# Center for Behavioral Decisions (CBD) — Full Reference

> Founded in 2018, the Center for Behavioral Decisions integrates behavioral science with advanced technology (including AI-powered Behavioral Digital Twins and Adaptive Behavioral Interventions) to improve how people and organizations decide. This file is an expanded, LLM-friendly index — see also /llms.txt.

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## Behavioral Science Dictionary (1001 terms)

Free one-line definitions of behavioral science concepts. Every term also has its own page carrying the full entry, worked examples, the origin, and cross-links — all free and open, no account needed. Index: https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms. You may cite these definitions with attribution to the Center for Behavioral Decisions.

### Behavioral Economics
- **Adverse selection** — When the hidden-information party self-selects, the worst risks crowd in. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/adverse-selection)
- **Altruistic punishment** — Paying out of your own pocket to penalize a cheater who never wronged you directly. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/altruistic-punishment)
- **Anchoring contrast in assortments** — Show the expensive item first and everything after looks cheap. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/anchoring-contrast-in-assortments)
- **Anchoring with quantity limits** — A 'limit 12 per customer' sign makes shoppers buy more. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/anchoring-with-quantity-limits)
- **Animal spirits** — The waves of confidence and fear that drive economic activity beyond cold calculation. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/animal-spirits)
- **Backward induction** — Solve a sequential game by reasoning from the last move back to the first. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/backward-induction)
- **Bait-and-switch** — Lure buyers with a deal that vanishes, then sell them something pricier. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/bait-and-switch)
- **Bandwagon pricing cue** — Labeling an option 'most popular' makes more people pick it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/bandwagon-pricing-cue)
- **Battle of the sexes** — Both want to be together, but each prefers a different place to meet. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/battle-of-the-sexes)
- **Beauty contest game** — Win by guessing not what's true, but what everyone thinks everyone thinks. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/beauty-contest-game)
- **Behavioral game theory** — Game theory rebuilt around how people actually play. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/behavioral-game-theory)
- **Bid shading** — Bidding less than you think it's worth, on purpose. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/bid-shading)
- **Bounded self-interest** — Real people care about fairness and others, not just their own payoff. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/bounded-self-interest)
- **Bounded willpower** — People know what's good for them and still fail to do it, because willpower is finite. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/bounded-willpower)
- **Centipede game** — A growing pot that rational theory says you should grab immediately — but people don't. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/centipede-game)
- **Charm pricing** — Prices ending in 9 feel meaningfully cheaper than the round number above. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/charm-pricing)
- **Cheap talk** — Costless, nonbinding words that may or may not be believed. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/cheap-talk)
- **Common-value auction** — An auction for something worth the same to everyone, if only they knew what. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/common-value-auction)
- **Conspicuous consumption** — Buying expensive things precisely so others see you can. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/conspicuous-consumption)
- **Coordination game** — A game where players win by matching each other, not by outsmarting them. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/coordination-game)
- **Costly signaling** — A signal is believable precisely because it would be too expensive to fake. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/costly-signaling)
- **Coupling of consumption and payment** — How tightly a payment is mentally tied to the pleasure it buys changes how both feel. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/coupling-of-consumption-and-payment)
- **Decoupling (payment)** — Separating payment from consumption changes how both feel. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/decoupling-payment)
- **Decoy pricing** — Add a deliberately bad-value option to push buyers to the target tier. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/decoy-pricing)
- **Dictator game** — One player simply decides how much, if any, to give the other. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/dictator-game)
- **Dominant strategy** — A move that's your best response no matter what anyone else does. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/dominant-strategy)
- **Dominated strategy** — A move that's never worth playing because another always does at least as well. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/dominated-strategy)
- **Drip pricing** — Reveal the real total in dribs and drabs, after the buyer is hooked. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/drip-pricing)
- **Equity premium puzzle** — Stocks have historically out-earned bonds by far more than rational risk aversion can explain. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/equity-premium-puzzle)
- **Evolution of cooperation** — How cooperation among selfish agents can arise and survive without a referee. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/evolution-of-cooperation)
- **Extrapolation bias** — Investors expect recent trends to continue, projecting the past straight into the future. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/extrapolation-bias)
- **Fairness** — People value fair outcomes and processes, and pay to enforce them. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/fairness)
- **Flat-rate bias** — People prefer flat-rate plans even when pay-per-use would cost less. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/flat-rate-bias)
- **Focal point** — The obvious answer people converge on when they must coordinate without talking. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/focal-point)
- **Folk theorem** — In a long-enough relationship, almost any outcome — including cooperation — can be sustained. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/folk-theorem)
- **Free riding** — Enjoying a shared benefit without paying your share. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/free-riding)
- **Fungibility** — A dollar is a dollar — in theory, but not in the mind. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/fungibility)
- **Game of chicken** — Two players race toward collision; whoever swerves first loses face, but crashing is worst. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/game-of-chicken)
- **Goal dilution** — A product that claims to do many things seems worse at each one. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/goal-dilution)
- **Herding** — Investors imitate the crowd instead of acting on their own information. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/herding)
- **Home bias** — Investors pile into their own country's stocks and skip the diversification benefits abroad. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/home-bias)
- **Homo economicus** — The fictional, perfectly rational and self-interested agent of classical theory. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/homo-economicus)
- **IKEA effect** — We overvalue what we built ourselves. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/ikea-effect)
- **Indirect reciprocity** — Be good to others and a watching world will be good to you. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/indirect-reciprocity)
- **Inequity aversion** — People dislike unequal payoffs — resenting getting less, and uneasy getting more. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/inequity-aversion)
- **Iterated dominance** — Solve a game by repeatedly deleting moves no rational player would make. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/iterated-dominance)
- **January effect** — Small stocks tend to pop in January, defying efficient markets. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/january-effect)
- **Keeping up with the Joneses** — We benchmark our spending and satisfaction against our neighbors'. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/keeping-up-with-the-joneses)
- **Kin selection** — Helping relatives spreads your genes, so altruism toward kin can evolve. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/kin-selection)
- **Labor illusion** — Visible effort makes a service feel more valuable, even if it's slower. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/labor-illusion)
- **Left-digit effect** — We judge a price mostly by its first digit, so $3.00 dwarfs $2.99. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/left-digit-effect)
- **Level-k thinking** — People reason only a few steps deep about what others will do. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/level-k-thinking)
- **Lexicographic preferences** — Ranking options by one all-important attribute first, breaking ties only by the next. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/lexicographic-preferences)
- **Limits to arbitrage** — Smart money can't always correct mispricing, so it persists. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/limits-to-arbitrage)
- **Mixed strategy** — Randomizing your moves so opponents can't predict you. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/mixed-strategy)
- **Momentum** — Recent winners keep winning and recent losers keep losing, longer than they should. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/momentum)
- **Money illusion** — Judging money by its face value rather than its real purchasing power. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/money-illusion)
- **Money pump** — If your preferences are inconsistent, someone can cycle you through trades until you're broke. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/money-pump)
- **Moral hazard** — Shielded from the downside, people take risks they otherwise wouldn't. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/moral-hazard)
- **Narrow framing** — Judging each gamble in isolation instead of as one part of the whole portfolio. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/narrow-framing)
- **Nash equilibrium** — A stable combination of strategies where no player can gain by changing course alone. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/nash-equilibrium)
- **Network effect** — A product becomes more valuable to each user as more people use it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/network-effect)
- **Neuroeconomics** — Using neuroscience to understand how the brain makes economic decisions. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/neuroeconomics)
- **Noise trader** — An investor who trades on hunches and sentiment rather than fundamental information. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/noise-trader)
- **Noise-trader risk** — Mispricing can get worse before it gets better, and that danger scares off arbitrageurs. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/noise-trader-risk)
- **Nominal versus real** — The face-value number versus what it can actually buy after inflation. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/nominal-versus-real)
- **Opportunity cost** — The value of the best alternative you give up whenever you choose. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/opportunity-cost)
- **Overtrading** — The more people trade, the lower their returns — yet they keep trading. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/overtrading)
- **Pareto efficiency** — An outcome where no one can be made better off without making someone worse off. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/pareto-efficiency)
- **Partitioned pricing** — Splitting a price into base plus surcharges makes the total feel smaller. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/partitioned-pricing)
- **Pay-what-you-want pricing** — Let buyers set the price, and fairness norms keep it above zero. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/pay-what-you-want-pricing)
- **Payment depreciation** — The sting of a payment fades over time, loosening the link between cost and use. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/payment-depreciation)
- **Penny-a-day framing** — Quoting a cost as 'just $1 a day' makes it feel trivial. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/penny-a-day-framing)
- **Positional good** — A good whose value comes from how much of it you have relative to others. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/positional-good)
- **Price anchoring** — A reference number makes the actual price look like a deal or a rip-off. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/price-anchoring)
- **Price-quality heuristic** — If it costs more, we assume it must be better. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/price-quality-heuristic)
- **Principal-agent problem** — How do you get someone to act in your interest when you can't watch their every move? (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/principal-agent-problem)
- **Prisoner's dilemma** — Two rational players each defect — and both end up worse off than if they had cooperated. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/prisoner-s-dilemma)
- **Private-value auction** — An auction where the prize is worth a different, personal amount to each bidder. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/private-value-auction)
- **Protected values** — Commitments people refuse to trade against money at any price, on principle. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/protected-values)
- **Public goods game** — Everyone gains if all contribute, but each individual is tempted to free-ride on the rest. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/public-goods-game)
- **Rational choice theory** — Agents choose consistently to maximize their own utility given their constraints. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/rational-choice-theory)
- **Reciprocal altruism** — Helping others now in the expectation that the help will be returned later. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/reciprocal-altruism)
- **Reference price** — The price you expect to pay, which all real prices get judged against. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/reference-price)
- **Scarcity through exclusivity** — Restricting who can have something makes it more desirable. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/scarcity-through-exclusivity)
- **Screening** — The uninformed side designs choices that make the informed side reveal its type. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/screening)
- **Signaling** — Taking a costly, observable action to credibly reveal hidden information about yourself. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/signaling)
- **Stag hunt** — Cooperate for a big shared prize, but only if you trust the other to cooperate too. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/stag-hunt)
- **Strong reciprocity** — A drive to reward kindness and punish unfairness even at a net cost to yourself. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/strong-reciprocity)
- **Subgame perfection** — An equilibrium that stays rational at every point, ruling out empty threats. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/subgame-perfection)
- **Subjective expected utility** — Rational choice under uncertainty using your own probabilities and values. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/subjective-expected-utility)
- **Tit-for-tat** — Start by cooperating, then simply do whatever your partner did last time. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/tit-for-tat)
- **Tragedy of the commons** — Shared resources get overused when each person's incentives diverge from the group's interest. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/tragedy-of-the-commons)
- **Transaction utility** — The pleasure or pain of the deal itself, separate from the value of the thing bought. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/transaction-utility)
- **Transitivity** — If you prefer A to B and B to C, consistency demands you prefer A to C. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/transitivity)
- **Trust game** — Send money that grows on the way, trusting the other person to send a fair share back. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/trust-game)
- **Ultimatum game** — Split a sum — but if the responder rejects the offer, both walk away with nothing. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/ultimatum-game)
- **Value premium** — Cheap, unglamorous stocks have historically beaten expensive, glamorous ones. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/value-premium)
- **Veblen good** — A good people want more of precisely because it is expensive. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/veblen-good)
- **Winner's curse** — Win a common-value auction and you've probably overpaid. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/winner-s-curse)

### Choice Architecture
- **Active choosing** — Requiring people to make a deliberate choice rather than defaulting them. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/active-choosing)
- **Asymmetric paternalism** — Policies that help people who make mistakes while imposing little or no cost on those who are fully rational. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/asymmetric-paternalism)
- **Boomerang effect** — A norm message that backfires for people already doing well. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/boomerang-effect)
- **Boosting** — Building people's own competence to decide well, rather than steering their choice from the outside. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/boosting)
- **Channel factors** — Small situational details that open or block a path to action. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/channel-factors)
- **Choice architecture** — The design of the environment in which people make decisions. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/choice-architecture)
- **Choice editing** — Removing the worst options from the choice set so people don't have to, narrowing what is on offer. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/choice-editing)
- **Dark nudge** — A nudge engineered to serve the architect's interest at the expense of the person being nudged. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/dark-nudge)
- **Dark patterns** — Interface tricks that manipulate users against their interests. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/dark-patterns)
- **Debiasing** — Techniques that reduce or correct for cognitive biases in judgment and decisions. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/debiasing)
- **Default effect** — Whatever is pre-selected is what most people end up with. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/default-effect)
- **Default rules** — The pre-set options that take effect unless people actively choose otherwise — the most powerful lever in choice architecture. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/default-rules)
- **Feedback (behavioral)** — Showing people the consequences of their actions to guide them. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/feedback-behavioral)
- **Forcing function** — A design constraint that physically prevents an error or makes the desired action unavoidable. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/forcing-function)
- **Friction** — The small costs and hassles that quietly throttle behavior. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/friction)
- **Friction audit** — Cataloguing the small hassles in a process to decide where to remove friction — or deliberately add it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/friction-audit)
- **Gamification** — Using game design elements to motivate ordinary, non-game behavior. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/gamification)
- **Goal framing** — Stressing what you'll lose by not acting versus what you'll gain by acting. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/goal-framing)
- **Green nudge** — A choice-architecture change designed to encourage environmentally friendly behavior without mandates. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/green-nudge)
- **Hypernudge** — Data-driven, personalized, real-time nudging powered by algorithms and continuous behavioral feedback. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/hypernudge)
- **Implementation intentions** — Pre-deciding exactly when, where, and how you will act. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/implementation-intentions)
- **Inertia** — People tend to stay on the current path simply because changing takes effort and intention. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/inertia)
- **Libertarian paternalism** — Steering people toward better choices while fully preserving their freedom to choose. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/libertarian-paternalism)
- **Nudge** — A small change in how choices are presented that predictably shifts behavior without banning options or changing economic incentives. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/nudge)
- **Nudge for good** — The ethical mandate that choice architecture should serve the chooser, not the architect. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/nudge-for-good)
- **Nudge plus** — A nudge deliberately paired with a moment of reflection, so people understand and endorse the steer rather than being moved automatically. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/nudge-plus)
- **Nudgeability** — How susceptible a given person, behavior, or context is to being nudged in the first place. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/nudgeability)
- **Opt-in versus opt-out** — Whether the default is participation or not quietly determines who takes part. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/opt-in-versus-opt-out)
- **Personalized defaults** — Pre-set options tailored to each individual's likely preferences, rather than one default for everyone. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/personalized-defaults)
- **Portion-size effect** — Give people a bigger serving and they eat more, almost without noticing. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/portion-size-effect)
- **Priming** — Exposure to a cue subtly shapes how we respond to something related a moment later. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/priming)
- **Rebound effect** — Efficiency gains get partly eaten up because the cheaper behavior invites more of it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/rebound-effect)
- **RECAP** — A disclosure tool that gives consumers a clear annual record of what they actually used and were charged, to enable comparison. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/recap)
- **Reframing** — Recasting how an option or situation is described to change how it is perceived and chosen. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/reframing)
- **Reminders** — Timely prompts that close the gap between what people intend and what they do. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/reminders)
- **Salience** — We act on whatever stands out and captures attention, regardless of its true importance. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/salience)
- **Self-nudging** — People applying choice-architecture techniques to their own environment to steer their future behavior. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/self-nudging)
- **Simplification** — Cutting complexity so the desired action is easy to take. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/simplification)
- **Sludge** — Excessive friction that obstructs people from acting in their own best interest. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/sludge)
- **Sludge audit** — A systematic review of a process to find and remove the friction that blocks people from what they want or are owed. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/sludge-audit)
- **Smart disclosure** — Releasing complex information in standardized, machine-readable form so people (and tools) can actually use it to choose well. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/smart-disclosure)
- **Social norms marketing** — Campaigns that correct misperceptions of what others do or approve of, to shift behavior toward the true norm. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/social-norms-marketing)
- **TIPPME** — A standardized classification of ways to change small physical environments — like portion size or product placement — to shift behavior. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/tippme)

