Extension Neglect
Ignoring the size of a sample or population in our judgments.
"One vivid story beats a thousand silent ones."
What is Extension Neglect? Ignoring the size of a sample or population in our judgments. Decision weight should scale with sample weight.
Reacting to a single customer complaint the same as to a survey of thousands.
Decision weight should scale with sample weight. Often doesn't.
Always note 'how many?' before reacting to 'what?'
Use the model. Pick the move.
Ignoring the size of a sample or population in our judgments. You've just seen this: Reacting to a single customer complaint the same as to a survey of thousands. Which lever does the model recommend?
Pick a lever. There are no neutral ones — every incentive funds a behavior somewhere.
Pick a reaction to Extension Neglect
One tap. We'll point you at the most useful next surface based on how this hits.
The full taxonomy entry
Every concept in the Atlas uses the same structure — so Extension Neglect can be compared, recombined, and cited like an element on a periodic table.
- Business
- Leadership
- Government
- Healthcare
- Education
- Sales
- Marketing
- AI
- Negotiation
- Media
- Public Policy
- Relationships
- Where in our org would Extension Neglect most often show up unnoticed?
- Which metric, ritual, or contract clause quietly rewards Extension Neglect?
- If we removed every payoff for Extension Neglect, what behavior would replace it?
- Who benefits when Extension Neglect persists — and who pays the cost?
- People defend the status quo using the language of extension neglect.
- Decisions cluster around the easiest narrative rather than the strongest evidence.
- New data changes the slide deck but not the decision.
- Anyone naming the pattern is treated as the problem.
Every Atlas entry is a node in a knowledge graph. See the related rail below to follow the connections.
See Extension Neglect through 2 lenses
Each layer of the Incentives OS reframes this concept with its own thinkers, vocabulary, and diagnostic question.
Do you actually know Extension Neglect?
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Which best describes Extension Neglect?
Worked example, counter-example & concept map
On-demand AI analysis grounded in the Lab's research. Cached on your device after first run.
When you encounter Extension Neglect, your prefrontal cortex has to do extra work to override the automatic response — and that override budget is finite.
Executive control, planning, impulse override, working memory, System 2. First thing to go offline under stress, fatigue, or low blood sugar. Why your 4pm decisions are worse than your 9am ones.
See Prefrontal in the Brain Atlas →Picked for you, from the Atlas
Ranked by shared learning paths, overlapping chips, and what you've saved.
Deriving general rules from specific examples; the leap from instance to concept.
The brain evolved to reason adaptively, not always truthfully, to reduce the cost of errors.
We solve problems by adding, even when subtracting would be better.
Assuming that if one option is true, another must be false, when both can be true.
Presuming a purposeful actor behind events that may have no actor at all.
What cannot be settled by experiment is not worth debating.
Send the card, not just the link
A pre-rendered social card with the title, eyebrow, and URL. Copy the link, post it anywhere, or download the SVG for slides.
More definitions to follow
Every term in the Atlas connects to a dozen others. Pick any of these and see where it takes you.
Many interacting parts producing emergent behavior nobody designed.
If A then B; not A; therefore not B.
Decisions optimize utility, not value.
Effort accelerates as the goal gets closer.
Outer: the spec matches our intent. Inner: the model actually pursues the spec.
Wansink's finding that environmental cues — plate size, packaging, lighting — silently drive consumption.
Producers internalize profit while waste, microplastics, and cleanup are public costs.
Investing in workforce transition vs. workforce change.
Coordination problem where cooperation pays more but defection is safer.
Mandating pre-funding of unborn retirees' health benefits engineered artificial insolvency.
Cumulative physiological wear from chronic stress.
Charging by time rewards inefficiency and prolongs disputes.