623 and its evidence grade is B.