Affect–Evidence Separation

batch: First Iteration/Batch 39

Affect-as-Evidence Check

notes: Plain name for detecting when feeling is functioning as proof.

Emotional Reasoning Check

notes: Useful retrieval name, but less precise than the canonical evidence-oriented title.

Feeling–Fact Separation

notes: Common-language alias; use with care because the archetype compares feelings to evidence, not always settled facts.

slug: framing

slug: metacognition

components:
Affect Label
Judgment Claim
Evidence Check
Reappraisal Step
Decision Boundary
Counterevidence Probe
External Observer Check
Reversible Action Option

mechanisms:
Emotion Labeling
Evidence Log
Decision Pause Protocol
Cognitive Reappraisal
Risk Evidence Review
Conflict De-escalation Review
Nonclinical Coaching Evidence Check

essence_one_line: Separate what a situation feels like from what the available evidence supports.

compression_statement: When emotions are treated as evidence, separate affective signal from external evidence so feelings can inform attention without overriding verification.

core_intuition: Feelings often point toward something worth noticing, but they do not by themselves establish what is true, likely, caused, intended, safe, or wise. The archetype preserves affect as a signal while requiring the judgment it implies to stand or fall on evidence.

canonical_formula: felt_state ≠ evidential_warrant; affective_signal → judgment_claim → evidence_check → bounded_action_or_reappraisal

structural_problem: A judgment is driven by fear, anger, comfort, shame, urgency, or confidence rather than by evidence about the situation.

name: Affect Intensity Substitutes for Warrant

description: The stronger the feeling, the more certain the judgment seems, even when independent evidence is thin.

Implicit Judgment Claim

description: The feeling carries an unstated claim such as “this is unsafe,” “they meant harm,” or “this option is obviously right.”

Reactive Stakes

description: High stakes, conflict, speed, identity threat, or uncertainty make affective interpretation especially compelling.

Unclear Evidence Quality

description: The available evidence is partial, ambiguous, or uneven, leaving room for feelings to fill the gap.

Felt Certainty Without Trace

description: A conclusion is defended by how obvious or intense it feels rather than by traceable observations.

Rapid Escalation or Avoidance

description: Action speeds up, shuts down, or polarizes before the evidential basis is checked.

Selective Evidence Search

description: Evidence is collected mainly to support the emotion-shaped interpretation.

Comfort-Based Acceptance

description: A familiar or reassuring option is accepted because it feels safe, simple, or normal.

root_tension: Affect is valuable as attention and meaning signal, but unreliable as sole evidence. The design problem is to hear the signal without letting it overrule verification, uncertainty, or accountable judgment.

Clear Immediate Hazard

description: If there is direct evidence of immediate harm, act on safety protocols rather than slowing down for reflective separation.

Settled Evidence Dispute Only

description: If the issue is purely about data quality, provenance, or statistical uncertainty, use evidence-validation or uncertainty-explicitness archetypes instead.

Clinical Treatment Context

description: If the goal is treating distress, trauma, anxiety, depression, or another clinical condition, this archetype is not a substitute for professional clinical care.

Mere Emotion Expression

description: If the task is simply to express or validate feelings rather than use them in judgment, this archetype is not the main pattern.

structural_intervention: Name the affective signal, extract the judgment claim it is supporting, compare that claim against evidence and uncertainty, then choose whether to update belief, act, pause, gather evidence, or regulate/reappraise the feeling.

Name the Affective Signal

description: Make the feeling explicit enough to inspect without treating it as a flaw or as proof.

Extract the Judgment Claim

description: Translate the feeling into the belief or action it is implicitly supporting.

Separate Signal from Warrant

description: Ask what the feeling points toward and what the evidence independently supports.

Check Evidence and Uncertainty

description: Compare observations, counterevidence, base rates, missing information, and confidence against the claim.

Choose a Bounded Response

description: Update belief, act, hedge, defer, escalate, gather evidence, or reappraise without pretending the feeling alone resolved the question.

Emotion Is Signal, Not Verdict

rule: Treat affect as information about salience, concern, need, or interpretation, not as final evidence of truth.

notes: This prevents both emotional suppression and emotional proof-substitution.

Claim Must Be Stateable

rule: Do not check evidence against a vague feeling; first state the claim the feeling is making actionable.

notes: Affect becomes inspectable only after the implied judgment is explicit.

Evidence Strength Sets Action Strength

rule: Let the strength and relevance of evidence determine whether action is decisive, tentative, reversible, or deferred.

notes: Strong affect with weak evidence may justify attention or caution, but not necessarily commitment.

Immediate Harm Exception

rule: When direct safety evidence indicates imminent harm, use established safety action first and reflective separation afterward.

notes: The archetype should not delay necessary protective action.

Affect Respected as Signal

description: The process must not shame, suppress, or pathologize feeling.

Evidence Has Independent Status

description: Observations, corroboration, uncertainty, and missing evidence remain distinct from felt certainty.

Judgment Is Traceable

description: The resulting belief or action can be traced to evidence, assumptions, and uncertainty rather than to mood alone.

Action Boundary Is Explicit

description: The response distinguishes act now, gather more evidence, hedge, pause, de-escalate, or reappraise.

Better Judgment Calibration

description: Beliefs and actions become more proportionate to evidence and uncertainty.

Reduced Reactivity

description: Urgent, angry, fearful, or comfort-driven interpretations are less likely to trigger premature escalation or closure.

Preserved Affective Information

description: Feelings still guide attention to possible risk, value, violation, desire, or uncertainty.

More Accountable Decisions

description: Others can inspect how the judgment moved from feeling and evidence to action.

prose_essence:
Affect–Evidence Separation is the pattern of treating feelings as signals without treating them as proof. It applies when fear, anger, comfort, shame, urgency, confidence, or relief is shaping a judgment about what is true, likely, intended, safe, or worth doing.

The point is not to suppress emotion. The point is to prevent a feeling from doing two jobs at once: noticing something important and proving the conclusion. A feeling can say, “pay attention here.” It should not, by itself, settle the question of what happened, what caused it, what someone intended, how risky something is, or what action is warranted.

prose_when_to_use:
Use this archetype when a person, team, interface, or decision process is moving from feeling directly to belief or action. It is especially useful in decisions under uncertainty, tense conversations, risk reviews, diagnosis, strategy, hiring, evaluation, and learning contexts where affect is likely to fill gaps in evidence.

It is not a general instruction to become less emotional. The archetype is appropriate when the structural problem is evidential substitution: the feeling has become the warrant for a claim. In an emergency with direct evidence of immediate danger, use the relevant safety procedure first. In clinical contexts, this draft is not a substitute for therapy, diagnosis, or treatment.

prose_structural_problem:
The structural problem is a collapsed chain:

```text
feeling → conclusion → action
```

A feared option becomes “too dangerous.” An angry interpretation becomes “they meant harm.” A comfortable option becomes “obviously right.” A shame reaction becomes “I failed.” A confident first impression becomes “the diagnosis is settled.”

The missing middle is the evidence layer. The feeling may be meaningful, but the claim it implies still needs to be stated, checked, and bounded by uncertainty.

prose_intervention_logic:
The intervention restores the missing middle:

```text
feeling → implied judgment claim → evidence check → bounded response
```

First, name the affective signal without blaming it. Second, identify the claim it is supporting. Third, compare that claim with observations, counterevidence, missing information, alternative explanations, and uncertainty. Fourth, choose a response that matches the evidence: act, hedge, pause, gather more information, de-escalate, escalate, or reappraise.

A strong version of the archetype preserves both sides: affect remains a valid signal, and evidence remains independently inspectable.

prose_key_components:
### Affect Label

The affect label names the feeling state that is shaping judgment. It might be fear, anger, urgency, comfort, shame, relief, distrust, or confidence. The label should be descriptive rather than shaming. “I am feeling urgency” works better than “I am being irrational.”

### Judgment Claim

The judgment claim turns the feeling into a statement that can be inspected. Fear might imply “this is unsafe.” Anger might imply “they intended harm.” Comfort might imply “this option is a good fit.” Confidence might imply “we already know enough.” Without this claim, the process has nothing to test.

### Evidence Check

The evidence check compares the judgment claim with observable support, missing information, alternative interpretations, and counterevidence. This component prevents the process from becoming either emotional suppression or rationalization. It asks, “What does the evidence support, and how strongly?”

