Scientific Definition
Perceived fairness of outcomes, process, and treatment.
Plain-English Definition
Perceived fairness of outcomes, process, and treatment.
Feynman Explanation
People can accept losing; they can't accept being treated unfairly while losing.
Core Principle
Perceived fairness of outcomes, process, and treatment.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
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Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
People can accept losing; they can't accept being treated unfairly while losing.
Examples
- Layoffs handled with dignity preserve more value than the severance line item.
- Procedural justice predicts trust more than distributional outcomes.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Design for explainability and recourse, not just correctness.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
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The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Design for explainability and recourse, not just correctness.
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.
Competing loyalties that compromise judgment.
Visible information about decisions, processes, and tradeoffs.
Clear ownership of outcomes, not just tasks.
Asymmetric information attracts the worst counterparties.
We defer to perceived expertise, rank, or uniform.
Vastness that exceeds existing schemas dissolves the self briefly.
Negative feedback returns a system toward a target.
Membership in a group is a baseline human need.
Individually rational choices that produce a collectively bad outcome.
We seek tasks where we feel effective and improving.
Value is judged against whatever sits next to it.
Outcomes depend on aligning choices, not on who 'wins.'