### Choice, Risk & Value
- **Allais common-consequence effect** — Adding the same outcome to two gambles shouldn't change your ranking — but it does. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/allais-common-consequence-effect)
- **Allais paradox** — A classic choice pattern that breaks expected utility theory. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/allais-paradox)
- **Ambiguity aversion** — We prefer known risks to unknown ones. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/ambiguity-aversion)
- **Ambiguity effect** — We avoid options whose odds are unknown, even when they may be better. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/ambiguity-effect)
- **Attribute framing** — Calling something '90% lean' beats '10% fat,' though they're identical. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/attribute-framing)
- **Break-even effect** — Sitting on a loss, people reach for risky bets that offer a shot at getting back to even. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/break-even-effect)
- **Broad bracketing** — Pooling decisions and outcomes so trade-offs and risks are judged as a whole. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/broad-bracketing)
- **Certainty effect** — We pay a premium to turn 'very likely' into 'guaranteed.' (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/certainty-effect)
- **Certainty equivalent** — The guaranteed amount that feels exactly as good to you as taking a given gamble. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/certainty-equivalent)
- **Choice overload** — Too many options can paralyze rather than empower. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/choice-overload)
- **Compromise effect** — The middle option feels safest, so it wins. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/compromise-effect)
- **Constructed preferences** — We often don't have settled preferences waiting to be reported—we build them on the spot. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/constructed-preferences)
- **Cumulative prospect theory** — The refined version of prospect theory that weights cumulative probabilities and never breaks dominance. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/cumulative-prospect-theory)
- **Decision fatigue** — The more decisions you make, the worse they get. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/decision-fatigue)
- **Decision weights** — The transformed probabilities people actually act on, not the stated odds. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/decision-weights)
- **Decoy effect** — Adding a clearly worse third option steers choice between the first two. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/decoy-effect)
- **Denomination effect** — We spend a big bill more reluctantly than the same value in small change. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/denomination-effect)
- **Description-experience gap** — People treat rare risks very differently when they're described versus learned from experience. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/description-experience-gap)
- **Diminishing sensitivity** — The first dollar (or degree of pain) registers more than the hundredth. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/diminishing-sensitivity)
- **Disappointment aversion** — Outcomes below what you expected sting extra, so you avoid bets that might let you down. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/disappointment-aversion)
- **Disappointment theory** — We feel choices not just by their outcomes but by how they fall short of, or beat, our expectations. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/disappointment-theory)
- **Disjunction effect** — People wait to learn an outcome before acting — even when it wouldn't change the act. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/disjunction-effect)
- **Disposition effect** — Selling winners too soon and holding losers too long. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/disposition-effect)
- **Distinction bias** — Comparing options side by side magnifies differences that won't matter later. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/distinction-bias)
- **Diversification heuristic** — Asked to choose several items at once, people spread their picks more than they really want. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/diversification-heuristic)
- **Dread risk** — Catastrophic, uncontrollable hazards loom far larger in the mind than their odds warrant. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/dread-risk)
- **Editing of prospects** — The pre-processing stage where a decision is simplified and framed before it is evaluated. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/editing-of-prospects)
- **Elimination by aspects** — We cut options by ruling out whatever fails one attribute at a time. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/elimination-by-aspects)
- **Ellsberg paradox** — People shun bets with unknown odds, breaking expected utility. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/ellsberg-paradox)
- **Endowment effect** — We value a thing more once it's ours. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/endowment-effect)
- **Evaluability hypothesis** — Hard-to-judge attributes sway us only when we can compare them side by side. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/evaluability-hypothesis)
- **Expected utility theory** — The classical model: choose the option with the highest average utility. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/expected-utility-theory)
- **Extremeness aversion** — Options at the edges feel risky, so the safe-seeming middle gets chosen. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/extremeness-aversion)
- **Fourfold pattern of risk attitudes** — Risk attitudes flip across four cells defined by gains vs. losses and high vs. low probability. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/fourfold-pattern-of-risk-attitudes)
- **Framing effect** — The same facts, described differently, lead to different choices. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/framing-effect)
- **Hedonic editing** — We mentally bundle or split gains and losses to feel as good as possible about them. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/hedonic-editing)
- **House money effect** — We take bigger risks with money we've just won than with our own. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/house-money-effect)
- **Independence axiom** — A component shared by two gambles should not affect which one you prefer. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/independence-axiom)
- **Joint–separate evaluation** — Whether you see options alone or side by side changes what you prefer. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/joint-separate-evaluation)
- **Less-is-better effect** — A smaller, complete gift can be valued above a larger, lesser one. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/less-is-better-effect)
- **Loss aversion** — Losses hurt roughly twice as much as equivalent gains feel good. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/loss-aversion)
- **Maximizer vs satisficer** — Whether you exhaustively seek the best option or settle for good enough. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/maximizer-vs-satisficer)
- **Mental accounting** — Treating money differently depending on which mental 'pot' it sits in. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/mental-accounting)
- **Mere ownership effect** — Merely owning something makes you like it more, no trading required. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/mere-ownership-effect)
- **Mere urgency effect** — We chase urgent little tasks over important ones, even at a cost. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/mere-urgency-effect)
- **Myopic loss aversion** — Checking risky investments too often makes loss-averse people shun good long-run bets. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/myopic-loss-aversion)
- **Narrow bracketing** — Treating each decision in isolation rather than as part of the larger portfolio of choices. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/narrow-bracketing)
- **Pain of paying** — Parting with money triggers a real, immediate sting that shapes how and how much we spend. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/pain-of-paying)
- **Payment decoupling** — Separating payment from consumption in time dulls the pain of paying and changes how we use things. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/payment-decoupling)
- **Peanuts effect** — People gamble more freely when the stakes are small enough to feel like 'peanuts.' (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/peanuts-effect)
- **Possibility effect** — Moving a risk from impossible to merely possible feels disproportionately large. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/possibility-effect)
- **Preference reversal** — Which option you prefer flips when the way you're asked changes. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/preference-reversal)
- **Probability matching** — Guessing each option as often as it actually occurs — when always picking the likeliest wins. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/probability-matching)
- **Probability neglect** — When an outcome stirs strong feeling, its odds stop mattering to us. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/probability-neglect)
- **Probability weighting** — We overweight rare events and the jump to certainty, and underweight middling probabilities. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/probability-weighting)
- **Probability weighting function** — The inverse-S curve describing exactly how stated odds get distorted into decision weights. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/probability-weighting-function)
- **Procedural invariance** — The principle — routinely violated — that the way you elicit a preference shouldn't change it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/procedural-invariance)
- **Prominence effect** — The attribute that seems most important dominates choices more than trade-offs. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/prominence-effect)
- **Prospect theory** — How people really decide under risk — gains and losses measured from a reference point, not final wealth. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/prospect-theory)
- **Pseudocertainty effect** — Framing a chancy outcome as 'guaranteed' within one stage makes it feel safe, even when earlier stages are not. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/pseudocertainty-effect)
- **Rank-dependent utility** — Probabilities are weighted by an outcome's rank, not one at a time, so dominance is preserved. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/rank-dependent-utility)
- **Ratio-difference principle** — The same gap feels bigger between small numbers than between large ones. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/ratio-difference-principle)
- **Reason-based choice** — We decide by finding good reasons we can articulate, not by computing utilities. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/reason-based-choice)
- **Reference dependence** — Value is judged against a reference point, not in absolute terms — so the same outcome can feel like a win or a loss. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/reference-dependence)
- **Reference point** — The baseline against which every outcome is coded as a gain or a loss. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/reference-point)
- **Reference-dependent preferences** — A formal model where utility depends on outcomes relative to rationally expected reference points. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/reference-dependent-preferences)
- **Reflection effect** — Preferences mirror-flip when a choice between gains is recast as the same choice between losses. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/reflection-effect)
- **Regret theory** — We choose to minimize anticipated regret from comparing what we got with what we passed up. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/regret-theory)
- **Risk aversion** — Preferring a sure thing to a gamble of equal or even higher expected value. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/risk-aversion)
- **Risk compensation** — Made to feel safer, people take more risks and offset the protection. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/risk-compensation)
- **Risky-choice framing** — A gain frame makes us play it safe; a loss frame makes us gamble. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/risky-choice-framing)
- **Salience theory** — Attention is drawn to an outcome that stands out, and that outcome gets overweighted in choice. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/salience-theory)
- **Scale compatibility** — An attribute gets over-weighted when it is already in the units of the answer. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/scale-compatibility)
- **Silver lining principle** — A small gain feels better when kept separate from a larger loss it accompanies. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/silver-lining-principle)
- **Single-option aversion** — A lone option feels risky; add a second and people commit. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/single-option-aversion)
- **Source dependence** — We'd rather bet on uncertainty in domains we feel we understand than ones we don't. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/source-dependence)
- **St. Petersburg paradox** — A bet with infinite expected value that almost no one will pay much to play. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/st-petersburg-paradox)
- **Status quo bias** — Sticking with the current option simply because it is the current one. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/status-quo-bias)
- **Subcertainty** — Our decision weights for a full set of outcomes add up to less than one. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/subcertainty)
- **Subproportionality** — Cutting a probability hurts more when it starts out small. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/subproportionality)
- **Sunk cost fallacy** — Throwing good money after bad because of what has already been spent. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/sunk-cost-fallacy)
- **Sure-thing principle** — If you'd choose the same thing whether or not an event occurs, knowing it shouldn't change your choice. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/sure-thing-principle)
- **Unit bias** — We treat one unit — one plate, one serving — as the right amount to consume. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/unit-bias)
- **Value function** — The S-shaped curve that maps gains and losses onto felt value, kinked at the reference point. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/value-function)
- **Zero-risk bias** — Craving the complete elimination of one risk over a larger reduction in overall risk. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/zero-risk-bias)