### Reappraisal Step

The reappraisal step updates the interpretation when the evidence does not support the initial affect-shaped claim, or supports only a weaker version of it. Reappraisal is not the same as the archetype. It is one possible action after the feeling and evidence have been separated.

### Decision Boundary

The decision boundary determines what response is justified by the evidence and uncertainty. Strong evidence may justify decisive action. Weak evidence with high stakes may justify reversible action, hedging, escalation, or more inquiry. The boundary prevents both impulsive action and endless checking.

prose_common_mechanisms:
### Emotion Labeling

Emotion labeling is a lightweight method for naming the affective signal before acting. It implements the first component of the archetype, but it is not the archetype by itself. A label only becomes Affect–Evidence Separation when it is connected to a judgment claim and evidence check.

### Evidence Log

An evidence log is an artifact that separates observations, interpretations, feelings, assumptions, and unknowns. It is useful when the decision is high-stakes, contested, or repeated. The log implements the evidence-check component and makes the resulting judgment more accountable.

### Decision Pause Protocol

A decision pause protocol is a short structured interruption between affective reaction and action. It can be as simple as “name the feeling, state the claim, check one piece of confirming and disconfirming evidence, then decide.” The pause is a mechanism, not the archetype; the archetype is the separation logic the pause preserves.

### Cognitive Reappraisal

Cognitive reappraisal changes the interpretation of a situation after evidence suggests the initial appraisal is incomplete or distorted. In this archetype, reappraisal is downstream of evidence separation. Used too early, it can become premature reassurance or invalidation.

### Risk Evidence Review

A risk evidence review compares felt danger or felt safety with likelihood, consequence, controls, reversibility, and missing information. It implements Affect–Evidence Separation when the feeling is risk-related; broader risk calibration may require a neighboring archetype.

### Conflict De-escalation Review

A conflict de-escalation review separates anger, threat, or offense from evidence about intent, cause, and responsibility. It is especially important that this mechanism does not invalidate grievance. It should preserve the possibility that the feeling points to a real harm while still checking the specific claim.

### Nonclinical Coaching Evidence Check

A nonclinical coaching evidence check asks what the feeling says, what evidence supports or weakens it, and what bounded action follows. It is appropriate for learning or workplace reflection, not for treating clinical distress.

prose_failure_modes:
One failure mode is emotion suppression masquerading as discipline. This happens when the process treats feelings as irrational noise. The mitigation is to begin by naming affect as signal before checking the claim.

A second failure mode is rationalized evidence search. This happens when evidence is gathered only to support the affect-shaped conclusion. The mitigation is to include counterevidence, alternatives, and missing information.

A third failure mode is premature reappraisal. This happens when someone jumps to reinterpretation before the original concern has been checked. The mitigation is to sequence reappraisal after claim extraction and evidence review.

A fourth failure mode is endless checking. This happens when uncertainty becomes a reason never to act. The mitigation is to set a decision boundary that links evidence strength, stakes, reversibility, and time.

A fifth failure mode is clinical overreach. This archetype should remain a nonclinical structural pattern for judgment calibration. It should not be used as therapy advice or as a substitute for appropriate support.

prose_neighbor_distinctions:
Affect–Evidence Separation is distinct from Uncertainty Explicitness. Uncertainty Explicitness makes unknowns visible; this archetype handles the specific case where feeling is being mistaken for evidence.

It is distinct from Reframing for Action and Frame Shift Intervention. Those archetypes change interpretive frames broadly. Affect–Evidence Separation may use reappraisal, but its core move is first to separate affective signal from evidential warrant.

It is distinct from Psychological Safety Enablement. Psychological safety creates a context where people can speak up without fear of humiliation or punishment. Affect–Evidence Separation is a judgment-calibration process that may be easier to use in a psychologically safe context, but it is not the same as creating that context.

It is distinct from Probabilistic Risk Weighting. Risk weighting maps likelihood and consequence to action. Affect–Evidence Separation may precede it when fear, comfort, or loss salience is distorting which risks are perceived.

prose_cross_domain_examples:
In conflict, a manager who feels disrespected by a terse message can separate anger from the claim that the sender intended disrespect, check context, and choose a clarifying response rather than escalation.

In risk assessment, a team that feels a launch is unsafe after a vivid incident can compare that fear with evidence about likelihood, severity, controls, and reversibility.

In diagnosis, an investigator who feels certain about a first hypothesis can state the hypothesis, list evidence for and against it, and identify missing observations before committing.

In hiring, an interviewer who feels strong rapport with a candidate can name comfort as affect and compare the candidate against job-relevant evidence and rubric criteria.

In learning, a student who feels “I cannot do this” can separate frustration from evidence about actual capability and identify a bounded next attempt in a nonclinical support context.

prose_non_examples:
Simply telling people to calm down is not Affect–Evidence Separation. It may reduce intensity, but it does not identify the judgment claim or check evidence.

Journaling about feelings is not the archetype unless the reflection separates affective signal, implied claim, evidence, uncertainty, and action boundary.

Saying “feelings are not facts” to dismiss someone’s concern is a misuse. The archetype preserves affect as a signal and checks the claim; it does not invalidate emotion.

A statistical confidence-interval review with no affective distortion in play is better captured by Uncertainty Explicitness or evidence-validation archetypes.

prose_tradeoffs:
This archetype adds friction. That friction is often useful, but it can be dangerous if it delays action in clear immediate hazards. It can also become bureaucratic if every low-stakes feeling requires a formal evidence log.

There is also a trust tradeoff. Used well, the archetype validates feelings while checking claims. Used poorly, it can sound like a command to stop feeling or a way for powerful actors to dismiss concerns.

Finally, there is an intuition tradeoff. Some intuitions reflect expertise. The goal is not to reject intuition, but to ask what claim the intuition is making and whether the context supports trusting it.

prose_invariants_to_preserve:
The first invariant is that affect is respected as a signal. The process should never imply that feelings are defects or noise.

The second invariant is that evidence has independent status. Felt certainty, felt threat, or felt comfort does not replace observations, corroboration, uncertainty, or missing information.

The third invariant is traceability. A resulting judgment should be explainable in terms of feeling, claim, evidence, uncertainty, and action boundary.

The fourth invariant is proportional response. The action should match the strength of evidence, the stakes, and the reversibility of the choice.

prose_target_outcomes:
A successful implementation produces better judgment calibration, less reactive escalation, less premature avoidance, and more accountable decisions. It also preserves useful affective information: feelings can still alert people to danger, value, injustice, mismatch, or desire.

The target is not emotional neutrality. The target is a decision process where affect informs attention and meaning while evidence bears the burden of proof.

prose_parameter_dimensions:
The archetype can be tuned by pause length, evidence threshold, affect granularity, response reversibility, and social sensitivity.

Pause length should match the decision context. A safety operation may allow only seconds; a strategic decision may allow days. Evidence threshold should rise with stakes, irreversibility, and potential harm. Affect granularity can be coarse in fast settings and more precise in reflective settings. Response reversibility matters when evidence is incomplete but action cannot wait. Social sensitivity matters in conflict, identity, or power-laden contexts, where “checking evidence” can easily be misused to dismiss someone’s experience.

prose_variants_and_near_names:
Threat Affect–Evidence Separation handles cases where danger feels certain because fear or urgency is intense. Anger Attribution Evidence Separation handles cases where anger becomes proof of intent or blame. Comfort or Familiarity Evidence Separation handles cases where ease, familiarity, or rapport is treated as proof of safety or quality. Confidence–Evidence Calibration handles cases where felt certainty is mistaken for evidential strength.

Near names include Affect-as-Evidence Check, Emotional Reasoning Check, and Feeling–Fact Separation. These are useful retrieval names, but the canonical title preserves two important details: affect is broader than emotion alone, and evidence is not always the same as settled fact.

Journaling prompts, self-talk scripts, worksheets, and coaching scripts should remain mechanisms. They can deliver the pattern, but they are not the general archetype.

Threat Affect–Evidence Separation

short_definition: Separates fear, urgency, or threat feeling from evidence about actual danger, likelihood, and controllability.

distinctive_feature: The affective signal is threat salience: danger feels certain because it feels intense.

distinct_from_parent: The parent can work with any affective signal; this variant focuses on fear, urgency, and perceived threat.

still_same_parent_because: The core move remains separating affective signal from evidential warrant before belief or action is updated.

use_when: A situation feels unsafe, doomed, or urgent before evidence has been checked.

use_when: Avoidance or overreaction is being justified by the felt intensity of threat.

use_when: The context is nonclinical decision, planning, conflict, or risk assessment rather than treatment of an anxiety disorder.

