Scientific Definition
Studying winners while ignoring identical losers.
Plain-English Definition
Studying winners while ignoring identical losers.
Feynman Explanation
Best practices are graveyard archaeology with the graves edited out.
Core Principle
Studying winners while ignoring identical losers.
Mechanisms
Studying winners while ignoring identical losers.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
Best practices are graveyard archaeology with the graves edited out.
Examples
- Founder advice from the one who made it — ignoring the ten thousand who did the same and didn't.
- Strategy frameworks built entirely on selection bias.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Always ask: where's the data on the ones who tried this and failed?
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.
- Always ask: where's the data on the ones who tried this and failed?
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.
A story repeats until it becomes obviously true.
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.
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.