Scientific Definition
Costs or benefits that affect third parties not involved in a transaction.
Plain-English Definition
Costs or benefits that affect third parties not involved in a transaction.
Feynman Explanation
Someone always pays. Sometimes it is not the buyer.
Core Principle
Costs or benefits that affect third parties not involved in a transaction.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Costs or benefits that affect third parties not involved in a transaction.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Culture and reputation are externality factories.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
Someone always pays. Sometimes it is not the buyer.
Examples
- Pollution is a cost imposed on society by a producer.
- Culture and reputation are externality factories.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Internalize externalities by measuring and pricing them.
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.
- Internalize externalities by measuring and pricing them.
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.
Value grows with the number of users.
Systems that gain from disorder.
Approach motivation — pursuit of rewards and goals.
Avoidance motivation — sensitivity to punishment, uncertainty, and threat.
Map reinforcing (R) and balancing (B) feedback loops between variables to see system behavior.
A system with many interacting parts that learn and adapt.
Many interacting parts producing emergent behavior nobody designed.
Single-loop fixes the action. Double-loop questions the goal or model that produced it.
System 1 is fast, automatic, intuitive; System 2 is slow, effortful, deliberate.
Interdependent network of actors evolving together.
The whole has properties that the individual parts do not.
Systems maintain stability by self-regulating around a setpoint.