Performance Metrics is measure drives behavior. It sits in the Incentives dimension (INC) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-INC-0296, within the Level 4 family. The core principle: measure drives behavior. 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
Measure drives behavior
Plain-English Definition
Measure drives behavior
Feynman Explanation
Measure drives behavior
Core Principle
Measure drives behavior
Mechanisms
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Inputs (Triggers)
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Outputs (Behaviors)
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Behavioral Signature
Measure drives behavior
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 Incentives dimension — what makes behavior more or less likely?. You can recognize it in the field by its signature: measure drives behavior. Every element in the Incentives 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
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Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
Systems that shape our future
Aligns effort with group goals
Profit, penalties, and prices
Laws, subsidies, taxes, penalties
Attract behavior with upside
Once-a-year feedback rewards once-a-year behavior.
Quantitative measures of model behavior across groups.
DAU/MAU goals override product safety and wellbeing investments.
Metrics that look good without indicating business value.
Discount framing nudges people to buy things they wouldn't otherwise want.
Productivity targets compress visits, raising misdiagnosis and burnout.
A federal mandate intended to lower drug costs for the poor became a profit engine for hospitals and contract pharmacies.
Where Performance Metrics is cited in the corpus
Essays, field guides, and diagnostics from The Incentives Lab that apply this element.
- Field guideIncentives: definition, types, examples
The parent field guide for this element.
- ReferenceThe laws of incentives
Goodhart, Campbell, and the Cobra Effect.
- EssayThe Perverse Incentives Hiding in Your KPIs
The measurement failure mode for this element.
- 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 Performance Metrics
- What is Performance Metrics?
- Performance Metrics is measure drives behavior. It sits in the Incentives dimension (INC) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-INC-0296, within the Level 4 family. The core principle: measure drives behavior. 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 Performance Metrics 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 Performance Metrics?
- 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 Performance Metrics belong to?
- Performance Metrics is classified in the Incentives dimension (INC) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™, family "Level 4", class "Behavioral Force". Its permanent identifier is HBT-INC-0296 and its evidence grade is B.