Scientific Definition
Preference for what already exists, simply because it exists.
Plain-English Definition
Preference for what already exists, simply because it exists.
Feynman Explanation
Defaults are the strongest policy you'll never debate.
Core Principle
Preference for what already exists, simply because it exists.
Mechanisms
Preference for what already exists, simply because it exists.
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Inputs (Triggers)
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Outputs (Behaviors)
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Behavioral Signature
Defaults are the strongest policy you'll never debate.
Examples
- Comp plans unchanged for a decade despite three pivots in strategy.
- Legacy structures preserved long past their useful life.
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Famous Experiments
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Design Principles
- Zero-base annually. Assume nothing automatically renews.
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.
- Zero-base annually. Assume nothing automatically renews.
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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.
Doing something feels safer than doing nothing — even when nothing wins.
Feelings act as shortcuts for facts.
Over-reliance on the first number that hits the table.
Adding a clearly worse option steers people toward the option you wanted.
Whatever is pre-selected wins more often than it should.
We value things more once they're ours.
The same information lands differently depending on how it's wrapped.
We disproportionately prefer rewards now over rewards later.
We overvalue things we built ourselves.
Believing more information leads to better decisions, regardless of relevance.
When trivial metrics become the target, the trivial becomes the strategy.
Losses hurt roughly twice as much as equivalent gains feel good.