Affect Label

role: Names the threat feeling without treating it as proof.

Evidence Check

role: Compares felt danger with observable evidence and uncertainty.

Decision Boundary

role: Determines whether to pause, proceed, hedge, or escalate.

Risk Evidence Review

mechanism_type: procedure

Decision Pause Protocol

mechanism_type: protocol

example_domains:
risk assessment
incident response
strategic planning
nonclinical coaching

failure_modes: Dismissing legitimate warning signals as “just emotion.”

failure_modes: Using reassurance as a substitute for evidence review.

Anger Attribution Evidence Separation

short_definition: Separates anger, insult, or blame from evidence about intent, cause, responsibility, and context.

distinctive_feature: The feeling most likely to distort judgment is anger-shaped certainty about intent or blame.

distinct_from_parent: The parent addresses affect-as-evidence generally; this variant emphasizes attribution, responsibility, and conflict escalation.

still_same_parent_because: It still uses affect labeling, judgment-claim extraction, evidence checking, and a decision boundary.

use_when: A conflict interpretation treats felt offense as proof of hostile intent.

use_when: A team is about to assign blame before checking context or alternative explanations.

use_when: Escalation is likely unless affect and evidence are examined separately.

Judgment Claim

role: Makes the implied claim about intent or blame inspectable.

Evidence Check

role: Checks evidence for intent, alternatives, and missing context.

Conflict De-escalation Review

mechanism_type: ritual

Evidence Log

mechanism_type: artifact

example_domains:
conflict
management
customer support
community moderation

failure_modes: Using the process to invalidate grievance rather than separate claim quality from emotional intensity.

failure_modes: Demanding calm before evidence can be heard.

name: Comfort or Familiarity Evidence Separation

short_definition: Separates comfort, familiarity, or ease from evidence that an option is actually safe, correct, or fit for purpose.

distinctive_feature: The distorting affective signal is positive or low-friction, not distressing.

distinct_from_parent: The parent includes all affective signals; this variant highlights the under-discussed case where comfort creates false confidence.

still_same_parent_because: The intervention still separates feeling state, claim, evidence, and action boundary.

use_when: A familiar option is being accepted because it feels right rather than because evidence supports it.

use_when: Ease of processing, habit, or social comfort is masking weak fit or weak evidence.

use_when: A group is treating low friction as proof of quality.

Affect Label

role: Names ease, familiarity, or comfort as a signal rather than proof.

Evidence Check

role: Tests whether the comfortable option meets external criteria.

example_domains:
procurement
hiring
design review
strategic judgment

failure_modes: Overcorrecting by distrusting all intuition, including expertise-based pattern recognition.

failure_modes: Turning a lightweight check into a bureaucratic blocker.

Confidence–Evidence Calibration

short_definition: Separates felt certainty or confidence from the strength, quantity, and relevance of supporting evidence.

distinctive_feature: The key affect-like signal is confidence itself: certainty becomes confused with warrant.

distinct_from_parent: The parent treats confidence as one possible affective signal; this subtype ties the separation to calibration of confidence against evidence strength.

still_same_parent_because: It remains a specific way to prevent feeling from substituting for evidence.

use_when: A person or group feels sure but cannot show proportionate evidence.

use_when: Decision-makers need to distinguish confidence, expertise, evidence strength, and uncertainty.

use_when: Overconfidence or underconfidence may distort judgment quality.

Judgment Claim

role: States what the confidence is confidence about.

Evidence Check

role: Compares confidence against evidence strength.

example_domains:
diagnosis
forecasting
strategy
expert review

failure_modes: Treating all confidence as bias rather than sometimes as expertise-based signal.

failure_modes: Reducing confidence reporting to a numeric ritual without evidence traceability.

near_names:
Affect-as-Evidence Check
Emotional Reasoning Check
Feeling–Fact Separation
Emotion Labeling
Evidence Log


Affective Contagion Modulation

type: archetype

source: generated

batch: Batch 13

canonical_family: Spreading & Collective Binding

slug: contagion

slug: amplification

slug: damping

slug: cascade

slug: conformity

slug: scapegoating

slug: groupthink

slug: resonance

slug: synchronization

slug: attention

slug: boundary

slug: feedback

slug: observability

slug: threshold

slug: network

slug: propagation

slug: diffusion

components:
Affective State Label
Contagion Pathway Map
Amplifier and Model Node Profile
Susceptibility Context Map
Affect–Evidence Separator
Buffer or Cooling Interval
Constructive Affect Outlet
Autonomy and Consent Guardrail
Affective Threshold Monitor
Repair and Reintegration Path
Trusted Calming Model
Rhythm or Synchrony Scaffold
Protective Separation Boundary
Positive Energy Capture

mechanisms:
Group Mood Pulse Check
Emotional Labeling Round
Cooling Pause Protocol
Trusted Messenger Grounding Brief
Facilitated Debrief Circle
Reaction Metric Throttling
Affective Heat Map
Constructive Action Bridge
High-Status Modeling Guidance
Post-Surge Reintegration Check

essence_one_line: Modulate emotional contagion by making affective spread visible and then adding grounding, buffering, channeling, or cooling structures before group feeling becomes runaway pressure.

compression_statement: When affect automatically travels through facial cues, tone, attention, imitation, status signals, shared narratives, or platform amplification, treat the group mood as a propagating state: map carriers, cues, channels, susceptibility contexts, thresholds, feedback, and consequences, then decide whether to dampen, stabilize, buffer, redirect, or ethically amplify the emotion.

core_intuition: People do not merely exchange information; they exchange felt states. A group can become anxious, angry, hopeful, ashamed, energized, or calm faster than its members can individually reason through the situation. The useful intervention is not to forbid emotion but to give emotion enough visibility, containment, and constructive pathing that it informs action without silently commanding it.

canonical_formula: affective_cue + attention_path + social_modeling + susceptibility_context + amplification_channel -> emotional_contagion; observation + grounding + buffering + constructive_outlet + feedback_thresholds -> bounded_affective_spread

structural_problem: A group contains channels through which affective states spread automatically, while the group lacks a shared way to notice, interpret, bound, or redirect that spread. A single anxious leader, angry subgroup, viral post, fearful rumor, celebratory ritual, exhausted care team, or euphoric market signal can shift the emotional baseline of many people before the causes, evidence, stakes, and appropriate response are clear.

trigger_conditions: A person, subgroup, message, ritual, incident, market move, or public symbol carries a salient emotional state.

trigger_conditions: Members monitor one another for cues about threat, approval, urgency, belonging, status, or safety.

trigger_conditions: Attention is concentrated around a visible model, charismatic actor, high-status node, or emotionally charged artifact.

trigger_conditions: The group has shared vulnerability, fatigue, uncertainty, identity threat, recent conflict, or high time pressure.

trigger_conditions: Communication channels amplify affect faster than reflection, verification, consent, or leadership response can operate.

trigger_conditions: Constructive collective energy is desired, but unmanaged intensity could become coercive, exclusionary, or volatile.

symptoms: A group suddenly feels anxious, angry, euphoric, ashamed, cynical, or energized without a clear formal decision.

symptoms: People mirror the tone, urgency, pessimism, confidence, or hostility of a few salient actors.

symptoms: Evidence quality and proportionality degrade as emotional intensity rises.

symptoms: Individuals privately disagree with the group mood but act as if the emotion is mandatory.

symptoms: A team becomes calmer or more dysregulated depending on which person enters the room or thread.

symptoms: Online or in-person exchanges escalate through tone and reaction signals even when factual content changes little.

symptoms: Legitimate emotion is either suppressed as noise or allowed to overrun deliberation, safety, or fairness.

root_tension: Shared emotion is socially useful: it coordinates attention, care, urgency, solidarity, grief, celebration, and mobilization. The same automatic spread can erase individual judgment, intensify harm, marginalize people who do not share the dominant emotion, or convert a signal into a command. The archetype manages the tension between emotional attunement and emotional capture.

anti_signatures: The main issue is generic biological, technical, or financial transmission without affective cues or group mood dynamics.