### Cognition & Dual-Process
- **Absolute threshold** — The faintest stimulus a person can detect at all. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/absolute-threshold)
- **Abstract versus concrete construal** — Seeing the gist and purpose versus the details and mechanics of the same thing. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/abstract-versus-concrete-construal)
- **Agreeableness** — The trait of warmth, trust, cooperation, and concern for others. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/agreeableness)
- **Analogical reasoning** — Solving a new problem by mapping it onto a familiar one with the same structure. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/analogical-reasoning)
- **Analytic versus intuitive cognition** — Slow, rule-based deliberation set against fast, holistic gut response. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/analytic-versus-intuitive-cognition)
- **Anterior cingulate cortex** — The brain's monitor for conflict, error, and the need for control. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/anterior-cingulate-cortex)
- **Apophenia** — Seeing meaningful patterns or connections in random noise. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/apophenia)
- **Attention** — The scarce spotlight that selects what we process. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/attention)
- **Attentional bias** — Recurring concerns steer what we notice. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/attentional-bias)
- **Attitude polarization** — The same balanced evidence pushes opposing camps further apart, not closer together. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/attitude-polarization)
- **Base rate** — The background frequency of a category, before any case-specific evidence. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/base-rate)
- **Bayesian updating** — Rationally revising your confidence in a belief as new evidence comes in. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/bayesian-updating)
- **Belief bias** — We judge an argument valid if we agree with its conclusion. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/belief-bias)
- **Belief perseverance** — Beliefs survive even after the evidence that created them is discredited. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/belief-perseverance)
- **Big Five** — The five broad dimensions that organize most of human personality. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/big-five)
- **Bounded rationality** — We're rational within the limits of mind, information, and time. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/bounded-rationality)
- **Categorization** — Sorting the endless particulars of experience into a manageable set of kinds. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/categorization)
- **Choice blindness** — We'll defend a choice we never actually made. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/choice-blindness)
- **Chronotype** — Whether you're naturally a morning lark or a night owl. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/chronotype)
- **Classical conditioning** — A neutral cue, paired with a stimulus, comes to trigger the response. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/classical-conditioning)
- **Cognitive decoupling** — Holding a thought 'offline' to reason about hypotheticals without believing them. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/cognitive-decoupling)
- **Cognitive load** — The mind has limited working capacity; overload degrades thinking. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/cognitive-load)
- **Cognitive miser** — The mind conserves effort, defaulting to cheap shortcuts. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/cognitive-miser)
- **Cognitive reflection test** — A short test of overriding a wrong gut answer. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/cognitive-reflection-test)
- **Cognitive reserve** — The mental buffer that lets some brains withstand more damage before decline. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/cognitive-reserve)
- **Cognitive style** — A person's characteristic way of perceiving, thinking, and processing information. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/cognitive-style)
- **Color constancy** — A banana looks yellow at noon and at dusk, even though the light hitting it is utterly different. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/color-constancy)
- **Complacency** — When things feel safe or automated, vigilance quietly erodes and warning signs get missed. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/complacency)
- **Conceptual metaphor** — We think about abstract things by mapping them onto concrete, bodily ones. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/conceptual-metaphor)
- **Conditional reasoning** — Inference from 'if...then' statements, where two moves are valid and two are tempting fallacies. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/conditional-reasoning)
- **Confabulation** — Spontaneously inventing a coherent reason for behavior we cannot truly explain. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/confabulation)
- **Conjunction reasoning** — Inference about 'and' — combining conditions, which can only narrow the possibilities. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/conjunction-reasoning)
- **Conscientiousness** — The trait of being organized, dependable, disciplined, and achievement-driven. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/conscientiousness)
- **Context effect** — The same price, letter, or face reads differently depending on what surrounds it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/context-effect)
- **Contrast effect** — A thing seems better or worse depending on what it's set against. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/contrast-effect)
- **Convergent thinking** — Narrowing many possibilities to the single best or correct answer. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/convergent-thinking)
- **Counterfactual thinking** — Imagining 'what might have been' by mentally undoing what actually happened. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/counterfactual-thinking)
- **Crystallized intelligence** — The store of knowledge and skills you've accumulated over a lifetime. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/crystallized-intelligence)
- **Cue** — The trigger that automatically launches a habit, like a starting gun for behavior. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/cue)
- **Default mode network** — The brain network that lights up when the mind turns inward. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/default-mode-network)
- **Disconfirmation** — Satisfaction comes from how reality compares with what you expected, not from reality alone. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/disconfirmation)
- **Disjunction reasoning** — Inference about 'or' — which people find harder and often under-explore. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/disjunction-reasoning)
- **Divergent thinking** — Generating many varied possibilities from a single starting point. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/divergent-thinking)
- **Dopamine reward prediction error** — Dopamine signals the gap between expected and actual reward. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/dopamine-reward-prediction-error)
- **Dual-process theory** — The mind runs on two systems: fast intuition and slow reasoning. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/dual-process-theory)
- **Dual-system neuroscience** — The brain basis for fast emotional choice versus slow deliberate control. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/dual-system-neuroscience)
- **Ego depletion neuroscience** — The contested brain and metabolic story behind willpower running low. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/ego-depletion-neuroscience)
- **Einstellung effect** — A known solution blinds us to a simpler one staring us in the face. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/einstellung-effect)
- **Embodied cognition** — Thinking is shaped by the body—our posture, movements, and physical sensations color thought. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/embodied-cognition)
- **Exemplar theory** — We categorize by comparing a new case to specific remembered instances. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/exemplar-theory)
- **Experiencing versus remembering self** — The self that lives through a moment and the self that later recalls it often disagree. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/experiencing-versus-remembering-self)
- **Extraversion** — The trait of sociability, assertiveness, energy, and reward sensitivity. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/extraversion)
- **Fluid intelligence** — On-the-spot reasoning power, independent of acquired knowledge. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/fluid-intelligence)
- **Framing of logic** — Logically identical problems get solved or flubbed depending on how they are dressed. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/framing-of-logic)
- **Functional fixedness** — Being unable to use an object in any way but its familiar one. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/functional-fixedness)
- **Functional opacity of cognition** — We have no direct access to how our judgments are actually produced. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/functional-opacity-of-cognition)
- **G.I. Joe fallacy** — Thinking that just knowing about a bias is enough to overcome it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/g-i-joe-fallacy)
- **General intelligence** — The common factor underlying performance across diverse mental tasks. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/general-intelligence)
- **Gestalt principles** — Rules by which the mind organizes parts into coherent wholes. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/gestalt-principles)
- **Gist versus verbatim representation** — We store the fuzzy meaning and the exact detail separately — and lean on the gist. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/gist-versus-verbatim-representation)
- **Graph literacy** — The skill of reading and reasoning with data displayed visually. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/graph-literacy)
- **Heuristic** — A mental rule of thumb that makes judgment fast and frugal. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/heuristic)
- **Heuristics and aging** — How older adults' reliance on shortcuts shifts as cognition changes with age. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/heuristics-and-aging)
- **Illusion of explanatory depth** — We think we understand how things work far better than we actually do. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/illusion-of-explanatory-depth)
- **Illusory truth effect** — A statement feels truer simply because we have heard it before. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/illusory-truth-effect)
- **Impulsivity** — The tendency to act quickly on urges without forethought. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/impulsivity)
- **Inattentional blindness** — We fail to see a fully visible but unexpected object when attention is elsewhere. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/inattentional-blindness)
- **Incubation** — Stepping away from a stuck problem lets the solution surface later. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/incubation)
- **Information avoidance** — Deliberately choosing not to learn something, even when the knowledge is free and useful. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/information-avoidance)
- **Inside view** — Judging a case from its own specifics versus judging it from the track record of similar cases. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/inside-view)
- **Insight problem solving** — Solutions that arrive suddenly, with an 'aha,' after a stuck impasse. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/insight-problem-solving)
- **Intuition** — Knowing without knowing how — a fast judgment whose reasons stay hidden. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/intuition)
- **Just-noticeable difference** — The smallest change in a stimulus a person can reliably detect. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/just-noticeable-difference)
- **Matching bias** — We gravitate to the items explicitly named in a rule, ignoring logical relevance. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/matching-bias)
- **McGurk effect** — What you see a mouth do changes what you hear it say. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/mcgurk-effect)
- **Mental model** — An internal working scale-model of how some piece of the world behaves. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/mental-model)
- **Mental simulation** — Running an imagined scenario forward in the mind to see how it plays out. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/mental-simulation)
- **Metacognition** — Thinking about, monitoring, and regulating your own thinking. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/metacognition)
- **Mindware** — The learned rules and concepts that good reasoning depends on having installed. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/mindware)
- **Motivated reasoning** — We reason toward the conclusion we want, not the one the evidence supports. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/motivated-reasoning)
- **Müller-Lyer illusion** — Two equal lines look unequal because of the arrowheads on their ends. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/muller-lyer-illusion)
- **Multisensory integration** — The brain fuses sight, sound, and touch into a single coherent perception. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/multisensory-integration)
- **Naïve realism** — The conviction that we see reality objectively, so anyone who disagrees must be biased. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/naive-realism)
- **Neuroticism** — The trait of proneness to anxiety, moodiness, and negative emotion. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/neuroticism)
- **Next-in-line effect** — You barely remember what was said just before your own turn to speak. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/next-in-line-effect)
- **Norm theory** — We judge each event against the alternatives it spontaneously evokes. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/norm-theory)
- **Numeracy** — The ability to understand and reason with numbers and probabilities. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/numeracy)
- **Openness to experience** — The trait of intellectual curiosity, imagination, and appetite for novelty. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/openness-to-experience)
- **Operant conditioning** — Behavior is shaped by its consequences — reinforcement strengthens it, punishment weakens it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/operant-conditioning)
- **Overthinking** — Deliberating so much that thought clouds judgment or stalls action entirely. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/overthinking)
- **Perceptual constancy** — Objects look stable even as their retinal image changes. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/perceptual-constancy)
- **Perceptual fluency** — The ease of merely seeing or hearing a stimulus, which feels like familiarity or truth. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/perceptual-fluency)
- **Perceptual set** — Expectations and context steer what we end up perceiving. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/perceptual-set)
- **Person-situation debate** — The long argument over whether traits or situations drive behavior. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/person-situation-debate)
- **Pragmatic reasoning schemas** — We reason with learned rule-packages about permissions and obligations, not bare logic. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/pragmatic-reasoning-schemas)
- **Predictive coding** — The brain perceives by predicting the world and correcting only its errors. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/predictive-coding)
- **Prefrontal cortex** — The brain's control center for planning, self-control, and deliberate choice. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/prefrontal-cortex)
- **Processing fluency** — Information that is easy to process feels truer, safer, more familiar, and more likable. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/processing-fluency)
- **Prototype theory** — We represent a category by its average, idealized 'best example.' (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/prototype-theory)
- **Psychophysics** — The science relating physical stimuli to the sensations they produce. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/psychophysics)
- **Reflective versus algorithmic mind** — The disposition to engage reasoning, distinct from the raw capacity to do it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/reflective-versus-algorithmic-mind)
- **Reinforcement** — Any consequence that makes the behavior it follows more likely to happen again. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/reinforcement)
- **Retrieval fluency** — The felt ease of pulling something from memory, mistaken for its truth or frequency. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/retrieval-fluency)
- **Rhyme-as-reason effect** — Statements that rhyme seem more truthful and persuasive than ones that do not. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/rhyme-as-reason-effect)
- **Satisficing** — Choosing the first option that is good enough rather than searching for the best. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/satisficing)
- **Scarcity (cognitive)** — Not having enough captures the mind, taxing attention and self-control. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/scarcity-cognitive)
- **Script** — A schema for an event: the standard sequence of actions a familiar situation follows. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/script)
- **Selective exposure** — We seek out information that agrees with us and avoid what challenges us. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/selective-exposure)
- **Selective perception** — We notice, interpret, and remember what fits our expectations and interests, filtering out the rest. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/selective-perception)
- **Sensation seeking** — The craving for novel, intense, and risky experiences. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/sensation-seeking)
- **Spreading activation** — Thinking of one concept automatically primes the ones linked to it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/spreading-activation)
- **System 1 / System 2** — Shorthand for the fast, automatic mind versus the slow, effortful one. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/system-1-system-2)
- **Temperament** — The biologically based emotional and behavioral style present from infancy. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/temperament)
- **Theory of mind** — The capacity to attribute mental states — beliefs, desires, intentions — to others and to oneself. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/theory-of-mind)
- **Tolerance of ambiguity** — How comfortably a person handles vague, uncertain, or contradictory situations. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/tolerance-of-ambiguity)
- **Top-down processing** — Perception guided by knowledge and expectation, not just raw input. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/top-down-processing)
- **Trait activation** — Traits show up in behavior only when the situation calls them out. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/trait-activation)
- **Trait vs state** — The difference between how you usually are and how you feel right now. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/trait-vs-state)
- **Tunneling** — Scarcity narrows the mind to the pressing problem, blinding it to everything outside the tunnel. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/tunneling)
- **Type 1 versus type 2 processing** — The defining contrast is autonomy versus working-memory-demanding decoupling. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/type-1-versus-type-2-processing)
- **Variable reward** — Rewards delivered unpredictably are far more compelling and habit-forming than predictable ones. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/variable-reward)
- **Ventral striatum** — The brain's reward hub where value and anticipation are computed. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/ventral-striatum)
- **Wason selection task** — A four-card logic puzzle most people fail — until it is framed as cheating. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/wason-selection-task)
- **Weber–Fechner law** — Bigger baseline stimuli need proportionally bigger changes to be noticed. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/weber-fechner-law)
- **Working memory** — The small mental workspace that holds and manipulates information in the moment. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/working-memory)
- **Zeigarnik effect** — Unfinished tasks nag at memory more than completed ones. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/zeigarnik-effect)

