vMeme is a value system — a structured way of making meaning that emerges at a particular life-condition stage. It sits in the Culture dimension (CUL) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-CUL-0007, within the Culture family. The core principle: a value system — a structured way of making meaning that emerges at a particular life-condition stage. 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 value system — a structured way of making meaning that emerges at a particular life-condition stage.
Plain-English Definition
A value system — a structured way of making meaning that emerges at a particular life-condition stage.
Feynman Explanation
Worldviews aren't opinions. They're operating systems.
Core Principle
A value system — a structured way of making meaning that emerges at a particular life-condition stage.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
A value system — a structured way of making meaning that emerges at a particular life-condition stage.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Different vMemes respond to different incentives, narratives, and authority structures.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
Worldviews aren't opinions. They're operating systems.
Examples
- Beck & Cowan, drawing on Clare Graves's longitudinal research.
- Different vMemes respond to different incentives, narratives, and authority structures.
Pending editorial review.
Original analysis from The Incentives Lab — how this element behaves inside real payoff structures.
Why this element matters to incentive design
When this element shows up in a diagnostic, the instinct is to train people out of it. Training rarely moves it. The mechanism underneath it is straightforward: a value system — a structured way of making meaning that emerges at a particular life-condition stage. You can recognize it in the field by its signature: worldviews aren't opinions. They're operating systems. Every element in the Culture 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, different vMemes respond to different incentives, narratives, and authority structures. It is amplified whenever different vMemes respond to different incentives, narratives, and authority structures. Inside organizations that shows up as different vMemes respond to different incentives, narratives, and authority structures. 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 speak in the vMeme of the audience first. Only then can you move them upward. 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
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Speak in the vMeme of the audience first. Only then can you move them upward.
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.
- Speak in the vMeme of the audience first. Only then can you move them upward.
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.
Order, discipline, hierarchy, principle, and rule-based value system. The 'right way' to do things.
The communitarian, egalitarian, consensus-seeking value system. Emerged strongly post-1960s.
The achievement-driven, rational, strategic, market-oriented value system. Most of Western corporate life.
Egocentric, power-driven, immediate-gratification value system. The will to dominate.
The integrative, systemic, flexible value system — the first of second-tier.
We prefer stories over raw facts, even when the story is misleading.
We construct a coherent life story; that story shapes future decisions.
Cultures vary in how strictly norms are enforced and deviance punished.
Each value system (Beige through Green) believes itself to be the only valid one and dismisses the others.
The relative weight a culture gives to individual goals vs. group cohesion.
The combination of historical, social, and existential pressures that activates the next vMeme.
How much hierarchical inequality a culture accepts as normal.
Where vMeme is cited in the corpus
Essays, field guides, and diagnostics from The Incentives Lab that apply this element.
- EssayCulture Is the Residue of Incentives
Declared culture versus revealed culture.
- DiagnosticCultural Performance Audit™
The instrument that reads cultural behavior.
- EssayAI Agents Inherit Your Incentives
How this element propagates into automated systems.
- ReferenceThe incentive glossary
Definitions for every mental model, bias, and fallacy in the corpus.
- 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 vMeme
- What is vMeme?
- vMeme is a value system — a structured way of making meaning that emerges at a particular life-condition stage. It sits in the Culture dimension (CUL) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-CUL-0007, within the Culture family. The core principle: a value system — a structured way of making meaning that emerges at a particular life-condition stage. 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 vMeme?
- Different vMemes respond to different incentives, narratives, and authority structures. The Incentives Lab catalogs everyday, organizational, and historical instances of this element on its Human Behavior Taxonomy™ page (HBT-CUL-0007).
- How is vMeme exploited?
- Different vMemes respond to different incentives, narratives, and authority structures.
- How do you design around vMeme?
- Speak in the vMeme of the audience first. Only then can you move them upward.
- Which behavioral dimension does vMeme belong to?
- vMeme is classified in the Culture dimension (CUL) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™, family "Culture", class "Mental Model". Its permanent identifier is HBT-CUL-0007 and its evidence grade is B.