anti_signatures: The problem is a narrow moral panic with threat amplification and scapegoating already central; use moral_panic_deescalation.

anti_signatures: The intervention goal is intentionally designing rhythmic participation and shared pulse; use synchrony_induction_and_rhythm_alignment.

anti_signatures: The issue is one person treating their own feeling as evidence; use affect_evidence_separation.

anti_signatures: The dominant failure is blind imitation of popularity or social proof rather than shared affect; use anti_herding_signal_design.

anti_signatures: The pattern is a sequential technical chain reaction where downstream state changes cause further state changes; use cascade_pathway_management.

structural_intervention: Create a lightweight affect-spread governance layer: detect salient emotional states and transmission paths, separate legitimate emotion from evidential claims, reduce involuntary amplification, protect autonomy and vulnerable participants, and provide constructive outlets or cooling intervals that keep group affect within a useful range.

action_logic: Name the affective state without reducing the group problem to individual pathology.

action_logic: Map the channels through which the affect is spreading: visible models, repeated cues, reaction metrics, rituals, rumors, tone, spatial proximity, or workflow dependencies.

action_logic: Identify amplification and susceptibility conditions, including uncertainty, fatigue, threat, status hierarchy, identity salience, and information scarcity.

action_logic: Decide the desired affective range: calm enough to reason, urgent enough to act, energized enough to coordinate, or solemn enough to honor stakes.

action_logic: Separate emotional signal from factual claim so the emotion is respected without becoming automatic evidence.

action_logic: Install buffers, grounding messages, slower cadence, turn-taking, facilitation, ritual containment, or attention redistribution at high-leverage transmission points.

action_logic: Provide a legitimate outlet: repair path, debrief, collective action, mourning, celebration, support channel, or decision forum.

action_logic: Monitor feedback and adapt: if damping suppresses legitimate concern, reopen voice; if amplification becomes coercive, lower intensity and protect dissent.

decision_rules: Dampen affect when intensity is outrunning evidence, consent, safety, proportionality, or decision quality.

decision_rules: Channel affect when the emotion contains legitimate energy for care, learning, grief, repair, solidarity, or action.

decision_rules: Amplify cautiously only when the target emotion is ethically legitimate, consent-compatible, non-coercive, and connected to a clear constructive path.

decision_rules: Buffer vulnerable or targeted participants before public emotional processing exposes them to further harm.

decision_rules: Use stronger intervention when high-status actors, algorithmic channels, or repeated rituals are rapidly setting the emotional baseline.

decision_rules: Do not classify anger, fear, grief, or excitement as a problem merely because it is inconvenient to authority.

target_invariants: Emotional authenticity is preserved; the goal is not forced positivity or mood policing.

target_invariants: Individual autonomy and dissent remain possible even when the group shares a strong emotion.

target_invariants: Legitimate concern, grief, anger, joy, or urgency can be expressed without becoming automatic group coercion.

target_invariants: Evidence, claims, and action decisions remain distinguishable from affective intensity.

target_invariants: Affected people are not used as emotional instruments for the comfort or mobilization of others.

target_invariants: Feedback remains two-sided: the system can cool harmful escalation and also restore voice when damping becomes suppression.

expected_outcomes: Lower probability of panic, rage spirals, shame cascades, burnout contagion, mobbing, and avoidable conflict escalation.

expected_outcomes: More proportionate decisions under emotionally charged conditions.

expected_outcomes: Better use of positive shared energy for mutual aid, learning, ritual, morale, and collective action.

expected_outcomes: Greater psychological safety for people who do not share the dominant group mood.

expected_outcomes: Earlier detection of affective tipping points before they become formal crises.

expected_outcomes: Clearer distinction between emotional signal, factual evidence, and chosen response.

Harmful Affect Contagion Dampening

short_definition: Slow or buffer harmful spread of fear, anger, shame, cynicism, despair, or panic through a group.

distinctive_feature: Emphasizes cooling intervals, grounding, protective boundaries, and non-suppressive repair.

distinct_from_parent: Narrower than the parent because it only addresses harmful or destabilizing affective spread.

use_when: Affective intensity is outrunning evidence, consent, safety, or proportionality.

use_when: The primary need is to reduce spread without denying legitimate emotion.

Constructive Shared Energy Channeling

short_definition: Convert contagious hope, solidarity, care, or enthusiasm into feasible collective action without coercive emotional conformity.

distinctive_feature: Preserves positive emotional momentum while adding consent, feasibility, and reintegration safeguards.

distinct_from_parent: A positive-channeling subtype rather than a neutral or dampening intervention.

use_when: A group has beneficial emotional energy but lacks a safe, durable action path.

use_when: The design needs to avoid compulsory enthusiasm or exclusion of quieter participants.

name: Burnout and Distress Spillover Buffering

short_definition: Prevent distress, exhaustion, and hopelessness from silently spreading through teams that absorb repeated stress or crisis.

distinctive_feature: Links affective spread with workload, exposure, support, and institutional responsibility.

distinct_from_parent: Domain-adapted toward care, support, and operational resilience contexts.

use_when: People repeatedly witness or absorb high emotional loads.

use_when: The system needs debriefing, respite, staffing, and repair rather than mere morale messaging.

Panic or Rage Spread Deamplification

short_definition: Reduce rapidly spreading fear or anger while checking threat claims, protecting affected groups, and preserving legitimate concern.

distinctive_feature: Sits at the boundary with moral_panic_deescalation.

distinct_from_parent: If the threat narrative and scapegoating structure dominate, promote moral_panic_deescalation as the primary archetype.

use_when: Fear or anger is contagious, but the event has not yet become a fully structured moral panic.

use_when: Scapegoating risk or threat-response disproportion is emerging.

near_names:
Collective Emotion Channeling
Mood Transfer Management
Affect Contagion Channeling


Affordance Shaping

batch: Batch 05

canonical_family: Emergence & The Irreducible Whole

aliases:
Affordance Design
Action Possibility Design
Action Possibility Shaping
Actionable Relation Design
Perceived Affordance Design
Affordance Field Design

source_primes: affordance agency signifier constraint

slug: affordance

slug: agency

slug: signifier

slug: constraint

slug: foresight

slug: navigation

slug: interface

components:
Agent Capability Model
Action Possibility Inventory
Environment / Substrate Map
Goal and Harm Path Definition
Perceivability and Signifier Layer
Friction / Salience Gradient
Misuse and Trap Boundary
Feedback Trace Capture
Accessibility and Heterogeneity Check
Agency and Consent Guardrail
Revealed Preference Trace Monitor
Progressive Disclosure Layer
Reversible Trial Path
Ecological Fit Probe
Maintenance and Drift Review

mechanisms:
Affordance Audit
Task and Capability Analysis
Contextual Inquiry or Walkthrough
Signifier Prototyping
Friction Adjustment
Physical or Digital Keying
Safe Default or Preselected Path
Wayfinding Marker
Desire Path Observation
Usability or Field Test
Robot Action-Space Mapping
Prototype A/B or Multivariate Test

essence_one_line: Arrange the fit between an agent and its environment so the right actions are available, noticeable, and easier at the moment they matter.

compression_statement: When outcomes depend on what an agent can actually do from a situated encounter, redesign the action field: model the agent’s capabilities and goals, inventory the available action possibilities, make intended possibilities perceivable through signifiers or substrate cues, tune friction and salience, and guard against misuse, hidden options, dead ends, and traps.

core_intuition: People, organisms, robots, and organizations rarely choose from an abstract menu. They act through what the environment lets them see, reach, grasp, enter, click, bypass, infer, or attempt. Affordance shaping works because changing the environment-agent fit often changes behavior before persuasion, training, enforcement, or explanation has to carry the whole load.

canonical_formula: effective_action_set(agent, environment, context) = possible_actions ∩ perceived_actions ∩ reachable_actions, weighted by salience, effort, timing, safety, legitimacy, and expected feedback.

structural_problem: The formal action space and the effective action space diverge. An action may be physically possible but invisible, visible but unreachable, easy but harmful, legitimate but high-friction, or salient to the wrong agent at the wrong time. The system then produces nonuse, misuse, workarounds, unsafe shortcuts, or failed coordination even when the intended option technically exists.

trigger_conditions: Desired behavior depends on a situated agent noticing and taking an available action.