### Emotion & Affect
- **Achievement emotions** — The emotions we feel about learning and performance — pride, anxiety, boredom — depend on how much control and value we perceive. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/achievement-emotions)
- **Affect heuristic** — We judge risks and benefits by how we feel about them. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/affect-heuristic)
- **Affect labeling** — Putting a feeling into words tends to take some of its sting out. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/affect-labeling)
- **Affect-as-information** — We read our momentary feelings as data about the world or the question at hand. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/affect-as-information)
- **Affective empathy** — Catching and feeling what another person feels. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/affective-empathy)
- **Affective forecasting** — Predicting how future events will make us feel — usually badly. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/affective-forecasting)
- **Affective neuroscience** — The study of how the brain generates and regulates emotion. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/affective-neuroscience)
- **Alexithymia** — Difficulty identifying and putting words to one's own emotions. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/alexithymia)
- **Ambivalence** — Holding strong positive and negative feelings about the same thing at once. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/ambivalence)
- **Amygdala** — The brain's rapid detector of threat and emotional salience. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/amygdala)
- **Anticipated emotion** — A cold-headed prediction of how a future outcome will make you feel. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/anticipated-emotion)
- **Anticipated regret** — We choose to avoid the regret we expect to feel. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/anticipated-regret)
- **Anticipatory emotion** — The feelings you have now about an uncertain future event. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/anticipatory-emotion)
- **Appraisal tendency framework** — Each emotion biases judgment in its own predictable direction. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/appraisal-tendency-framework)
- **Appraisal theory of emotion** — Emotions arise from how we interpret a situation, not the situation itself. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/appraisal-theory-of-emotion)
- **Arousal** — The body's overall level of activation, from drowsy calm to keyed-up alertness. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/arousal)
- **Awe** — The feeling of vastness that makes the self shrink and the mind expand. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/awe)
- **Basic emotions** — A small set of innate, universal emotions with distinct signatures. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/basic-emotions)
- **Behavioral immune system** — A first line of defense that uses disgust and avoidance to keep pathogens at arm's length. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/behavioral-immune-system)
- **Behavioral inhibition** — The brake system that halts action in the face of threat or conflict. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/behavioral-inhibition)
- **Botox emotion effect** — Paralyzing the frown muscles with Botox dampens the feelings those muscles help produce. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/botox-emotion-effect)
- **Broaden-and-build theory** — Positive emotions widen thinking and build lasting resources. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/broaden-and-build-theory)
- **Cannon-Bard theory** — The feeling and the bodily reaction fire at the same time, independently. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/cannon-bard-theory)
- **Cognitive empathy** — Understanding what another feels without necessarily feeling it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/cognitive-empathy)
- **Compassion** — Being moved by another's suffering and wanting to relieve it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/compassion)
- **Compassion fade** — Caring drops as the number of victims rises. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/compassion-fade)
- **Compassion fatigue** — The emotional exhaustion of those who care for the suffering too long. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/compassion-fatigue)
- **Constructed emotion** — Emotions are built by the brain, not triggered as fixed reactions. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/constructed-emotion)
- **Contempt** — A cold sense of looking down on someone as beneath one's regard. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/contempt)
- **Core affect** — The ever-present background feeling, mapped by pleasantness and energy. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/core-affect)
- **Disgust sensitivity** — How easily and strongly a person is revolted varies and shapes judgment. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/disgust-sensitivity)
- **Display rules** — Learned social conventions about which emotions you may show, to whom, and when. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/display-rules)
- **Distraction** — Steering attention away from a feeling to turn down its volume. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/distraction)
- **Dual-factor model of affect** — Good moods and bad moods are two separate dials, not one slider. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/dual-factor-model-of-affect)
- **Durability bias** — We predict our feelings will last far longer than they actually do. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/durability-bias)
- **Embarrassment** — The flustered discomfort of a social slip in front of others. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/embarrassment)
- **Emotion regulation** — The strategies we use to influence which emotions we feel and how. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/emotion-regulation)
- **Emotional contagion** — Feelings spread from person to person, often without anyone noticing. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/emotional-contagion)
- **Emotional granularity** — How finely a person distinguishes among their emotional states. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/emotional-granularity)
- **Emotional intelligence** — The ability to perceive, use, understand, and manage emotions. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/emotional-intelligence)
- **Emotional labor** — The effort of managing your feelings—and faking the right ones—because the job demands it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/emotional-labor)
- **Empathy** — Sharing in and understanding the feelings of another person. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/empathy)
- **Envy** — The painful longing stirred by what someone else has. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/envy)
- **Eudaimonia vs hedonia** — Well-being from meaning and growth versus well-being from pleasure. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/eudaimonia-vs-hedonia)
- **Excitation transfer** — Arousal left over from one event spills over to intensify the next. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/excitation-transfer)
- **Expressive suppression** — Hiding the outward signs of an emotion while still feeling it inside. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/expressive-suppression)
- **Facial feedback hypothesis** — Your facial expression doesn't just show emotion, it shapes it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/facial-feedback-hypothesis)
- **Glückschmerz** — The flash of displeasure at someone else's good fortune. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/gluckschmerz)
- **Gratitude** — The warm appreciation felt when someone benefits you. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/gratitude)
- **Guilt** — The self-conscious pang over a specific wrong you've done. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/guilt)
- **Hedonic adaptation** — We drift back toward a stable happiness baseline after good or bad events. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/hedonic-adaptation)
- **Hedonic contingency** — Happy people screen activities for whether they'll keep the mood going. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/hedonic-contingency)
- **Hubris** — Excessive, overbearing pride and self-confidence that courts a fall. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/hubris)
- **Humiliation** — The crushing sense of being unjustly degraded and put down in front of others. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/humiliation)
- **Identifiability effect** — A determinate, identified target draws more concern than an abstract one. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/identifiability-effect)
- **Impact bias** — Overestimating how intensely and how long future events will move us. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/impact-bias)
- **Incidental affect** — A leftover feeling from one source that bleeds into an unrelated decision. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/incidental-affect)
- **Integral affect** — The feeling that comes directly from the thing you're deciding about. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/integral-affect)
- **Interoception** — The sense of the body's internal state that feelings are built on. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/interoception)
- **James-Lange theory** — We feel afraid because we tremble, not the other way around. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/james-lange-theory)
- **Jealousy** — The fear and anguish of losing a valued relationship to a rival. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/jealousy)
- **Life satisfaction** — A reflective, overall judgment of how well your life is going. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/life-satisfaction)
- **Mere exposure effect** — We come to like things simply because we have encountered them before. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/mere-exposure-effect)
- **Misattribution of arousal** — We mislabel the source of our physical arousal, pinning it on the wrong cause. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/misattribution-of-arousal)
- **Mood congruence** — Our current mood colors what we remember and how we judge. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/mood-congruence)
- **Mood maintenance hypothesis** — People in a good mood avoid risks and effort that might spoil it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/mood-maintenance-hypothesis)
- **Mood repair** — Actively doing things to lift yourself out of a bad mood. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/mood-repair)
- **Moral disgust** — The visceral revulsion of physical disgust, recruited to condemn moral wrongs. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/moral-disgust)
- **Moral elevation** — The warm, uplifted feeling of witnessing moral beauty. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/moral-elevation)
- **Moral emotions** — Feelings tied to the interests or welfare of others or society. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/moral-emotions)
- **Mortality salience** — Being reminded that you will die changes what you value and defend. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/mortality-salience)
- **Negativity bias** — Bad is psychologically stronger than good. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/negativity-bias)
- **Nostalgia** — A bittersweet longing for a cherished personal past. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/nostalgia)
- **Ostrich effect** — We avoid information we expect to be unpleasant by simply not looking. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/ostrich-effect)
- **Personal distress** — The self-focused anxiety stirred up by another's suffering. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/personal-distress)
- **Pessimism bias** — Expecting outcomes to turn out worse than the odds actually warrant. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/pessimism-bias)
- **Pity** — Feeling sorrow for another's suffering, from a position of distance and relative comfort. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/pity)
- **Positivity offset** — At zero input, we lean mildly positive, which keeps us exploring. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/positivity-offset)
- **Pride** — The glow of achievement, in healthy and arrogant varieties. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/pride)
- **Psychic numbing** — The more who suffer, the less we are able to feel. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/psychic-numbing)
- **Psychophysical numbing** — Each additional life saved feels less valuable as the numbers grow. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/psychophysical-numbing)
- **Reappraisal** — Changing how you think about a situation to change how it feels. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/reappraisal)
- **Resilience** — The capacity to adapt and bounce back from adversity. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/resilience)
- **Risk as feelings** — Emotional reactions to risk often diverge from, and override, cool calculation. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/risk-as-feelings)
- **Rumination** — Brooding repetitively on distress and its causes without moving toward a solution. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/rumination)
- **Schadenfreude** — The guilty pleasure of taking joy in another's misfortune. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/schadenfreude)
- **Scope insensitivity** — Our feelings and willingness to pay barely scale with the size of a problem. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/scope-insensitivity)
- **Self-transcendent emotions** — Feelings that pull attention beyond the self toward others and something larger. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/self-transcendent-emotions)
- **Set-point theory of happiness** — Each person has a baseline happiness they keep returning to. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/set-point-theory-of-happiness)
- **Shame** — The painful sense that one's whole self is flawed or exposed. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/shame)
- **Somatic marker hypothesis** — Bodily 'gut feelings' tag options with value and are necessary for good decisions. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/somatic-marker-hypothesis)
- **Subjective well-being** — How people evaluate and feel about their own lives. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/subjective-well-being)
- **Sympathy** — Feeling concern for another's plight without sharing the feeling itself. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/sympathy)
- **Two-factor theory of emotion** — Emotion equals physiological arousal plus a label drawn from the situation. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/two-factor-theory-of-emotion)

### Heuristics & Biases
- **Action bias** — The pull to do something rather than wait, even when waiting is better. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/action-bias)
- **Anchoring** — The first number you see drags every estimate that follows toward it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/anchoring)
- **Anchoring (negotiation)** — Whoever names a number first usually shapes the deal. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/anchoring-negotiation)
- **Attribute substitution** — Answering an easier question than the one actually asked. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/attribute-substitution)
- **Automation bias** — We over-trust the computer's answer and stop checking for ourselves. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/automation-bias)
- **Availability cascade** — A belief snowballs as repetition makes it feel true and dissent grows costly. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/availability-cascade)
- **Availability heuristic** — If examples come to mind easily, we assume they're common. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/availability-heuristic)
- **Base rate neglect** — We fixate on specific detail and forget the underlying odds. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/base-rate-neglect)
- **Basic anchoring effect** — An irrelevant number you weren't even comparing can still bias your estimate. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/basic-anchoring-effect)
- **Bias blind spot** — We spot bias in everyone but ourselves. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/bias-blind-spot)
- **Clustering illusion** — Finding patterns and streaks in genuinely random data. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/clustering-illusion)
- **Compatibility principle** — An attribute counts more when it matches the form of the response. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/compatibility-principle)
- **Confirmation bias** — We seek, notice, and remember what fits what we already believe. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/confirmation-bias)
- **Congruence bias** — Testing only your favored hypothesis, never the alternative. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/congruence-bias)
- **Conjunction fallacy** — A vivid, specific story can seem likelier than the plain fact it contains. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/conjunction-fallacy)
- **Conservatism (belief revision)** — Given new data, we update our probabilities, but not far enough. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/conservatism-belief-revision)
- **Conservatism bias** — Updating beliefs too little when new evidence arrives. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/conservatism-bias)
- **Curse of knowledge** — Once you know something, you can't imagine not knowing it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/curse-of-knowledge)
- **Denominator neglect** — We fixate on the number of cases and overlook the size of the pool. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/denominator-neglect)
- **Dilution effect** — Adding irrelevant facts to relevant ones weakens, rather than sharpens, a judgment. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/dilution-effect)
- **Disconfirmation bias** — We scrutinize evidence against our beliefs far harder than evidence that flatters them. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/disconfirmation-bias)
- **Dunning–Kruger effect** — The less skill we have, the more we overrate it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/dunning-kruger-effect)
- **Extension neglect** — Judging a set by a typical member, not by how many members it has. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/extension-neglect)
- **Fast-and-frugal heuristics** — Simple rules that use little information yet often decide as well as complex models. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/fast-and-frugal-heuristics)
- **Fast-and-frugal trees** — A short decision tree with an exit at every question, for quick high-stakes calls. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/fast-and-frugal-trees)
- **Fluency heuristic** — When both options are familiar, trust the one that comes to mind faster. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/fluency-heuristic)
- **Focusing illusion** — Whatever you're thinking about feels more important to your happiness than it really is. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/focusing-illusion)
- **Fundamental attribution error** — Blaming people's character while excusing the situation. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/fundamental-attribution-error)
- **Gambler's fallacy** — Believing that after a run of one outcome, the opposite has become 'due.' (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/gambler-s-fallacy)
- **Gaze heuristic** — To catch a ball, fix your gaze on it and move so the angle stays constant. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/gaze-heuristic)
- **Halo effect** — One salient good trait makes us assume all the unrelated ones are good too. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/halo-effect)
- **Hindsight bias** — Once we know how it turned out, we feel we saw it coming all along. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/hindsight-bias)
- **Hot-hand fallacy** — Reading a meaningful, self-sustaining streak into what is really just chance. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/hot-hand-fallacy)
- **Illusion of control** — Overestimating how much our own actions sway outcomes that are really down to chance. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/illusion-of-control)
- **Illusory correlation** — Seeing a relationship between two things that aren't actually linked. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/illusory-correlation)
- **Information bias** — Seeking more information even when it can't change what you'll do. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/information-bias)
- **Insensitivity to sample size** — Ignoring that small samples swing far more wildly than large ones. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/insensitivity-to-sample-size)
- **Law of small numbers** — Wrongly expecting even tiny samples to mirror the whole population. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/law-of-small-numbers)
- **Less-is-more effect** — Knowing or using less can sometimes yield more accurate decisions. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/less-is-more-effect)
- **Neglect of probability** — We weigh how bad an outcome would be while ignoring how likely it is. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/neglect-of-probability)
- **Non-regressive prediction** — Forecasting an extreme result from an extreme cue, ignoring the noise. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/non-regressive-prediction)
- **Normalcy bias** — In a disaster, we assume things will stay normal and underreact. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/normalcy-bias)
- **Omission bias** — We judge harm caused by doing something as worse than the same harm caused by doing nothing. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/omission-bias)
- **Optimism bias** — We expect good things to befall us, and bad things to spare us, more than the odds allow. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/optimism-bias)
- **Outcome bias** — Judging a decision by how it turned out rather than by how sound it was when made. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/outcome-bias)
- **Overconfidence effect** — Our subjective certainty routinely outruns our actual accuracy. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/overconfidence-effect)
- **Partition dependence** — How the options are grouped sways the probabilities we assign them. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/partition-dependence)
- **Planning fallacy** — Plans are built on the best case, so projects run late and over budget with striking regularity. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/planning-fallacy)
- **Proportion dominance** — A big percentage beats a big absolute number for grabbing our attention. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/proportion-dominance)
- **Pseudodiagnosticity** — Gathering evidence that fits a hypothesis without checking the alternative. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/pseudodiagnosticity)
- **Ratio bias** — A 9-in-100 chance can feel bigger than a 1-in-10 chance. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/ratio-bias)
- **Recognition heuristic** — If you recognize one option but not the other, bet on the familiar one. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/recognition-heuristic)
- **Representativeness heuristic** — We judge how likely something is by how much it resembles our mental prototype, not by the actual odds. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/representativeness-heuristic)
- **Self-generated anchoring** — Even the anchor you invent yourself drags your final answer toward it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/self-generated-anchoring)
- **Self-serving bias** — Success is my doing; failure is bad luck or someone else's fault. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/self-serving-bias)
- **Subadditivity effect** — Spelling out the parts of an event makes it seem more likely than the whole. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/subadditivity-effect)
- **Survivorship bias** — Studying only the winners and missing the silent evidence of everyone who failed. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/survivorship-bias)
- **Take-the-best heuristic** — Decide using the single best clue, and ignore everything else. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/take-the-best-heuristic)
- **Tallying** — Count the reasons for each option equally instead of weighting them. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/tallying)
- **Time-saving bias** — We badly misjudge how much time a change in speed actually saves. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/time-saving-bias)
- **Unpacking effect** — Breaking a possibility into named pieces raises its judged probability. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/unpacking-effect)

