Decoy Effect

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.

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 remember peaks and ends, not the duration in between.

'Equal value' exchanges incentivize subjective appraisal gaming to trade low-utility land for high-value public assets.

What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

When trivial metrics become the target, the trivial becomes the strategy.

Sensory input is filtered through deletion, distortion, and generalization before it becomes the internal state you experience.

Reason in distributions, not in points.

Treating yourself with the same kindness, common humanity, and mindful awareness you'd extend to a friend.

Knowledge that is hard to transfer because it is personal and experience-based.

Discount framing nudges people to buy things they wouldn't otherwise want.

Saying it often enough until objections fade.

Treating one kind of thing as if it belonged to a different ontological category.

Preference between two options depends on what other options sit beside them — attraction, compromise, similarity effects.