trigger_conditions: Users or agents repeatedly miss, avoid, misuse, or work around the intended path.

trigger_conditions: The environment, interface, object, habitat, or process can be modified more reliably than the agent can be retrained.

trigger_conditions: Misuse, error, or unsafe shortcuts arise because harmful paths are easier or more legible than safe paths.

trigger_conditions: Different agent populations have different capabilities, prior knowledge, bodily constraints, tools, sensors, or cultural expectations.

trigger_conditions: Observed traces such as desire paths, abandonment, repeated support requests, or robot failures indicate that the designed action field does not match actual use.

symptoms: An option exists, but people behave as if it does not.

symptoms: The same users repeatedly ask how to perform an action that is already available.

symptoms: A visually prominent path leads to the wrong action while the correct path is hidden, delayed, or buried.

symptoms: Users create informal shortcuts, physical traces, scripts, or workarounds that reveal a better-fit path.

symptoms: Safety warnings proliferate because the environment still invites the unsafe action.

symptoms: Agents enter states they cannot exit with their available modality of action.

root_tension: The designer controls surfaces, constraints, cues, defaults, and path costs, but the agent experiences only a situated field of action possibilities shaped by capability, perception, context, timing, and expected consequence.

anti_signatures: The main problem is semantic misunderstanding of a sign or term with no action possibility at stake; use Sign–Meaning Alignment or Sign-Type Selection instead.

anti_signatures: The system needs an internal control knob for operators rather than an action field for situated agents; use Control Surface Creation instead.

anti_signatures: The desired change is purely motivational or normative and the environment cannot materially alter the action set.

anti_signatures: The action space is already well matched and the problem is model mismatch after action, not discoverability or fit.

anti_signatures: The intervention would manipulate users into actions that violate consent, autonomy, or legitimate alternatives.

structural_intervention: Redesign the environment-agent relation so intended actions become genuinely available, discoverable, reachable, and appropriately weighted, while harmful, dead-end, or misleading actions are removed, demoted, constrained, or made self-revealing.

action_logic: Define the agent population, their capabilities, goals, constraints, sensors, prior knowledge, and context of encounter.

action_logic: Map the current action field: available actions, invisible actions, salient-but-wrong actions, dead ends, traps, friction points, and workarounds.

action_logic: Separate possibility from perceivability: identify what exists, what is signaled, what is reachable, and what the agent can infer in time.

action_logic: Choose the desired action gradient: which paths should be easier, more visible, slowed, gated, reversible, or made impossible.

action_logic: Implement changes through signifiers, layout, substrate cues, defaults, constraints, feedback, progressive disclosure, or physical/digital keying.

action_logic: Test the redesigned affordance field with representative agents, including edge cases and adverse conditions.

action_logic: Monitor revealed-use traces and update the affordance field when users create new workarounds, traps, or unintended action paths.

decision_rules: Add signifiers when an action exists and is desirable but not reliably perceived.

decision_rules: Remove or suppress affordances when the action is harmful, illegitimate, unsafe, or likely to create traps.

decision_rules: Reduce friction on the intended path only when it remains legitimate, safe, and reversible enough for the context.

decision_rules: Increase friction, confirmation, or physical constraint when the cost of a wrong action exceeds the cost of delay.

decision_rules: Treat repeated workaround behavior as evidence about agent-environment fit before labeling it noncompliance.

decision_rules: Design for the least advantaged competent agent, not only the expert, insider, fully able, or already-motivated user.

decision_rules: Prefer reversible exploration and clear feedback when the agent needs to learn the action field.

target_invariants: Preserve agency: shaping an action field is not a license for covert manipulation or dark-pattern coercion.

target_invariants: Do not signal an affordance that does not actually exist or cannot be completed.

target_invariants: Keep legitimate alternatives available when the system should support plural goals or accessibility needs.

target_invariants: Maintain safety and exit paths for actions that can lead into absorbing states.

target_invariants: Keep the distinction between action possibility, signifier, friction, feedback, and enforcement visible.

target_invariants: Validate across agent heterogeneity rather than assuming one body, device, role, language, sensorium, or expertise level.

expected_outcomes: Higher uptake of legitimate, intended, and safe actions.

expected_outcomes: Lower support burden, error rate, misuse rate, abandonment, and workaround pressure.

expected_outcomes: More accurate alignment between what the system permits and what agents believe they can do.

expected_outcomes: Earlier detection of hidden, misleading, or harmful affordances.

expected_outcomes: Better transfer across physical, digital, ecological, artistic, and robotic environments because the pattern is framed as agent-environment fit rather than UI decoration.

Invisible Affordance Repair

short_definition: Make a real but effectively hidden action possibility discoverable by adding, moving, or clarifying the signals that let the right agent notice it in time.

distinctive_feature: The intervention repairs the perceivability layer while preserving the underlying action possibility.

distinct_from_parent: The parent archetype can create, remove, weight, or signal affordances. This variant specifically addresses existing affordances that are real but not effectively visible.

still_same_parent_because: It remains an affordance problem because the missing signal changes the effective option-set available to the agent.

use_when: The capability, route, right, tool, or next step exists, but prospective users do not reliably discover it.

use_when: Users infer that an option is unavailable because the sampled surface carries no usable cue.

use_when: The main failure is not lack of capability but lack of timely recognition.

domain: public service design

example: A benefit exists but eligible users do not see the application path until the page labels and placement are redesigned.

domain: software interface

example: A keyboard shortcut is powerful but invisible until surfaced through contextual help and discoverable command search.

failure_modes: Cue clutter that makes every possible action compete for attention.

failure_modes: A misleading cue that promises an action the system cannot actually support.

Misuse-Path Suppression

short_definition: Shape affordances, defaults, and constraints so harmful or illegitimate actions become costly, unavailable, or self-revealing while legitimate action remains easy.

distinctive_feature: The affordance field is shaped asymmetrically: desired actions are supported and harmful actions are suppressed.

distinct_from_parent: The parent archetype is neutral with respect to which action possibilities should be made easier. This subtype has an explicit harm-prevention and abuse-resistance purpose.

still_same_parent_because: The central move is still changing the available, perceivable, and weighted action possibilities between an agent and environment.

use_when: A system exposes an action path that is attractive for misuse, accidental error, evasion, abuse, or unsafe shortcuts.

use_when: Training, warning, or after-the-fact enforcement is weaker than redesigning the action space.

use_when: The legitimate path can be kept easy while the misuse path is blocked, keyed, delayed, logged, or made less salient.

domain: safety engineering

example: A connector is shaped so it can only be inserted in the safe orientation.

domain: platform design

example: A high-risk administrative action requires explicit staged confirmation while routine safe actions remain one-click.

failure_modes: Blocking the wrong path creates workarounds that are less visible and less safe.

failure_modes: The suppression layer also blocks legitimate edge cases, producing inequity or operational fragility.

Substrate-Cued Behavior Recruitment

short_definition: Modify the physical, digital, social, or ecological substrate so perceiving it recruits a desired behavior without relying mainly on explicit instruction.

distinctive_feature: The cue is embedded in the substrate itself rather than added as an external message.

distinct_from_parent: The parent covers all action-possibility shaping. This variant emphasizes substrate modification as the cue-and-affordance carrier.

still_same_parent_because: The substrate cue works by changing the perceived fit between agent and environment.

use_when: The desired behavior should arise at the point of encounter rather than through remembered training or policy text.

use_when: The substrate can be shaped so its texture, layout, contour, rhythm, placement, or state invites the action.

domain: urban design

example: A curb cut, path texture, or rail placement invites crossing at a safe point.

domain: ecology

example: Habitat features are arranged so target species recognize nesting or passage opportunities.

failure_modes: The substrate cue recruits the wrong behavior because another agent population reads it differently.

failure_modes: The cue becomes an ecological or behavioral trap when it invites action under changed conditions.