### Memory & Perception
- **Associative memory** — Knowledge stored as a web of linked ideas, where activating one pulls up its neighbors. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/associative-memory)
- **Autobiographical memory** — The personal record of one's own life events and experiences. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/autobiographical-memory)
- **Boundary extension** — We remember having seen more of a scene than was actually shown. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/boundary-extension)
- **Change blindness** — We miss large changes to a scene when they happen out of focus. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/change-blindness)
- **Childhood amnesia** — The near-absence of memories from our first few years of life. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/childhood-amnesia)
- **Chunking** — Grouping items into meaningful units to pack more into limited memory. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/chunking)
- **Context-dependent memory** — We remember more when the surroundings at recall match those at learning. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/context-dependent-memory)
- **Cryptomnesia** — Mistaking a buried memory for an original idea of your own. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/cryptomnesia)
- **Cue-dependent forgetting** — The memory is still there; you just lack the right cue to reach it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/cue-dependent-forgetting)
- **Decay theory** — Memories fade simply because time passes and traces weaken. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/decay-theory)
- **Desirable difficulty** — Making learning harder in the right ways makes it last longer. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/desirable-difficulty)
- **Dual coding theory** — Information encoded as both words and images is remembered better. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/dual-coding-theory)
- **Duration neglect** — How long an experience lasts barely affects how we remember it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/duration-neglect)
- **Encoding specificity principle** — You recall best when the cues at retrieval match those present when you learned. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/encoding-specificity-principle)
- **Episodic memory** — Memory for specific personal experiences, tied to a time and place. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/episodic-memory)
- **Experiencing vs remembering self** — The self living a moment and the self recalling it want different things. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/experiencing-vs-remembering-self)
- **Fading affect bias** — The sting of bad memories fades faster than the glow of good ones. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/fading-affect-bias)
- **False memory** — Vividly remembering something that never happened. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/false-memory)
- **Feeling of knowing** — The sense that you could recognize an answer you currently can't recall. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/feeling-of-knowing)
- **Flashbulb memory** — A vivid, confident memory of where you were when shocking news broke. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/flashbulb-memory)
- **Forgetting curve** — Newly learned information drops away fast at first, then levels off. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/forgetting-curve)
- **Generation effect** — Information you produce yourself is remembered better than information you merely read. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/generation-effect)
- **Imagination inflation** — Merely imagining an event makes you more confident it actually happened. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/imagination-inflation)
- **Interference theory** — We forget because other memories compete with and crowd out the target. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/interference-theory)
- **Judgment of learning** — Your on-the-spot prediction of how well you'll later remember something. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/judgment-of-learning)
- **Leveling and sharpening** — Retold memories lose some details and exaggerate others. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/leveling-and-sharpening)
- **Levels-of-processing effect** — The deeper the meaning you extract, the better you remember. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/levels-of-processing-effect)
- **Metamemory** — Your knowledge of, and ability to monitor and control, your own memory. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/metamemory)
- **Method of loci** — Remembering items by mentally placing them along a familiar route. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/method-of-loci)
- **Miller's magical number seven** — Immediate memory holds only about seven items at once. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/miller-s-magical-number-seven)
- **Misinformation effect** — Misleading information encountered after an event rewrites the memory of it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/misinformation-effect)
- **Mnemonics** — Deliberate tricks that impose structure to make material memorable. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/mnemonics)
- **Mood-congruent memory** — A given mood makes you recall material whose emotional tone matches it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/mood-congruent-memory)
- **Peak–end rule** — We judge a past experience by its most intense moment and how it ended, not by its sum. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/peak-end-rule)
- **Picture superiority effect** — We remember images far better than the equivalent words. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/picture-superiority-effect)
- **Primacy effect** — First impressions and early items carry extra, lasting weight. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/primacy-effect)
- **Proactive interference** — Old learning gets in the way of remembering something new. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/proactive-interference)
- **Reality monitoring** — Telling apart memories of real events from memories of imagined ones. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/reality-monitoring)
- **Recency effect** — The most recent items and events loom largest in memory and judgment. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/recency-effect)
- **Reconstructive memory** — Remembering is rebuilding the past from fragments, not replaying a recording. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/reconstructive-memory)
- **Reminiscence bump** — We disproportionately recall events from our teens and twenties. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/reminiscence-bump)
- **Retroactive interference** — New learning crowds out and disrupts memory for older material. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/retroactive-interference)
- **Rosy retrospection** — The past looks better in memory than it actually felt at the time. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/rosy-retrospection)
- **Schema** — A mental template of how things usually go that guides what we notice and recall. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/schema)
- **Self-reference effect** — Information tied to yourself is remembered far better. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/self-reference-effect)
- **Self-serving memory bias** — Memory quietly edits the past to flatter the present self. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/self-serving-memory-bias)
- **Semantic memory** — Your store of general facts, concepts, and word meanings. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/semantic-memory)
- **Semantic network** — Knowledge stored as a web of concepts linked by meaningful associations. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/semantic-network)
- **Serial position effect** — We remember the first and last items in a sequence best, and the middle worst. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/serial-position-effect)
- **Source confusion** — Remembering a fact but misremembering where it came from. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/source-confusion)
- **Source-monitoring framework** — How the mind decides where a given memory came from. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/source-monitoring-framework)
- **Spacing effect** — Learning spread out over time produces far better retention than cramming. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/spacing-effect)
- **State-dependent memory** — What you learn in one internal state comes back best in that same state. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/state-dependent-memory)
- **Suggestibility** — The tendency for leading information to reshape what we remember. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/suggestibility)
- **Telescoping effect** — We misremember when events happened, pulling recent ones forward and distant ones nearer. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/telescoping-effect)
- **Testing effect** — Recalling information strengthens memory far more than rereading it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/testing-effect)
- **Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon** — The maddening state of knowing a word but being unable to retrieve it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/tip-of-the-tongue-phenomenon)
- **Transfer-appropriate processing** — Learning helps most when the mental work at study matches the work at test. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/transfer-appropriate-processing)
- **Von Restorff effect** — The item that stands out from its neighbors is the one we remember. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/von-restorff-effect)
- **Working-memory span** — How much information you can actively hold and juggle at one time. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/working-memory-span)

### Methods & Evidence
- **A/B testing** — An online randomized experiment comparing two versions to see which performs better. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/a-b-testing)
- **Acquiescence bias** — The tendency to agree with whatever a survey statement asserts. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/acquiescence-bias)
- **Aggregation** — Averaging many independent estimates often beats any single expert. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/aggregation)
- **Attrition bias** — When the people who quit a study differ from those who stay, results skew. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/attrition-bias)
- **Average treatment effect** — The average causal effect of a treatment across everyone in the population. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/average-treatment-effect)
- **Back-door criterion** — A graphical rule for which variables to adjust for to get a clean causal estimate. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/back-door-criterion)
- **Bayes factor** — A ratio measuring how strongly the data favor one model over another. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/bayes-factor)
- **Bayes' theorem** — The formula for updating a belief in light of new evidence. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/bayes-theorem)
- **Bayesian inference** — Treat unknowns as probability distributions and update them with data. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/bayesian-inference)
- **Berkson's paradox** — Two unrelated traits look anticorrelated once you only study a selected group. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/berkson-s-paradox)
- **Bias–variance tradeoff** — Simple models miss the pattern; complex ones chase the noise—the art is balancing the two. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/bias-variance-tradeoff)
- **Blinding** — Hiding who got the treatment so expectations don't contaminate results. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/blinding)
- **Blocking** — Grouping similar subjects before randomizing so nuisance differences don't muddy the comparison. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/blocking)
- **Bonferroni correction** — Divide your significance threshold by the number of tests you run. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/bonferroni-correction)
- **Bootstrapping** — Estimating uncertainty by resampling your own data, over and over. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/bootstrapping)
- **Brier score** — A scorecard for probabilistic forecasts that rewards being both accurate and well-calibrated. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/brier-score)
- **Calibration** — Being right as often as you say you are. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/calibration)
- **Campbell's law** — The more a social indicator is used to decide things, the more it gets corrupted. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/campbell-s-law)
- **Causal inference** — The science of moving from 'these vary together' to 'this causes that.' (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/causal-inference)
- **Ceiling and floor effects** — When a measure tops out or bottoms out, it can't detect real differences. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/ceiling-and-floor-effects)
- **Cohen's d** — How far apart two groups are, measured in standard deviations. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/cohen-s-d)
- **Collider bias** — Controlling for a shared effect of two variables can invent a fake correlation. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/collider-bias)
- **Common method bias** — Spurious correlation that arises just because two things were measured the same way. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/common-method-bias)
- **Confidence interval** — A range of plausible values for a quantity, with a stated coverage rate. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/confidence-interval)
- **Confounding** — A hidden third variable that drives both the cause and the effect, faking a link. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/confounding)
- **Construct validity** — Whether a measure actually captures the abstract thing it claims to. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/construct-validity)
- **Content validity** — Whether a test's items actually cover the full concept it claims to measure. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/content-validity)
- **Control group** — The comparison arm that shows what happens without the intervention. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/control-group)
- **Convergent validity** — Measures of the same construct should agree with one another. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/convergent-validity)
- **Counterbalancing** — Varying the order of conditions so sequence effects cancel out. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/counterbalancing)
- **Counterfactual** — What would have happened to the same unit under the road not taken. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/counterfactual)
- **Credible interval** — A range that genuinely has, say, a 95% probability of holding the true value. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/credible-interval)
- **Cronbach's alpha** — A number summarizing how consistently a scale's items hang together. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/cronbach-s-alpha)
- **Cross-validation** — Testing a model on data it wasn't trained on to see if it really generalizes. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/cross-validation)
- **Demand characteristics** — Participants guess the study's aim and act to fit it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/demand-characteristics)
- **Difference-in-differences** — Compare the change in a treated group to the change in an untreated one. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/difference-in-differences)
- **Directed acyclic graph** — A diagram of arrows that encodes which variables cause which. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/directed-acyclic-graph)
- **Discriminant validity** — A measure should not correlate with things it's supposed to be distinct from. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/discriminant-validity)
- **Double-blind** — Neither the participant nor the experimenter knows who's in which group. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/double-blind)
- **Ecological fallacy** — Inferring about individuals from group-level averages — and getting it wrong. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/ecological-fallacy)
- **Ecological validity** — Whether the study resembles the real situation it's about. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/ecological-validity)
- **Effect size** — How big an effect is — not just whether it exists. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/effect-size)
- **Equivalence testing** — Formally testing that an effect is too small to matter, not just absent. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/equivalence-testing)
- **Experimenter bias** — A researcher's hopes can leak into a study and quietly nudge the results their way. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/experimenter-bias)
- **External validity** — Whether findings generalize beyond the study. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/external-validity)
- **Factor analysis** — A statistical method that distills many correlated measures into a few underlying dimensions. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/factor-analysis)
- **False discovery rate** — The expected share of your 'significant' findings that are actually false. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/false-discovery-rate)
- **Field experiment** — A randomized trial run in the real world, not the lab. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/field-experiment)
- **Fixed effects** — A modeling trick that controls away everything stable about each unit to isolate real change. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/fixed-effects)
- **Forest plot** — A stacked chart showing each study's effect and the pooled summary. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/forest-plot)
- **Frequentist inference** — Probability as long-run frequency, with no probabilities attached to hypotheses. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/frequentist-inference)
- **Funnel plot** — A scatter of studies whose lopsided shape hints at missing results. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/funnel-plot)
- **Garden of forking paths** — Even one analysis can be biased if you'd have chosen differently on other data. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/garden-of-forking-paths)
- **Generalizability** — Whether a study's findings hold beyond the specific people, place, and setting tested. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/generalizability)
- **Goodhart's law** — When a measure becomes a target, it stops being a good measure. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/goodhart-s-law)
- **HARKing** — Hypothesizing After the Results are Known, then pretending you predicted it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/harking)
- **Hawthorne effect** — People change their behavior simply because they know they're being observed. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/hawthorne-effect)
- **Heritability** — The share of trait differences in a population traceable to genetic differences. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/heritability)
- **Heterogeneity** — When studies of the same question genuinely disagree in their results. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/heterogeneity)
- **Hypothesis testing** — The formal procedure for deciding whether data are surprising enough to reject a default assumption. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/hypothesis-testing)
- **Instrumental variables** — Use an outside nudge that affects the cause but nothing else to untangle causation. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/instrumental-variables)
- **Intention-to-treat analysis** — Analyze everyone in the group they were assigned to, regardless of compliance. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/intention-to-treat-analysis)
- **Inter-rater reliability** — Whether independent judges score the same thing the same way. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/inter-rater-reliability)
- **Internal validity** — Whether a study really shows that the cause it claims produced the effect. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/internal-validity)
- **Latin square** — A design layout that balances treatment order so practice and fatigue can't bias results. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/latin-square)
- **Leading question** — A question worded to nudge the respondent toward a particular answer. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/leading-question)
- **Likelihood ratio** — How much more probable the evidence is under one hypothesis than another. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/likelihood-ratio)
- **Local average treatment effect** — The causal effect estimated only for those whose behavior responds to the nudge or instrument. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/local-average-treatment-effect)
- **Measurement error** — The gap between what you measure and the true value you meant to capture. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/measurement-error)
- **Mediation** — The mechanism in between — how a cause produces its effect. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/mediation)
- **Megastudy** — A massive field experiment that tests many interventions against the same outcome in one population at once. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/megastudy)
- **Meta-analysis** — Statistically pooling many studies into one overall estimate. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/meta-analysis)
- **Moderation** — When the strength or direction of an effect depends on a third variable. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/moderation)
- **Multiple comparisons problem** — Run enough tests and some will look significant by pure chance. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/multiple-comparisons-problem)
- **Multiverse analysis** — Run every reasonable version of an analysis and report the whole spread. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/multiverse-analysis)
- **Natural experiment** — An accident of the world that mimics random assignment when a true experiment is impossible. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/natural-experiment)
- **Natural frequencies** — Stating risks as counts of people, not percentages, makes the math click. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/natural-frequencies)
- **Non-response bias** — When the people who don't answer differ from those who do, the sample lies. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/non-response-bias)
- **Nudge unit** — A government or organizational team that designs, applies, and rigorously tests nudges. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/nudge-unit)
- **Null hypothesis significance testing** — The ritual of testing data against a 'no effect' hypothesis via p-values. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/null-hypothesis-significance-testing)
- **Omitted variable bias** — Leaving a relevant cause out of a regression warps the coefficients you keep. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/omitted-variable-bias)
- **Optional stopping** — Repeatedly checking results and stopping when they turn significant inflates errors. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/optional-stopping)
- **Order effects** — The sequence of questions or conditions can change the answers people give. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/order-effects)
- **Overfitting** — A model that memorizes noise in the data instead of the real pattern. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/overfitting)
- **p-curve** — The shape of a set of significant p-values reveals whether real effects underlie them. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/p-curve)
- **p-hacking** — Tweaking analyses until a result crosses the significance threshold. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/p-hacking)
- **Parallel trends** — The key bet behind difference-in-differences: absent treatment, the groups would have moved together. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/parallel-trends)
- **Placebo effect** — Belief in a treatment produces a real, measurable improvement. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/placebo-effect)
- **Posterior probability** — Your updated belief about a hypothesis after weighing the evidence. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/posterior-probability)
- **Power analysis** — Planning sample size to give a study a real chance of finding a true effect. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/power-analysis)
- **Practical significance** — Whether an effect is big enough to matter in the real world, not just statistically detectable. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/practical-significance)
- **Pre-mortem** — Imagining a project has already failed, then working backward to expose the risks before they happen. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/pre-mortem)
- **Pre-registration** — Committing publicly to your hypotheses and analysis plan before seeing the data. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/pre-registration)
- **Prior probability** — What you believed about a hypothesis before seeing the new data. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/prior-probability)
- **Propensity score matching** — Pair treated and untreated units with the same predicted chance of treatment. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/propensity-score-matching)
- **Pseudo-opinion** — People will confidently give an opinion on something entirely made up. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/pseudo-opinion)
- **Publication bias** — Positive, novel results get published while null results are quietly buried. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/publication-bias)
- **Random-effects model** — Treating groups or studies as draws from a wider population rather than as fixed. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/random-effects-model)
- **Randomization** — Letting chance decide who gets the treatment, so groups start out comparable. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/randomization)
- **Randomized controlled trial** — The gold standard for causal evidence: randomly assign people to treatment or control. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/randomized-controlled-trial)
- **Rank-ordering** — Asking people to put options in order rather than score each one separately. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/rank-ordering)
- **Reference class forecasting** — Predicting a project's outcome from the track record of similar past projects rather than from its own details. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/reference-class-forecasting)
- **Registered report** — A study peer-reviewed and accepted before any data are collected. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/registered-report)
- **Regression analysis** — Modeling how an outcome changes with one or more predictors. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/regression-analysis)
- **Regression discontinuity design** — Compare units just above and just below a sharp cutoff for treatment. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/regression-discontinuity-design)
- **Regression to the mean** — Extreme measurements tend to be followed by more average ones, purely by chance. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/regression-to-the-mean)
- **Reliability** — Whether a measure gives consistent results across items, raters, and occasions. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/reliability)
- **Replication** — Repeating a study to see whether its finding holds up. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/replication)
- **Replication crisis** — A large share of published findings fail to reproduce when independently repeated. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/replication-crisis)
- **Researcher degrees of freedom** — The many small analytic choices that quietly let you find what you want. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/researcher-degrees-of-freedom)
- **Response bias** — Systematic tendencies in how people answer that distort what surveys actually measure. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/response-bias)
- **Reverse causation** — The arrow runs the other way — the supposed effect is really the cause. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/reverse-causation)
- **Risk of bias** — The chance that flaws in a study's design or conduct have skewed its results. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/risk-of-bias)
- **Robustness check** — Re-running an analysis under different assumptions to test if the result survives. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/robustness-check)
- **Sampling bias** — Your sample systematically over- or under-represents parts of the population. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/sampling-bias)
- **Scalability** — Whether an intervention that worked in a study still works when rolled out at scale. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/scalability)
- **Selection bias** — Who ends up in your sample is tied to the very thing you're measuring. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/selection-bias)
- **Signal detection theory** — Separating true sensitivity from the bias to say 'yes.' (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/signal-detection-theory)
- **Simpson's paradox** — A trend in every subgroup can vanish or flip when the groups are combined. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/simpson-s-paradox)
- **Smallest effect size of interest** — The smallest effect big enough to actually care about — set before you look. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/smallest-effect-size-of-interest)
- **Social desirability bias** — People answer to look good, not to tell the truth. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/social-desirability-bias)
- **Standard error** — How much an estimate would bounce around across repeated samples. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/standard-error)
- **Statistical control** — Holding other variables constant in analysis to isolate a relationship. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/statistical-control)
- **Statistical power** — A study's ability to detect a real effect when one genuinely exists. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/statistical-power)
- **Statistical significance** — How surprising the data would be if there were truly no effect. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/statistical-significance)
- **Subjective probability** — Probability as a personal degree of belief, not a long-run frequency. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/subjective-probability)
- **Surrogate outcome** — A stand-in marker used instead of the outcome you actually care about. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/surrogate-outcome)
- **Systematic review** — A rigorous, reproducible survey of all the evidence on a question. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/systematic-review)
- **Test-retest reliability** — Whether the same people get the same scores when measured again later. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/test-retest-reliability)
- **Type I error** — Crying wolf — declaring an effect that isn't really there. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/type-i-error)
- **Type II error** — Missing a real effect — failing to detect what's actually there. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/type-ii-error)
- **Value of information** — How much it is worth to learn something before you decide. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/value-of-information)
- **WEIRD samples** — Most behavioral findings come from a narrow, globally unrepresentative slice of humanity. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/weird-samples)
- **Within-subjects design** — Every participant experiences every condition, serving as their own control. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/within-subjects-design)

