Scientific Definition
Effort accelerates as the goal gets closer.
Plain-English Definition
Effort accelerates as the goal gets closer.
Feynman Explanation
Loyalty cards work because the 8th stamp pulls harder than the 2nd.
Core Principle
Effort accelerates as the goal gets closer.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Effort accelerates as the goal gets closer.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Progress visibility drives completion across products and incentives.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
Loyalty cards work because the 8th stamp pulls harder than the 2nd.
Examples
- Coffee cards with two free stamps outperform empty ones.
- Progress visibility drives completion across products and incentives.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Make progress visible. Pre-load early wins. Show the goal's proximity.
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.
- Make progress visible. Pre-load early wins. Show the goal's proximity.
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.
We act in ways that confirm 'people like me do things like this.'
Lifetime purpose → multi-year missions → annual goals → quarterly bets → weekly actions.
Giving someone artificial early progress increases the chance they finish.
Temporal landmarks (Monday, January, birthday) trigger new behavior attempts.
What people expect of themselves shapes what they achieve.
Children who delay gratification at age 4 show better outcomes across nearly every metric decades later.
Interrupted tasks generate a pull to resume them.
Unfinished tasks stick in working memory more than completed ones.
Preferring options with known probabilities over options with unknown ones.
We accept vague, general statements as personally meaningful.
Approach motivation — pursuit of rewards and goals.
Avoidance motivation — sensitivity to punishment, uncertainty, and threat.