Desire-Path Reconciliation

short_definition: Use traces of repeated off-design action to decide whether to legitimize, reroute, block, or redesign the affordance field.

distinctive_feature: Revealed action traces become evidence for affordance redesign instead of being dismissed as mere noncompliance.

distinct_from_parent: The parent can be designed proactively. This variant begins from evidence that the existing affordance field is already being rewritten by use.

still_same_parent_because: The intervention still changes the agent-environment action possibilities and their relative costs.

source_primes: desire_path affordance feedback

use_when: Users repeatedly create an informal route, workaround, shortcut, or behavioral trace that reveals unmet fit.

use_when: The trace could indicate a legitimate need, a safety hazard, an inequity, or a misuse path.

domain: campus planning

example: A worn grass path is analyzed before deciding whether to pave it, fence it, or redesign the surrounding route.

failure_modes: Every observed shortcut is legitimized without checking safety, equity, or long-term system effects.

failure_modes: A workaround is blocked without understanding the unmet need that produced it.

near_names:
Affordance Design
Action Possibility Design
Action Possibility Shaping
Perceived Affordance Design
Affordance Mapping
Ecological Interface Design


Agency / Structure Attribution Balance

batch: Batch 21

source_primes: great_man_theory causality agency

slug: causality

slug: historicism

slug: presentism

slug: counterfactuals

slug: emergence

slug: scale

slug: framing

slug: legitimacy

slug: uncertainty

slug: traceability

components: Opportunity, Constraint, and Selection Map

components: Evidence Provenance and Narrative Weighting Record

components: Structural Counterfactual and Constraint Test

components: Cross-Scale Actor–Structure Interaction Map

components: Distributed and Background Actor Register

components: Attribution Uncertainty and Alternative Model Set

components: Responsibility and Moralization Boundary

components: Versioned Attribution Synthesis and Review Rule

mechanisms:
Actor–Structure Evidence Matrix
Process Tracing Across Levels
Counterfactual Actor-Substitution Probe
Structural-Constraint Relaxation Probe
Paired Micro/Macro Timeline
Turning-Point Opportunity Analysis
Network and Institutional Position Map
Narrative Focal-Actor Audit
Comparative-Case Attribution Test
Plural Causal Synthesis Review

essence_one_line: Attribute outcomes to actors and structures through explicit causal roles, opportunity conditions, cross-scale evidence, and counterfactual tests.

compression_statement: Define the outcome and time horizon. Inventory focal individuals, distributed contributors, groups, institutions, technologies, resources, norms, incentives, inherited paths, and exogenous events. Separate intention, decision, execution, enabling, blocking, selection, amplification, legitimation, and symbolic focality. Map which structures created opportunities or constraints and which actors perceived, changed, exploited, or failed to exploit them. Test actor substitution, structural relaxation, timing, comparison cases, and absent-actor counterfactuals without pretending they are directly observed. Reconcile micro and macro scales, audit narrative emphasis and missing actors, report alternative causal models and uncertainty, and distinguish causal contribution from praise, blame, legal liability, or moral worth.

core_intuition: Individuals matter, but they do not act outside time, position, institutions, resources, networks, or other people. Structures constrain and enable, but they operate through situated actors and can leave several paths open. A balanced explanation asks not “actor or structure?” but which actor did what, under which conditions, through which mechanism, at which scale and moment, with what replaceability, and how the result would differ under plausible changes to actor, position, coalition, or structure.

structural_problem: Historical and organizational outcomes are compressed into a focal hero, villain, founder, ruler, inventor, executive, or commander because personal narratives are memorable and sources are uneven. Alternatively, individual choice is erased by claims that economic, institutional, technological, cultural, or demographic forces made the result inevitable. Both monocausal frames conceal the interaction between position and person, preparation and opportunity, distributed execution, legitimacy and coercion, path dependence and turning points, and narrative choices that center some actors while making others background conditions.

trigger_conditions: One individual receives most causal credit or blame for a complex outcome.

trigger_conditions: A structure-first explanation treats several historically open paths as inevitable.

trigger_conditions: A founder's legacy is being evaluated before deciding what to preserve or retire.

trigger_conditions: Sources privilege elite actors while distributed labor, opposition, or affected groups are missing.

trigger_conditions: A turning point appears sensitive to timing, position, coalition, or an individual decision.

trigger_conditions: Leadership selection and institutional role may explain part of an apparent personal effect.

trigger_conditions: A biography, commemoration, succession narrative, or public account is shaping current legitimacy.

trigger_conditions: Responsibility decisions risk substituting causal prominence for moral or legal accountability.

anti_signatures: The sole task is to manage an inherited founder legacy; compose Founder Effect and Legacy Management.

anti_signatures: The task is a general multicausal explanation with no actor–structure attribution tension.

anti_signatures: The task is only to audit a story's selection and omissions; use Narrative Construction Audit.

anti_signatures: Evidence cannot identify any actor-specific action beyond occupying a formal position.

anti_signatures: The decision requires legal responsibility under a defined standard rather than historical causal explanation alone.

anti_signatures: The proposed analysis uses counterfactual certainty unsupported by sources or comparable cases.

structural_intervention: Replace person-centered or structure-determinist shorthand with a versioned attribution model. Define the explanatory target; inventory focal and distributed actors; map structural conditions, positions, resources, constraints, and inherited paths; trace actor contributions and causal roles; identify opportunity and selection mechanisms; test actor substitution and structural counterfactuals; reconcile evidence across scales; audit narrative weighting; retain alternative models and uncertainty; and state separately what causal contribution does and does not imply for responsibility.

action_logic: Define the outcome, comparison, time horizon, scale, and intended use of the explanation.

action_logic: Identify the focal actor and why that actor became focal in sources or memory.

action_logic: Inventory collaborators, implementers, opponents, beneficiaries, institutions, networks, and background actors.

action_logic: Map structural conditions, formal positions, resources, norms, technologies, incentives, constraints, and inherited paths.

action_logic: Trace actor decisions, omissions, interpretations, coalition work, execution, and symbolic or legitimating effects.

action_logic: Classify causal roles and timing rather than assigning one undifferentiated share of causality.

action_logic: Map how positions select actors and how actors reshape, reproduce, or exploit structures.

action_logic: Test plausible actor substitution, absence, delayed action, and different-position counterfactuals.

action_logic: Test structural relaxation, changed institution, resource, network, or external-shock counterfactuals.

action_logic: Compare micro evidence and macro pattern and identify aggregation loss in either direction.

action_logic: Audit source availability, narrative focality, commemoration, and omitted or marginalized actors.

action_logic: Preserve alternative causal models, conflicting evidence, sensitivity, and uncertainty.

action_logic: Separate causal attribution from praise, blame, liability, legitimacy, and policy authority.

action_logic: Publish a bounded synthesis with review triggers for new evidence or changed use.

target_invariants: The explanatory target, scale, time horizon, and comparison remain explicit.

target_invariants: Focality in sources or memory is not treated as evidence of causal magnitude.

target_invariants: Actor contributions are tied to actions, mechanisms, timing, and evidence.

target_invariants: Structures are represented as enabling and constraining conditions rather than actorless causes.

target_invariants: Distributed actors, opposition, implementation, and affected groups remain visible.

target_invariants: Counterfactuals declare assumptions and do not claim direct observation.

target_invariants: Micro and macro evidence are reconciled without treating one scale as inherently superior.

target_invariants: Causal contribution remains distinct from moral praise, blame, legal liability, or deservingness.

target_invariants: Alternative models and residual uncertainty remain available for review.

target_invariants: Founder-specific lifecycle questions continue to route to the accepted specialized owner.

expected_outcomes: More calibrated accounts of individual contribution and replaceability.

expected_outcomes: Clearer identification of structural opportunity, constraint, selection, and amplification.

expected_outcomes: Better visibility of collective and background actors.

expected_outcomes: Stronger explanations of turning points without declaring history either heroic or inevitable.

expected_outcomes: More defensible succession, commemoration, leadership, and legacy decisions.

expected_outcomes: Reduced narrative distortion and responsibility overreach.

expected_outcomes: Reusable causal models that can absorb new evidence and alternative interpretations.

prose_essence:
Agency / Structure Attribution Balance explains outcomes without reducing them either to exceptional individuals or to impersonal inevitability. It asks how situated actors perceived and acted on options created and constrained by institutions, positions, resources, technologies, norms, networks, inherited paths, other actors, and timing. The result is not a compromise slogan that “both matter.” It is an evidence-linked causal account of who did what, through which mechanism, under which conditions, with what degree of replaceability and uncertainty.

The Great Man Theory problem is partly causal and partly narrative. Focal individuals leave speeches, orders, memoirs, portraits, biographies, institutions, and commemorations. Their visibility makes their action easier to narrate than distributed implementation, maintenance work, opposition, institutional selection, or slow structural change. Yet correcting for heroic storytelling by declaring structures decisive can erase real choice, coalition building, improvisation, and turning-point action.