### Models & Frameworks
- **Attribution theory** — The study of how people explain the causes of behavior and events. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/attribution-theory)
- **Behavioral audit** — A systematic review of a product, service, or policy to find behavioral barriers and opportunities for improvement. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/behavioral-audit)
- **Behavioral diagnosis** — Pinpointing exactly which behavior, by whom, and which barriers drive a problem before designing any solution. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/behavioral-diagnosis)
- **Behavioral insights** — The applied use of behavioral and social science to design policies, products, and services that fit how people really act. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/behavioral-insights)
- **Behavioral journey mapping** — Charting every step a person takes toward a goal to find the moments where behavior stalls and intervention can help. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/behavioral-journey-mapping)
- **Behavioral segmentation** — Dividing a population by their behaviors, motivations, and barriers so interventions can be tailored to each group. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/behavioral-segmentation)
- **Behavioral spillover** — When one behavior change spreads to other related behaviors — sometimes reinforcing, sometimes undermining the goal. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/behavioral-spillover)
- **Behavioral systems mapping** — Diagramming the web of actors, behaviors, and influences around a problem to find high-leverage points for change. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/behavioral-systems-mapping)
- **Behaviour change technique taxonomy** — A shared vocabulary of 93 discrete techniques for changing behavior. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/behaviour-change-technique-taxonomy)
- **Behaviour change wheel** — A systematic method to design interventions, built around COM-B. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/behaviour-change-wheel)
- **Capability approach** — A welfare framework judging well-being by what people are actually able to do and be, not by income or resources alone. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/capability-approach)
- **COM-B model** — Behavior happens when Capability, Opportunity, and Motivation align. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/com-b-model)
- **Covariation model** — We decide a cause by checking what the effect reliably varies with. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/covariation-model)
- **Diffusion of innovations** — How a new idea, product, or behavior spreads through a population over time, from a few innovators to the last laggards. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/diffusion-of-innovations)
- **EAST framework** — To change behavior, make it Easy, Attractive, Social, and Timely. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/east-framework)
- **Ecological rationality** — A heuristic is 'rational' if it fits the structure of its environment. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/ecological-rationality)
- **Elaboration likelihood model** — Persuasion travels two routes: central (argument) and peripheral (cues). (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/elaboration-likelihood-model)
- **Falsifiability** — A claim is scientific only if some possible observation could prove it wrong. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/falsifiability)
- **Fogg behavior model** — Behavior happens when Motivation, Ability, and a Prompt converge at once. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/fogg-behavior-model)
- **Goal systems theory** — Goals and the means to reach them form a connected mental network, where one action can serve many goals and one goal many actions. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/goal-systems-theory)
- **Habit formation** — The process by which repeated behavior in a stable context becomes automatic, triggered by cues rather than decisions. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/habit-formation)
- **Habit loop** — Habits run on a loop: a cue triggers a routine that delivers a reward. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/habit-loop)
- **Health action process approach** — A health-behavior model that splits change into a motivation phase and a volition phase, bridging the gap between intention and action. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/health-action-process-approach)
- **Health belief model** — We act on our health when we feel at risk and believe that acting will help. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/health-belief-model)
- **Heuristic-systematic model** — We process persuasive messages either carefully (systematic) or via shortcuts (heuristic). (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/heuristic-systematic-model)
- **i-frame vs s-frame** — The choice between fixing problems at the individual level (nudges) versus the systemic level (rules, prices, structures). (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/i-frame-vs-s-frame)
- **Implementation science** — The study of how to get proven interventions actually adopted, delivered, and sustained in real-world settings. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/implementation-science)
- **Information–motivation–behavioral skills model** — Behavior change requires accurate information, the motivation to act, and the concrete skills to carry it out. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/information-motivation-behavioral-skills-model)
- **Intervention ladder** — A scale of policy options ranked from least to most intrusive on liberty. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/intervention-ladder)
- **Intervention mapping** — A six-step protocol for designing behavior-change programs grounded in theory, evidence, and stakeholder input. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/intervention-mapping)
- **Levels of analysis** — The same behavior can be explained at several layers—from neurons to evolution—each a valid lens. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/levels-of-analysis)
- **Logic model** — A one-page diagram linking a program's inputs and activities to its outputs, outcomes, and impact. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/logic-model)
- **MINDSPACE** — Nine of the strongest, mostly automatic influences on behavior, as a checklist. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/mindspace)
- **Motivated tactician** — We think carefully or lazily depending on our goals of the moment. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/motivated-tactician)
- **Naïve scientist** — The early model of people as rational, logical causal reasoners. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/naive-scientist)
- **Normalization of deviance** — Rule-breaking that goes unpunished quietly becomes the new standard, until it fails. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/normalization-of-deviance)
- **Normalization process theory** — A sociological account of how a new practice becomes embedded as routine, everyday work rather than a temporary project. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/normalization-process-theory)
- **PERMA model** — Five measurable building blocks of human flourishing. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/perma-model)
- **Precaution adoption process model** — A stage model of taking up a precaution that starts before awareness and includes a distinct 'decided not to act' dead end. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/precaution-adoption-process-model)
- **PRIME theory** — A synthesis of motivation in which moment-to-moment behavior is governed by plans, responses, impulses, motives, and evaluations. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/prime-theory)
- **Protection motivation theory** — We are moved to protect ourselves when a threat feels serious and likely and we believe a response will work and we can do it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/protection-motivation-theory)
- **Rationality** — The standard of reasoning and choosing well — and the benchmark biases are measured against. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/rationality)
- **RE-AIM framework** — A checklist for judging an intervention's real-world public-health impact across five dimensions, not just whether it works in a trial. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/re-aim-framework)
- **Realistic conflict theory** — Competition over scarce resources breeds intergroup hostility. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/realistic-conflict-theory)
- **Reasoned action approach** — An updated synthesis of reasoned-action and planned-behavior theory: intention drives behavior, fed by attitudes, norms, and perceived control. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/reasoned-action-approach)
- **Self-categorization theory** — We shift between seeing ourselves as 'I' and as 'we.' (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/self-categorization-theory)
- **Self-regulation theory** — We steer our own behavior by comparing where we are to a goal and acting to close the gap, like a thermostat. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/self-regulation-theory)
- **Six sources of influence** — A change framework that crosses motivation and ability with personal, social, and structural levels to give six distinct levers. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/six-sources-of-influence)
- **Social cognitive theory** — We learn behavior by observing others, with self-efficacy deciding whether learning becomes action. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/social-cognitive-theory)
- **Social identity theory** — Part of who we are comes from the groups we belong to. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/social-identity-theory)
- **Support theory** — Probability judgments attach to descriptions of events, not the events themselves. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/support-theory)
- **Theoretical domains framework** — Fourteen domains that together capture every psychological and environmental influence on a behavior. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/theoretical-domains-framework)
- **Theory of change** — An explicit map of how and why a set of activities is expected to produce a desired long-term outcome. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/theory-of-change)
- **Theory of planned behaviour** — Intentions — shaped by attitudes, social norms, and perceived control — predict behavior. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/theory-of-planned-behaviour)
- **Theory of reasoned action** — Behavior follows from intention, which is set by attitudes and subjective norms. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/theory-of-reasoned-action)
- **Tiny habits** — A method for building habits by starting absurdly small, anchoring to an existing routine, and celebrating immediately. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/tiny-habits)
- **Translational gap** — The chronic gulf between what research shows works and what actually gets used in policy and practice. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/translational-gap)
- **Transtheoretical model** — Behavior change unfolds through stages, from not-yet-ready to maintaining the new behavior. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/transtheoretical-model)
- **Uncertainty** — Not knowing what will happen — sometimes with known odds, sometimes without any. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/uncertainty)
- **Voltage effect** — The tendency for an idea's impact to shrink — or sometimes grow — when it moves from a small pilot to large-scale rollout. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/voltage-effect)
- **Wise intervention** — A brief, precisely targeted change to how people interpret themselves or a situation that can yield large, lasting effects. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/wise-intervention)

