Scientific Definition
Individual rationality produces collective irrationality.
Plain-English Definition
Individual rationality produces collective irrationality.
Feynman Explanation
Every cartel, climate negotiation, and tech price war.
Core Principle
Individual rationality produces collective irrationality.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Individual rationality produces collective irrationality.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Most corporate dysfunctions are repeated prisoner's dilemmas.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
Every cartel, climate negotiation, and tech price war.
Examples
- Two competitors over-spending on marketing because neither can stop first.
- Most corporate dysfunctions are repeated prisoner's dilemmas.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Engineer cooperation: long horizons, binding commitments, reputation.
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.
- Engineer cooperation: long horizons, binding commitments, reputation.
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.
Combine extreme safety with extreme risk; avoid the middle.
Game theory adjusted for how humans actually play — including fairness, reciprocity, and limited reasoning.
Allocating finite resources across many fronts when the opponent does the same — no dominant strategy exists.
Coordinated action that produces outcomes unavailable to individual actors.
Designing organizations to ride doubling curves — AI, data, compute, biotech — rather than linear improvement.
Decisions depend on what other strategic actors will do.
Causal chain from inputs to outputs to outcomes to impact.
Start cooperative; copy your counterpart's last move thereafter.
Where, how, what — in that order.
One party's gain is exactly another party's loss.
Reverse-engineering the internal sequence — visual, auditory, kinesthetic — an expert uses to produce a result.
Unconscious psychological strategies that protect self-image.