The archetype therefore separates causal roles. An actor may initiate, enable, accelerate, block, legitimate, symbolize, coordinate, or execute without being necessary or sufficient for the whole outcome. A structure may create an opportunity, restrict feasible choices, select who occupies a position, amplify a decision, or reproduce effects after the actor exits. Counterfactual substitution, structural-change probes, process tracing, and cross-scale comparison bound these claims. Causal contribution remains distinct from admiration, blame, liability, or moral worth.

prose_when_to_use:
Use this archetype when one person is credited or blamed for a complex historical, political, organizational, scientific, cultural, or crisis outcome. It is especially useful for rulers, founders, executives, commanders, inventors, reformers, movement leaders, and public villains whose narrative centrality may exceed, match, or understate their causal contribution.

Use it when structural explanations appear to make outcomes inevitable despite evidence of open choices; when a founder legacy must be assessed before preservation or retirement; when elite archives dominate the source record; when distributed contributors or affected groups are absent; when a turning point seems sensitive to timing or position; or when leadership selection, institutional authority, coalition, and resources may explain part of a personal effect.

It also supports consequential attribution decisions: succession, commemoration, sanctions, reward, compensation, organizational learning, or policy design. These uses raise the evidence burden because causal prominence can be misused as a shortcut to responsibility or legitimacy.

Do not use it when the task is only to manage a known founder legacy; compose accepted Founder Effect and Legacy Management. If the main need is general multicausal explanation without an actor–structure tension, use Multiple Causation and Explanatory Pluralism. If the issue is story selection and omission, use Narrative Construction Audit. Legal or moral responsibility requires separate standards and authority even when this archetype supplies causal evidence.

prose_structural_problem:
Individual-centered explanations compress complexity into a memorable causal agent. They often combine several claims without distinguishing them: the actor intended the outcome, made a visible decision, occupied a powerful role, enabled a coalition, became a symbol, and was later credited. These are different causal relationships. A leader can be decisive at one stage and replaceable at another. A founder can shape defaults that persist after departure, but inherited influence can also be reconstructed retrospectively by successors.

Structural accounts have the opposite failure. Institutions, markets, technologies, class relations, demographics, norms, geography, or long-run paths are described as if they acted without people and admitted only one outcome. Structures usually distribute opportunities and constraints unevenly; they shape the option set, information, incentives, authority, and cost of action. They may make several outcomes possible and select which actors are positioned to influence them.

Evidence intensifies the imbalance. Elite actors leave richer archives, while coordination, maintenance, informal labor, resistance, and affected communities appear indirectly. Later narratives select turning points and protagonists to serve identity, legitimacy, entertainment, or policy. Microhistory can reveal contingency but overfit a vivid episode; macrohistory can reveal pattern but erase choice through aggregation.

Without an explicit model, teams alternate between hero worship, scapegoating, and structural fatalism. Counterfactuals become unbounded speculation, causal importance becomes moral worth, and current institutions preserve or attack a legacy without knowing what mechanisms actually carried it.

prose_intervention_logic:
Begin by fixing the explanatory target. Name the outcome, comparison, stage, time horizon, scale, and intended use. “Caused the revolution” is too broad; initiation, coalition formation, institutional breakdown, military victory, consolidation, and later memory may have different actors and structures.

Inventory actors before choosing a focal protagonist. Include collaborators, implementers, intermediaries, opponents, beneficiaries, maintenance labor, institutions, and affected groups. Record why an actor is focal: role, source abundance, later commemoration, formal authority, or preliminary mechanism evidence. Then map structural conditions—positions, rules, resources, technologies, networks, norms, incentives, prior paths, exogenous events—and how they changed over time.

Trace agency as action rather than personality. Connect decisions, omissions, interpretations, coalition work, resource mobilization, execution, and symbolic effects to dated evidence and outcomes. Classify causal roles and timing. Map selection into positions and the feedback by which actors reproduce or alter structures.

Test both sides. Actor-substitution probes ask what plausible alternative occupants, coalitions, absences, or delays could have done in the same or modified position. Structural probes change institutions, resources, networks, norms, or shocks and ask whether the actor effect persists. Comparison cases place similar actors in different contexts and similar contexts with different actors. Each counterfactual records assumptions and confidence.

Finally reconcile scales and narratives. Align micro events with macro patterns, audit selection and omission, preserve background actors, and compare alternative causal models. Publish a bounded synthesis stating contribution, condition, replaceability, uncertainty, and responsibility limits. New archives, comparison cases, or consequential reuse trigger review.

prose_key_components:
The Explanatory Target, Scope, and Use prevents a broad outcome from hiding stage-specific causality. The Focal Actor and Collective Inventory shows who is visible, who acted, and who is missing. The Structural Condition and Path Map represents institutions, positions, resources, norms, technologies, constraints, and inherited trajectories.

The Agency Contribution Trace links action to evidence and effect. The Opportunity, Constraint, and Selection Map explains why some actors occupied consequential positions and which options were available. The Causal Role and Timing Classification distinguishes initiation, enabling, acceleration, blocking, execution, legitimation, and symbolic focality.

The Evidence Provenance and Narrative Weighting Record detects elite-archive and commemoration bias. The Counterfactual Actor Substitution Test bounds replaceability. The Structural Counterfactual and Constraint Test measures how conditional the actor effect is. The Cross-Scale Actor–Structure Interaction Map captures feedback across individual, group, organizational, institutional, and macro levels.

The Distributed and Background Actor Register prevents implementation and affected communities from disappearing. The Attribution Uncertainty and Alternative Model Set holds competing accounts and sensitivity. The Responsibility and Moralization Boundary separates causal explanation from praise, blame, and liability. The Versioned Attribution Synthesis and Review Rule keeps the whole account open to evidence and reinterpretation.

prose_common_mechanisms:
An Actor–Structure Evidence Matrix cross-tabulates actions and conditions with evidence, timing, causal role, and effect. Process Tracing Across Levels follows the mechanism from decisions through groups and institutions to broader outcomes. A Counterfactual Actor-Substitution Probe tests absence, delay, alternate occupants, coalitions, and changed positions.

A Structural-Constraint Relaxation Probe changes institutions, resources, networks, norms, or external conditions to test how conditional the actor effect is. A Paired Micro/Macro Timeline aligns local events with broad patterns and feedback. Turning-Point Opportunity Analysis examines whether a narrow option window or inherited path made one decision unusually consequential.

A Network and Institutional Position Map reveals authority, brokerage, information, selection, resource access, coalition, and replaceability. A Narrative Focal-Actor Audit compares source abundance, genre, commemoration, omissions, and causal evidence. Comparative-Case Attribution Testing contrasts similar structures with different actors and similar actors under different structures. A Plural Causal Synthesis Review challenges monocausal closure and checks responsibility boundaries.

Mechanism selection follows the claim. Archive-rich historical cases need provenance and narrative audit. Organizational cases need position, selection, information, and implementation maps. Turning-point claims need timing and counterfactual sensitivity. Collective movements need distributed agency and network evidence. Consequential praise or blame requires independent challenge.

prose_failure_modes:
**Protagonist capture** selects one visible actor before defining the outcome. **Archive abundance bias** treats surviving elite records as causal weight. **Personality-as-mechanism** explains events through charisma, genius, evil, or will without tracing action. **Position–person conflation** attributes role authority entirely to the occupant.

**Structure-as-fate** makes one outcome inevitable and erases open paths. **Actorless structure** names institutions or markets without showing how effects were enacted. **Implementation erasure** credits decisions while omitting distributed labor, opposition, maintenance, and affected communities. **Late-actor appropriation** assigns earlier causal work to the actor visible at completion.

**Unbounded substitution** assumes any actor could or could not have done the same without specifying position, timing, competence, legitimacy, or coalition. **Counterfactual certainty** reports hypothetical alternatives as observed facts. **Scale collapse** infers macro causality from one episode or erases micro contingency in aggregate pattern.