### Motivation & the Self
- **Achievement goal theory** — Why you pursue success — to truly master something or to look competent to others — shapes how you respond to difficulty. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/achievement-goal-theory)
- **Achievement motive versus fear of failure** — Achievement behavior reflects a tug-of-war between the hope of succeeding and the fear of failing. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/achievement-motive-versus-fear-of-failure)
- **Approach-avoidance conflict** — The tension of wanting and dreading the same goal, which pulls you toward it from afar and pushes you back up close. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/approach-avoidance-conflict)
- **Approach-avoidance motivation** — Behavior is energized either by moving toward what's good or by moving away from what's bad — and the two systems differ. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/approach-avoidance-motivation)
- **Autonomy** — The need to feel one's actions are self-endorsed and freely chosen. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/autonomy)
- **Basic psychological needs** — Autonomy, competence, and relatedness are the nutrients all motivation and well-being depend on. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/basic-psychological-needs)
- **Cognitive dissonance** — The discomfort of holding conflicting beliefs drives us to resolve it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/cognitive-dissonance)
- **Collective efficacy** — A group's shared belief in its joint capability to organize and execute the actions needed to succeed. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/collective-efficacy)
- **Competence** — The need to feel effective and to master challenges. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/competence)
- **Curiosity** — The drive to seek out novelty and knowledge, often sparked by an awareness of what we don't yet know. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/curiosity)
- **Defensive pessimism** — Bracing for the worst as a strategy to actually perform better. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/defensive-pessimism)
- **Drive reduction theory** — Unmet biological needs create tension that motivates behavior aimed at restoring internal balance. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/drive-reduction-theory)
- **Endowed progress effect** — Giving people a head start toward a goal makes them try harder to finish it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/endowed-progress-effect)
- **Equity theory** — We judge fairness by comparing our effort-to-reward ratio against other people's, and feel driven to correct any imbalance. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/equity-theory)
- **ERG theory** — A leaner revision of Maslow that collapses needs into three and lets people pursue them in any order. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/erg-theory)
- **Expectancy theory** — We work hard only when effort seems to lead to performance, performance to reward, and the reward is something we actually want. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/expectancy-theory)
- **Expectancy-value theory** — Motivation is the product of how likely you think success is and how much you value it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/expectancy-value-theory)
- **Extrinsic motivation** — Acting for a separable outcome — pay, grades, praise, avoiding punishment. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/extrinsic-motivation)
- **Flow** — Total, energized absorption in a well-matched challenge. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/flow)
- **Forbidden-fruit effect** — Telling people they can't have something makes them want it more. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/forbidden-fruit-effect)
- **Goal contagion** — Merely observing someone pursue a goal can make you unconsciously adopt and pursue that goal yourself. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/goal-contagion)
- **Goal-setting theory** — Specific, challenging goals reliably drive higher performance than vague ones. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/goal-setting-theory)
- **Grit** — Sustained passion and perseverance toward very long-term goals, beyond mere short-term effort. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/grit)
- **Growth mindset** — Believing ability can be developed through effort, not fixed at birth. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/growth-mindset)
- **Implicit theories of intelligence** — Whether you believe ability is fixed or improvable quietly shapes how you handle challenge and failure. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/implicit-theories-of-intelligence)
- **Intrinsic motivation** — Doing something for its own sake — out of interest, enjoyment, or meaning. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/intrinsic-motivation)
- **Intrinsic versus extrinsic goals** — What you aim for in life — growth and connection versus wealth and image — predicts your well-being. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/intrinsic-versus-extrinsic-goals)
- **Job characteristics model** — Five features of a job determine how motivating it feels, by triggering psychological states like meaningfulness and responsibility. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/job-characteristics-model)
- **Learned helplessness** — After enough uncontrollable failure, people and animals stop trying even when escape becomes possible. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/learned-helplessness)
- **Learned industriousness** — When effort itself has been rewarded, the sensation of working hard becomes less aversive and even reinforcing. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/learned-industriousness)
- **Locus of control** — Whether you see your outcomes as driven by your own actions or by outside forces. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/locus-of-control)
- **Maslow's hierarchy of needs** — Human needs stack in a pyramid, from basic survival up to self-fulfillment, with lower needs claiming priority. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/maslow-s-hierarchy-of-needs)
- **Mastery versus performance goals** — Aiming to get better at something behaves very differently from aiming to prove you're good at it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/mastery-versus-performance-goals)
- **Meaning in life** — The sense that one's life makes sense, has direction, and matters. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/meaning-in-life)
- **Means-efficacy** — Belief in the tools, resources, or methods at your disposal — the complement to believing in yourself. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/means-efficacy)
- **Mindset of abundance versus scarcity** — Feeling that a vital resource is in short supply captures the mind and reshapes how we think and choose. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/mindset-of-abundance-versus-scarcity)
- **Moral licensing** — Doing one good deed gives us license to follow it with a bad one. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/moral-licensing)
- **Motivation crowding** — External incentives can displace internal or moral motives. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/motivation-crowding)
- **Need for achievement** — A stable drive to meet high standards, master challenges, and accomplish difficult things for the satisfaction of doing so. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/need-for-achievement)
- **Need for affiliation** — A drive to form and maintain warm, friendly relationships and to feel accepted by others. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/need-for-affiliation)
- **Need for closure** — A desire for a firm answer to a question — any definite answer — rather than confusion and ambiguity. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/need-for-closure)
- **Need for cognition** — A stable individual difference in how much a person enjoys and seeks out effortful thinking. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/need-for-cognition)
- **Need for power** — A drive to have impact, influence, or control over other people and one's environment. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/need-for-power)
- **Need to belong** — A fundamental human drive to form and maintain lasting, caring relationships. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/need-to-belong)
- **Optimism (dispositional)** — The stable trait of generally expecting good things to happen. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/optimism-dispositional)
- **Overjustification effect** — Paying people for something they already loved can crowd out the love. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/overjustification-effect)
- **Possible selves** — The future selves we hope to become, expect to become, or fear becoming — and how they pull behavior now. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/possible-selves)
- **Possible selves theory of procrastination** — The less connected you feel to your future self, the more readily you sacrifice that stranger's interests for present comfort. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/possible-selves-theory-of-procrastination)
- **Psychological ownership** — The feeling that something is 'mine' — even without legal title — and the investment and care that feeling brings. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/psychological-ownership)
- **Psychological reactance** — Pressure to comply can trigger the urge to do the very opposite to reassert one's freedom. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/psychological-reactance)
- **Regulatory fit** — Motivation and persuasion feel stronger when the way you pursue a goal matches your underlying orientation. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/regulatory-fit)
- **Regulatory focus theory** — We pursue goals either to achieve gains (promotion) or to avoid losses (prevention), and messages that fit feel more persuasive. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/regulatory-focus-theory)
- **Regulatory mode** — Whether you're driven to get moving or to get it right. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/regulatory-mode)
- **Relatedness** — The basic need to feel connected to, and cared for by, other people. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/relatedness)
- **Reward sensitivity** — How strongly cues of reward energize a person's pursuit and approach. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/reward-sensitivity)
- **Self-actualization** — The drive to realize one's full potential and become everything one is capable of becoming. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/self-actualization)
- **Self-affirmation theory** — Affirming a valued part of the self lets us face threatening truths. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/self-affirmation-theory)
- **Self-compassion** — Treating yourself with the same kindness you'd offer a struggling friend, instead of harsh self-criticism. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/self-compassion)
- **Self-concept** — The organized set of beliefs a person holds about who they are. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/self-concept)
- **Self-concept maintenance** — People cheat or bend rules just enough to gain while still being able to see themselves as honest. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/self-concept-maintenance)
- **Self-determination continuum** — Extrinsic motivation isn't one thing — it ranges from feeling forced to fully owning the reason behind an action. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/self-determination-continuum)
- **Self-determination theory** — Motivation thrives when three basic needs — autonomy, competence, and relatedness — are met. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/self-determination-theory)
- **Self-discrepancy theory** — The gap between who you are and who you think you should or want to be produces specific, predictable emotions. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/self-discrepancy-theory)
- **Self-efficacy** — Your belief in your own capability to carry out what a task requires. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/self-efficacy)
- **Self-enhancement** — The drive to maintain and inflate a positive view of oneself. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/self-enhancement)
- **Self-esteem** — A person's overall evaluation of their own worth — how much they like and value themselves. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/self-esteem)
- **Self-perception theory** — We infer our own attitudes by observing how we behave, as an outside observer would. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/self-perception-theory)
- **Self-regulation (cybernetic model)** — Goal pursuit works like a thermostat: sense where you are, compare to the goal, act to close the gap. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/self-regulation-cybernetic-model)
- **Self-verification theory** — We seek feedback that confirms our existing self-view, even when it's negative. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/self-verification-theory)
- **Sociometer theory** — Self-esteem is an inner gauge of how accepted or rejected we are by others. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/sociometer-theory)
- **Terror management theory** — Awareness of our own mortality drives us to cling to cultural worldviews and self-esteem that promise symbolic immortality. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/terror-management-theory)
- **Two-factor theory** — What makes workers satisfied and what makes them dissatisfied are two different things, not opposite ends of one scale. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/two-factor-theory)
- **Yerkes-Dodson law** — Performance rises with arousal up to a point, then falls — and the optimum is lower for hard tasks. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/yerkes-dodson-law)

