False Cause (Post Hoc)
Assuming that because B followed A, A caused B.
"The rooster crows. The sun rises. The rooster takes credit."
What is False Cause (Post Hoc)? Assuming that because B followed A, A caused B. Most 'we did X and Y improved' claims are post hoc errors.
Crediting a new initiative for trends already underway.
Most 'we did X and Y improved' claims are post hoc errors.
Use control groups, holdouts, and causal inference techniques.
Use the model. Pick the move.
Assuming that because B followed A, A caused B. You've just seen this: Crediting a new initiative for trends already underway. Which lever does the model recommend?
Pick a lever. There are no neutral ones — every incentive funds a behavior somewhere.
Pick a reaction to False Cause (Post Hoc)
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The full taxonomy entry
Every concept in the Atlas uses the same structure — so False Cause (Post Hoc) 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 False Cause (Post Hoc) most often show up unnoticed?
- Which metric, ritual, or contract clause quietly rewards False Cause (Post Hoc)?
- If we removed every payoff for False Cause (Post Hoc), what behavior would replace it?
- Who benefits when False Cause (Post Hoc) persists — and who pays the cost?
- People defend the status quo using the language of false cause (post hoc).
- 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 False Cause (Post Hoc) through 2 lenses
Each layer of the Incentives OS reframes this concept with its own thinkers, vocabulary, and diagnostic question.
Do you actually know False Cause (Post Hoc)?
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Which best describes False Cause (Post Hoc)?
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 False Cause (Post Hoc), 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.
Painful self-evaluation against a social standard.
Modeling what others think, want, and will do.
Free products monetize attention, structurally aligning incentives against user time well spent.
Auditors paid by the firms they audit have predictable blind spots.
Every unnecessary element in a story must be removed, or it will be expected to matter.
Operating economics shaped by per-token pricing.
Asset prices fully reflect available information; you can't reliably beat the market.
Tying utility profit to capital spent penalizes cheaper non-wire efficiency solutions.
In a cold state, we systematically underestimate how a hot state will hijack us.
Evaluated separately, the smaller-but-complete option beats the larger-but-flawed one.
A change to the choice architecture that predictably shifts behavior — without removing options.
Organize around outcomes and projects rather than fixed org-chart roles.