**Narrative moralization** converts causal prominence into virtue or guilt. **Legacy recursion** uses current commemoration as proof of original causal importance. **Balance theater** lists an actor and a structure without assigning roles or evidence. **Monocausal closure** suppresses alternative models and uncertainty. Each failure maps to a component and observable review signal.

prose_neighbor_distinctions:
**Founder Effect and Legacy Management** is the accepted direct owner and a specialized downstream composition. It maps founder-originated decisions and heritage, preserves living principles, sets succession authority, tests adaptation, manages founder shadow, and chooses keep, reinterpret, or sunset actions. The new parent first determines how much of the outcome is attributable to the founder versus position, institution, collective action, path, and later narrative.

**Multiple Causation and Explanatory Pluralism** coordinates several causal families and scales. Agency / Structure Attribution Balance focuses specifically on personal or collective agency relative to opportunity, constraint, selection, and replaceability. **Contingency-Visibility Across Scales** preserves micro contingency and macro structure through scale comparison; it is a central mechanism input but does not own actor contribution and responsibility boundaries.

**Narrative Construction Audit** examines event selection, causal sequence, focal actors, themes, omissions, and alternative narratives. It reveals why an actor is prominent but does not by itself estimate causal contribution. **Situational Attribution Check** checks context before explaining behavior as stable character; it is a behavioral attribution guard, not a full historiographic cross-scale causal model.

**Causal Mechanism Mapping** traces how causes produce effects but need not address heroic focality, actor substitution, distributed background actors, source asymmetry, or moralization. **Founder legacy**, **leadership evaluation**, **legal responsibility**, and **commemoration** use attribution evidence but retain their own decision standards.

prose_cross_domain_examples:
In political history, an account of a revolution separates a leader's decisions and coalition work from fiscal crisis, institutions, communication networks, military defections, popular mobilization, and prior failed reforms. Actor substitution and structural counterfactuals show which stages were timing-sensitive without claiming inevitability.

In organizational history, a founder receives credit for a culture. The analysis traces origin decisions, early-team selection, investor constraints, market timing, employee implementation, later memory, and successor reinterpretation. Only then does the organization compose Founder Effect and Legacy Management to decide what to retain.

In science and technology, an invention narrative compares the focal inventor's contribution with accumulated prior work, laboratory teams, instruments, funding, standards, manufacturing, simultaneous discovery, and patent institutions. Similar discoveries elsewhere constrain the uniqueness claim.

In a social movement, a famous leader's speech is analyzed alongside local organizers, membership networks, opposition, media, legal openings, repression, resources, and collective efficacy. Narrative focus is recorded as a mobilizing causal role without making the leader sufficient for the movement.

In crisis management, an executive is praised for recovery. Process tracing distinguishes decision quality from preexisting reserves, frontline improvisation, public systems, delegated authority, information quality, competitor failure, and luck. Responsibility for avoidable harm remains a separate standard.

In military history, command decisions are placed within logistics, doctrine, intelligence, terrain, technology, unit initiative, adversary choices, and political aims. A counterfactual commander probe is bounded by the same information and institutional position.

In public memory, a monument centers one actor. A narrative focal-actor audit compares commemoration with process evidence, missing contributors, affected communities, later legitimacy needs, and alternative narratives before a reinterpretation or removal decision.

prose_non_examples:
A biography that calls a leader charismatic and then attributes every outcome to charisma is not this archetype. A structural account that says “the economy caused it” without mechanism, actors, or open alternatives is not balanced attribution. Listing one actor and one context variable without causal roles is balance theater.

Counting name mentions in archives is not causal contribution measurement. Assuming a different person would have behaved identically because the role was the same is not a substitution test. Assuming no one else could have acted because no alternative actually occurred is counterfactual circularity.

Deciding whether a founder ritual should continue is Founder Effect and Legacy Management unless the causal attribution itself remains unresolved. Assigning criminal liability, moral guilt, compensation, or honors directly from historical prominence is not valid without the relevant responsibility standard.

prose_tradeoffs:
Rich actor-level detail can reveal mechanism and contingency but overfit vivid episodes. Macro structure can reveal recurring constraints but erase open choices. Large actor inventories improve fairness and completeness while increasing complexity. Narrative focus improves comprehension but can re-create protagonist bias.

Counterfactuals expose replaceability and conditionality but rely on assumptions that cannot be directly observed. Comparison cases discipline speculation but rarely match all relevant conditions. Position maps clarify authority and networks but can understate informal influence. Process tracing provides depth but source survival and selection may bias the chain.

Separating causal contribution from responsibility improves fairness but can frustrate demands for a simple verdict. High-consequence uses require more independent review and slower synthesis. A versioned plural account costs more than a heroic or deterministic story, but it reduces costly legacy errors, unjust blame, and brittle institutional lessons.

prose_invariants_to_preserve:
The outcome, stage, comparison, scale, and time horizon remain fixed while attribution is tested. Source visibility and later fame cannot stand in for causal magnitude. Actor contribution must connect an action or omission to a mechanism, timing, and outcome evidence. Personality descriptors are not causal mechanisms by themselves.

Structures must specify how they enabled, constrained, selected, distributed, or amplified action. They cannot be used as actorless master causes. Distributed contributors, opposition, implementation, and affected communities remain visible. Position and person remain distinguishable: role authority may explain an effect while individual choice explains its direction or timing.

Counterfactuals retain assumptions, plausibility bounds, and uncertainty. Micro and macro accounts must be reconciled without declaring one scale inherently causal. Alternative models and conflicting evidence remain accessible. Causal contribution does not automatically imply intention, foresight, praise, blame, liability, legitimacy, or deservingness.

Founder lifecycle action stays separate from attribution. The accepted founder-legacy owner decides what to keep, reinterpret, or sunset after this parent establishes a bounded contribution model.

prose_target_outcomes:
Immediate outcomes include a scoped explanatory target, visible actor and structure inventories, classified causal roles, and an evidence-linked account of timing and mechanisms. The analysis can state where focality comes from and which background work or constraints were previously invisible.

Intermediate outcomes include calibrated replaceability, clearer turning-point sensitivity, better comparison of actor and structural counterfactuals, and plural causal models with explicit uncertainty. Organizations and historians can identify which mechanisms persist after an actor exits and which depended on a unique coalition or moment.

Longer-term outcomes include less hero worship and scapegoating, less structural fatalism, fairer credit and responsibility practices, more robust succession and institutional design, and public narratives that preserve both agency and context. The best result is not a numerical causal share; it is a defensible account of conditional contribution and its limits.

prose_parameter_dimensions:
Actor concentration ranges from distributed work to a rare decision controlled by one person. Structural constraint ranges from many feasible paths to a sharply restricted option set. Replaceability ranges from many plausible substitutes to an unusual combination of skill, trust, position, timing, and coalition. Turning-point sensitivity ranges from gradual accumulation to a narrow decision window.

Source asymmetry ranges from plural evidence to an elite or commemorative archive. Scale span ranges from one episode to long multi-level transformation. Counterfactual support ranges from speculative alternatives to well-bounded process and comparison evidence. Responsibility consequence ranges from explanatory learning to sanction, reward, legitimacy, or public memory.

Other dimensions include path dependence, coalition dependence, institutional autonomy, distributed-execution share, opposition strength, narrative compression, evidence survival, temporal distance, role-selection strength, symbolic influence, unintended consequences, and feedback persistence after the actor exits. Tuning determines evidence depth and the appropriate confidence claim.

prose_variants_and_near_names:
The **Historical Actor–Structure Analysis Variant** balances individuals, collective actors, institutions, material conditions, timing, and narrative across a bounded historical episode. It emphasizes archive provenance, scale, turning points, and present-use risk.

The **Founder and Leader Legacy Analysis Variant** attributes effects before composing accepted Founder Effect and Legacy Management. It distinguishes founder action from role selection, early-member work, capital, market timing, institutional memory, and successor reinterpretation.

The **Collective Agency and Movement Analysis Variant** treats leadership, membership, networks, opposition, organizations, and emergent efficacy as interacting causal layers. A spokesperson's visibility cannot absorb distributed coordination.

The **Organizational Decision Attribution Variant** separates executive choice from governance, information systems, teams, incentives, implementation, regulation, and market context. It supports learning and accountability without assuming every organizational result expresses one leader's intention.

Near names such as hero audit, leadership attribution, individual-versus-system analysis, actor-centered history, and structural explanation review should not be added automatically as aliases. Some name narrower methods or contested theoretical positions. The canonical parent requires the complete evidence, counterfactual, scale, narrative, alternative-model, and responsibility contract.