Behavioral Economics

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12 primes originate from Behavioral Economics and 15 more draw from it as a secondary origin — sort the Origin column to separate them. They span 8 subdomains; sort by that column to group them, or click any subdomain to filter to it.

Prime	Origin	Subdomain	Description
Anchoring	Also draws from	—	Overweight initial info.
Benign-Sampling Safety Drift	Also draws from	Organizational Safety and High Reliability	A system near a hazard boundary reads a benign sample of outcomes — uneventful only because the hazard is rare, not because the margin is safe — as proof the safety margin is unnecessary, so each lucky round licenses the next erosion until a low-probability event finds the now-absent buffer.
Bounded Rationality	Primary	—	Limited decision capacity.
Commitment Device	Primary	—	A self-imposed constraint that binds one's own future choices.
Context-Dependent Preference	Primary	Choice Theory	Keep the focal options fixed while changing an unchosen comparator, menu, or evaluation procedure, and the ordering among those focal options can change because value is constructed relative to that context.
Deadweight Loss	Also draws from	—	Lost surplus.
Decision Fatigue	Also draws from	—	Reduced decision quality over time.
Escalation of Commitment	Also draws from	—	Persist beyond justification.
Fading	Also draws from	Education	Gradual withdrawal of instructional support as competence grows.
Framing	Also draws from	—	Presentation shapes perception.
Herding Behavior	Primary	—	Mimicking others.
Heuristic	Also draws from	—	Mental shortcuts.
Information Cascade	Primary	—	The sequential dynamic in which actors copy earlier actors' visible choices and suppress their own private signals, driving collective convergence that can be confidently wrong.
Lock-In	Also draws from	—	Forward-looking cost of switching exceeds the forward-looking cost of staying, even when a superior alternative exists.
Loss Aversion	Primary	—	Losses felt stronger than gains.
Optimism Bias	Also draws from	—	Overestimate positive outcomes.
Reference-Point Dependence	Primary	Behavioral Economics	Evaluate an outcome by its signed change from a movable reference state rather than by its absolute level, so relocating the reference can reverse whether the same outcome is experienced as a gain, loss, improvement, or deterioration.
Regret	Also draws from	Decision Theory	Disvalue from comparing an outcome against a better forgone alternative.
Regulatory Capture	Primary	Regulatory Economics	Regulated agents gain influence over institution redirecting it.
Satisficing	Primary	—	Accept good-enough solution.
Self Control	Also draws from	—	Overriding immediate impulses in service of longer-term goals.
Solidarity	Also draws from	—	Shared commitment and mutual support within a group.
Sunk Cost and Irreversible Commitment	Primary	—	Expended resources create psychological barriers to reversal.
Temporal Inconsistency and Preference Reversals	Primary	—	Preference orderings reverse as decision horizon approaches.
Time Preference (Discounting Future)	Also draws from	—	Present vs future value.
Value Commensuration	Primary	Environmental Economics	Translate heterogeneous values into common metric for comparison.
Winner's Curse	Also draws from	Auction Theory	Winning a common-value contest is itself evidence of overpayment.