Scientific Definition
Donors penalize 'overhead' and starve capacity that produces outcomes.
Plain-English Definition
Donors penalize 'overhead' and starve capacity that produces outcomes.
Feynman Explanation
We rate charities on starvation diets.
Core Principle
Donors penalize 'overhead' and starve capacity that produces outcomes.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Donors penalize 'overhead' and starve capacity that produces outcomes.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Input ratios masquerade as outcome quality.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
We rate charities on starvation diets.
Examples
- Ratings-driven NGO underinvestment in tech and people.
- Input ratios masquerade as outcome quality.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Outcome-based ratings. Capital-grant funding.
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.
- Outcome-based ratings. Capital-grant funding.
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.
Donors penalize 'overhead'; charities under-invest in capacity.
Once-a-year feedback rewards once-a-year behavior.
The more a quantitative indicator drives decisions, the more it distorts the process it measures.
A reward designed to reduce X produces more X.
Squeezing all slack from a system optimizes throughput but eliminates resilience.
'Equal value' exchanges incentivize subjective appraisal gaming to trade low-utility land for high-value public assets.
When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
Deep specialization improves local output but breaks cross-domain understanding.
Greedy improvement loops climb hills that aren't the highest hill.
When rewards don't match stated values, culture quietly decays toward what is rewarded.
Insulation from risk changes the risks people take.
Systems with weak corrective feedback drift unchecked into failure modes.