Moral Emotions is anger, outrage, compassion. It sits in the Emotion dimension (EMO) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-EMO-0013, within the Level 6 family. The core principle: anger, outrage, compassion. 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
Anger, outrage, compassion
Plain-English Definition
Anger, outrage, compassion
Feynman Explanation
Anger, outrage, compassion
Core Principle
Anger, outrage, compassion
Mechanisms
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Inputs (Triggers)
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Outputs (Behaviors)
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Behavioral Signature
Anger, outrage, compassion
Examples
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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
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 operates in the Emotion dimension — how do we feel?. You can recognize it in the field by its signature: anger, outrage, compassion. Every element in the Emotion 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, this element is exploited the ordinary way: someone discovers that triggering it is cheaper than earning the outcome it stands in for. 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. The test of any redesign here is simple: after the change, can you name what the organization is now doing less of? If not, the payoff structure did not actually move.
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.
Hope, awe, dread
Shared feelings become norms
We feel with others
Desire for more than enough
Seeks connection and safety
We notice things selectively
Systems that shape our future
Complex adaptive systems
Unites millions around ideas
Humanity learns together
Drives innovation and differentiation
Patterns between two people
Where Moral Emotions is cited in the corpus
Essays, field guides, and diagnostics from The Incentives Lab that apply this element.
- EssayWe Change to Avoid Pain
The affective engine behind most organizational change.
- ReferenceThe Lab's philosophy
Filter, anchor, condition safety.
- ReferenceThe Periodic Table of Human Behavior
The full 1,267-element map this page belongs to.
- CourseIncentives 101
The free ten-part primer on reading a payoff structure.
Questions about Moral Emotions
- What is Moral Emotions?
- Moral Emotions is anger, outrage, compassion. It sits in the Emotion dimension (EMO) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-EMO-0013, within the Level 6 family. The core principle: anger, outrage, compassion. In incentive terms, it matters because it changes the payoff people perceive before they choose — which means it can be designed for, or exploited.
- How is Moral Emotions exploited?
- It is exploited when triggering the behavior becomes cheaper than producing the outcome the behavior is supposed to signal — the standard perverse-incentive path.
- How do you design around Moral Emotions?
- 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 Moral Emotions belong to?
- Moral Emotions is classified in the Emotion dimension (EMO) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™, family "Level 6", class "Behavioral Force". Its permanent identifier is HBT-EMO-0013 and its evidence grade is B.