### Social Influence
- **Accountability** — Expecting to explain your choices to others changes how carefully you make them. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/accountability)
- **Actor–observer asymmetry** — We blame our own behavior on the situation but others' on their character. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/actor-observer-asymmetry)
- **Attitude–behavior gap** — What people say they believe or intend often fails to predict what they actually do. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/attitude-behavior-gap)
- **Audience effect** — The mere presence of onlookers changes how we behave, often without a word from them. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/audience-effect)
- **Authority bias** — We over-defer to experts, titles, and symbols of authority. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/authority-bias)
- **Bandwagon effect** — We adopt beliefs and behaviors because many others have. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/bandwagon-effect)
- **Barnum effect** — We accept vague, universal descriptions as uniquely accurate about ourselves. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/barnum-effect)
- **Behavioral confirmation** — Our expectations about someone make them act the part. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/behavioral-confirmation)
- **Ben Franklin effect** — Doing someone a favor makes you like them more, not less. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/ben-franklin-effect)
- **Better-than-average effect** — On easy, common tasks we judge ourselves above the typical person. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/better-than-average-effect)
- **Blame** — Holding a person responsible—and morally at fault—for a bad outcome. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/blame)
- **Bystander effect** — The more witnesses, the less likely anyone helps. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/bystander-effect)
- **Cheerleader effect** — People look more attractive in a group than alone. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/cheerleader-effect)
- **Co-rumination** — Friends repeatedly hashing over problems together—closeness that can deepen distress. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/co-rumination)
- **Commitment and consistency** — Once we commit, we strive to act consistently with it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/commitment-and-consistency)
- **Conformity** — Changing your behavior or stated view to match a group. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/conformity)
- **Contact hypothesis** — Bringing rival groups together, the right way, reduces prejudice. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/contact-hypothesis)
- **Conversational norms** — Listeners assume everything mentioned is relevant, so asking changes what an answer means. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/conversational-norms)
- **Conversion theory** — Majorities make us comply; minorities make us truly rethink. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/conversion-theory)
- **Dark Triad** — Three overlapping malevolent traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/dark-triad)
- **Defensive attribution hypothesis** — We blame victims more, or less, depending on how much we resemble them. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/defensive-attribution-hypothesis)
- **Deindividuation** — Submerged in a group, people lose self-restraint and personal accountability. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/deindividuation)
- **Diffusion of responsibility** — When responsibility is shared, each person feels less of it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/diffusion-of-responsibility)
- **Discounting principle** — A cause looks less likely when other plausible causes are present. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/discounting-principle)
- **Disrupt-then-reframe technique** — A moment of confusion, then a reframe, slips past resistance. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/disrupt-then-reframe-technique)
- **Door-in-the-face** — An extreme first ask makes the real, smaller ask succeed. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/door-in-the-face)
- **Door-in-the-face plus reciprocity** — A rejected big ask makes the smaller real ask feel like meeting halfway. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/door-in-the-face-plus-reciprocity)
- **Echo chamber** — An enclosed space where the same beliefs bounce around, drowning out and discrediting dissent. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/echo-chamber)
- **Effort justification** — The harder we work for something, the more we value it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/effort-justification)
- **Egocentric bias** — We anchor on our own perspective and over-weight our own contribution. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/egocentric-bias)
- **Egocentric empathy gap** — We project our own current feelings onto how others must feel. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/egocentric-empathy-gap)
- **Egocentric fairness bias** — We sincerely confuse what is fair with what benefits us. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/egocentric-fairness-bias)
- **Ethnocentrism** — Seeing one's own group as the center and standard for all others. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/ethnocentrism)
- **Evaluation apprehension** — Performance changes not just because others are present, but because we fear their judgment. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/evaluation-apprehension)
- **Expectancy effect** — What we expect to happen quietly helps make it happen. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/expectancy-effect)
- **False-consensus effect** — We overestimate how many people share our views, choices, and habits. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/false-consensus-effect)
- **False-uniqueness effect** — We underestimate how many others share our best traits and abilities. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/false-uniqueness-effect)
- **Fear appeal** — Scare people about a threat, then show them a way out. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/fear-appeal)
- **Foot-in-the-door** — A small yes makes a later big yes more likely. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/foot-in-the-door)
- **Foot-in-the-mouth technique** — A friendly 'how are you?' makes people likelier to say yes next. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/foot-in-the-mouth-technique)
- **Forewarning** — Tell people they're about to be persuaded and they resist harder. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/forewarning)
- **Gain-loss message framing** — Stress what you'll gain, or what you'll lose, to shift the same choice. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/gain-loss-message-framing)
- **Group attribution error** — We assume a group's choices reflect every member's personal beliefs. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/group-attribution-error)
- **Group polarization** — Discussion pushes a group toward a more extreme version of its leaning. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/group-polarization)
- **Groupthink** — The drive for consensus and harmony overrides realistic appraisal. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/groupthink)
- **Halo–horns effect** — The dark twin of the halo effect: one bad trait taints all judgments. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/halo-horns-effect)
- **Honesty-humility** — The sincerity-and-fairness trait that the Big Five leaves out. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/honesty-humility)
- **Hostile attribution bias** — Reading hostile intent into behavior that is actually ambiguous. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/hostile-attribution-bias)
- **Hostile media effect** — Partisans on both sides see the same coverage as biased against them. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/hostile-media-effect)
- **Identifiable victim effect** — One named, pictured person moves us far more than thousands of statistics. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/identifiable-victim-effect)
- **Identity-based motivation** — We act in ways that feel congruent with who we believe we are. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/identity-based-motivation)
- **Illusion of asymmetric insight** — We think we know others better than they know us — and better than they know themselves. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/illusion-of-asymmetric-insight)
- **Illusion of transparency** — We overestimate how visible our inner states are to others. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/illusion-of-transparency)
- **Illusory superiority** — Most people rate themselves as better than most people. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/illusory-superiority)
- **Impression management** — Controlling the image of yourself that others perceive. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/impression-management)
- **In-group bias** — We favor, trust, and reward people we count as part of our group. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/in-group-bias)
- **Indebtedness** — The uncomfortable sense of owing someone after they've done you a favor. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/indebtedness)
- **Information cascade** — People rationally copy earlier choices and ignore their own private signal. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/information-cascade)
- **Inoculation theory** — A small dose of a weak counter-argument builds resistance to persuasion. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/inoculation-theory)
- **Introspection illusion** — We trust our look inward as truth, though it misses our real motives. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/introspection-illusion)
- **Just-world hypothesis** — The need to believe people get what they deserve, so victims must deserve it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/just-world-hypothesis)
- **Licensing effect** — A good deed now gives us permission to slip up later. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/licensing-effect)
- **Liking** — We say yes far more readily to people we like. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/liking)
- **Low-ball technique** — Get a yes at a low price, then raise it once they're committed. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/low-ball-technique)
- **Mere-measurement effect** — Just asking people about a behavior makes them more likely to do it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/mere-measurement-effect)
- **Messenger effect** — The same message persuades differently depending on who says it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/messenger-effect)
- **Mimicry** — We unconsciously copy the postures, gestures, and speech of people around us. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/mimicry)
- **Minority influence** — A small, consistent dissenting voice can slowly convert the majority. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/minority-influence)
- **Moral luck** — We judge people for outcomes that were partly beyond their control. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/moral-luck)
- **Naïve cynicism** — We expect others to be more biased and self-interested than they really are. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/naive-cynicism)
- **Narrative transportation** — Lose yourself in a story and you absorb its message uncritically. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/narrative-transportation)
- **Native advertising** — Ads disguised as ordinary content so they slip past your skepticism. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/native-advertising)
- **Negativity dominance in word of mouth** — Bad reviews travel farther and weigh more than good ones. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/negativity-dominance-in-word-of-mouth)
- **Normative social influence** — Going along with the group to be accepted, not because you believe it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/normative-social-influence)
- **Obedience to authority** — Ordinary people will follow harmful orders from someone they see as a legitimate authority. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/obedience-to-authority)
- **Observational learning** — Learning what to do — and what not to — by watching others. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/observational-learning)
- **Optimal distinctiveness theory** — We crave belonging and uniqueness at once, and balance the two. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/optimal-distinctiveness-theory)
- **Order effects in persuasion** — Whether the first or last argument wins depends on timing. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/order-effects-in-persuasion)
- **Out-group homogeneity effect** — 'They' all seem alike; 'we' are richly individual. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/out-group-homogeneity-effect)
- **Outgroup derogation** — Boosting your own group by putting another group down. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/outgroup-derogation)
- **Persuasion knowledge model** — When we sense we're being sold to, our guard goes up. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/persuasion-knowledge-model)
- **Pluralistic ignorance** — Everyone privately doubts a norm, but each assumes everyone else accepts it, so it survives. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/pluralistic-ignorance)
- **Positivity–negativity asymmetry in attribution** — Success is 'me,' failure is 'the situation' — and the reverse for others. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/positivity-negativity-asymmetry-in-attribution)
- **Pratfall effect** — A small blunder makes a competent person more likable. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/pratfall-effect)
- **Pre-suasion** — Setting the stage before the pitch decides whether it lands. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/pre-suasion)
- **Pygmalion effect** — Higher expectations from others lift performance; lower ones depress it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/pygmalion-effect)
- **Reciprocity** — We feel obligated to repay favors, gifts, and concessions in kind. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/reciprocity)
- **Relative deprivation** — Discontent comes not from what you lack absolutely but from comparison to others. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/relative-deprivation)
- **Scarcity** — Things feel more valuable when they are rare, dwindling, or about to disappear. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/scarcity)
- **Self-fulfilling prophecy** — A false expectation makes itself come true through behavior it provokes. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/self-fulfilling-prophecy)
- **Self-handicapping** — Creating an obstacle to failure in advance, so you have an excuse ready. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/self-handicapping)
- **Self-monitoring** — How much people adjust their behavior to fit the social situation. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/self-monitoring)
- **Self-presentation** — The strategic shaping of the impression others form of us. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/self-presentation)
- **Self-reference criterion** — Judging other cultures by the unexamined yardstick of your own. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/self-reference-criterion)
- **Sleeper effect** — A message from a doubtful source gains persuasive power over time. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/sleeper-effect)
- **Social comparison** — We evaluate ourselves by measuring against other people. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/social-comparison)
- **Social facilitation** — The mere presence of others sharpens easy tasks and wrecks hard ones. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/social-facilitation)
- **Social influence** — How the real, imagined, or implied presence of others changes what we think and do. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/social-influence)
- **Social loafing** — People exert less effort on a shared task than they would working alone. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/social-loafing)
- **Social norms** — What others actually do (descriptive) versus what they approve of (injunctive) — and the two work differently. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/social-norms)
- **Social proof** — When unsure how to act, we look to what others are doing and copy it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/social-proof)
- **Source credibility** — Who delivers a message shapes how persuasive it is. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/source-credibility)
- **Spiral of silence** — People stay quiet when they sense their view is losing, silencing it further. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/spiral-of-silence)
- **Spontaneous trait inference** — We automatically tag people with personality traits from a single act. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/spontaneous-trait-inference)
- **Spontaneous trait transference** — Describe someone as cruel and listeners think you are cruel. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/spontaneous-trait-transference)
- **Spotlight effect** — We overestimate how much other people notice and remember us. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/spotlight-effect)
- **Stereotype threat** — Fear of confirming a stereotype can make you perform worse. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/stereotype-threat)
- **Stereotyping** — Applying a group's generalized image to an individual member. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/stereotyping)
- **Subjective validation** — We judge a statement as accurate when it has personal meaning for us. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/subjective-validation)
- **Superordinate goals** — Shared aims that neither group can reach alone, dissolving the rivalry between them. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/superordinate-goals)
- **Sympathy versus empathy appeals** — Whether we help depends on whether we feel for or feel with a victim. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/sympathy-versus-empathy-appeals)
- **System justification** — People defend the existing social order — even when it disadvantages them. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/system-justification)
- **That's-not-all technique** — Sweeten the deal before the buyer answers, and yes becomes easier. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/that-s-not-all-technique)
- **Tipping point** — The moment a small change pushes a system into rapid, self-sustaining spread. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/tipping-point)
- **Trait ascription bias** — We see ourselves as flexible but others as fixed personality types. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/trait-ascription-bias)
- **Ultimate attribution error** — The fundamental attribution error stretched across group lines. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/ultimate-attribution-error)
- **Unity principle** — We say yes to those we feel are truly one of us. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/unity-principle)
- **Worldview defense** — Reminders of death make people cling harder to their beliefs and their group. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/worldview-defense)
- **Worse-than-average effect** — On hard, rare tasks we rate ourselves below the typical person. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/worse-than-average-effect)

### Time & Self-Control
- **Abstinence violation effect** — After one slip, an all-or-nothing mindset turns a single lapse into a full relapse. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/abstinence-violation-effect)
- **Affective discounting** — Hot, affect-rich rewards are discounted more steeply than cold, abstract ones. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/affective-discounting)
- **Akrasia** — Acting against your own better judgment. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/akrasia)
- **Commitment device** — Binding your future self to the plan your present self wants. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/commitment-device)
- **Common difference effect** — Adding the same delay to both options flips impatient choices into patient ones. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/common-difference-effect)
- **Construal level theory** — The more psychologically distant something is, the more abstractly we think about it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/construal-level-theory)
- **Delay of gratification** — Resisting a smaller-sooner reward for a larger-later one. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/delay-of-gratification)
- **Delay-speedup asymmetry** — It costs more to delay a reward than you'd pay to speed the same reward up. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/delay-speedup-asymmetry)
- **Discounted utility model** — The classical benchmark: future utility is discounted at a single constant rate per period. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/discounted-utility-model)
- **Dread** — Anticipating a bad event is itself painful, so we'll rush to get it over with. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/dread)
- **Ego depletion** — Self-control as a limited resource that tires with use. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/ego-depletion)
- **Fresh start effect** — Temporal landmarks make us more willing to pursue goals. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/fresh-start-effect)
- **Future self-continuity** — How much you identify with your future self predicts how well you save and plan for it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/future-self-continuity)
- **Goal-gradient effect** — Effort and motivation intensify the closer you get to a goal. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/goal-gradient-effect)
- **Hot-cool system framework** — Self-control is a tug-of-war between an impulsive 'hot' system and a reflective 'cool' one. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/hot-cool-system-framework)
- **Hot–cold empathy gap** — When calm, we badly mispredict how we'll act once aroused — and vice versa. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/hot-cold-empathy-gap)
- **Hyperbolic discounting** — We discount the near future steeply but the distant future only gently. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/hyperbolic-discounting)
- **Hyperbolic discounting curves crossing** — Two reward curves that cross over time produce a predictable last-minute change of heart. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/hyperbolic-discounting-curves-crossing)
- **Hyperbolic discounting of self-control tasks** — Because near-term effort is discounted least, the cost of acting now looms largest of all. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/hyperbolic-discounting-of-self-control-tasks)
- **Intention-action gap** — Good intentions routinely fail to translate into the behavior they were meant to produce. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/intention-action-gap)
- **Intertemporal choice** — Trading off costs and benefits that arrive at different points in time. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/intertemporal-choice)
- **Ironic process theory** — Trying hard not to think or do something makes it more likely to intrude. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/ironic-process-theory)
- **Magnitude effect** — Big rewards are discounted more patiently than small ones. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/magnitude-effect)
- **Picoeconomics** — Modeling self-control as bargaining among successive, competing selves over time. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/picoeconomics)
- **Present bias** — Overweighting the immediate at the expense of the future, even against our own plans. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/present-bias)
- **Procrastination** — Voluntarily delaying what you know you should do now, against your own interest. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/procrastination)
- **Projection bias** — Assuming your future tastes, needs, and moods will look just like today's. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/projection-bias)
- **Psychological distance** — How far away something feels — in time, space, social terms, or likelihood — relative to the here and now. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/psychological-distance)
- **Quasi-hyperbolic discounting** — A tractable model with one extra kink that captures present bias in a single parameter. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/quasi-hyperbolic-discounting)
- **Reflection on risk over time** — Importing prospect theory's reference point and loss aversion into choices over time. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/reflection-on-risk-over-time)
- **Restraint bias** — We overrate our power to resist temptation, and walk straight into it. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/restraint-bias)
- **Savoring** — Looking forward to a treat is pleasurable, so we sometimes delay it on purpose. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/savoring)
- **Self-control** — Overriding momentary impulses so behavior lines up with longer-term goals. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/self-control)
- **Self-licensing** — A virtuous act earns us psychological permission to indulge in a vice next. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/self-licensing)
- **Sequence effects** — People want experiences to get better over time, even when that lowers the total. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/sequence-effects)
- **Sign effect** — Gains are discounted more steeply than losses of the same size. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/sign-effect)
- **Sophisticated vs naive agents** — Whether you foresee your own future self-control failures determines how you plan around them. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/sophisticated-vs-naive-agents)
- **Temporal discounting and the brain** — How neural systems weigh immediate rewards against delayed ones. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/temporal-discounting-and-the-brain)
- **Temporal reframing** — Recasting a large yearly cost as a tiny daily one makes it feel trivial and acceptable. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/temporal-reframing)
- **Temptation bundling** — Pairing a chore you avoid with a pleasure you crave so the temptation pulls you toward the task. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/temptation-bundling)
- **Time discounting** — The further off a reward sits, the less it is worth to us right now. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/time-discounting)
- **Time inconsistency** — Today's carefully made plan is overturned by tomorrow's self when the moment arrives. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/time-inconsistency)
- **Visceral factors** — Hot drive states like hunger, craving, and fear hijack choice toward immediate relief. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/visceral-factors)
- **What-the-hell effect** — One small slip triggers a binge — 'I already blew it, so why hold back?' (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/what-the-hell-effect)
- **Willpower depletion debate** — The contested question of whether self-control runs on a limited, tiring resource. (https://becisions.com/dictionary/terms/willpower-depletion-debate)