Scientific Definition
A story repeats until it becomes obviously true.
Plain-English Definition
A story repeats until it becomes obviously true.
Feynman Explanation
Said enough times, an anecdote becomes a strategy.
Core Principle
A story repeats until it becomes obviously true.
Mechanisms
A story repeats until it becomes obviously true.
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Inputs (Triggers)
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Outputs (Behaviors)
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Behavioral Signature
Said enough times, an anecdote becomes a strategy.
Examples
- A single competitor story dominates ten internal decks for a year.
- Strategy follows whatever narrative had the best PR cycle.
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Famous Experiments
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Design Principles
- Demand the underlying base rate every time the anecdote surfaces.
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.
- Demand the underlying base rate every time the anecdote surfaces.
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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.
Contradictory evidence sometimes deepens the original belief.
Beliefs survive the evidence that should have killed them.
We hunt for evidence that we were right all along.
Updating beliefs too slowly when new evidence arrives.
Believing people get what they deserve.
Assuming new technology will be adopted faster and more usefully than it will.
Reflexively rejecting evidence that contradicts established norms.
Studying winners while ignoring identical losers.
We defend existing systems even when they harm us.
Evaluating an argument's logic based on whether you agree with the conclusion.
We see bias in others more easily than in ourselves.
Low ability paired with high confidence.