MENTAL MODEL · M13111

Proxy Decision

SystemsHigh supportDecision Methods

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Updated 2026-08-17

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INTRODUCTION

English translation pending.

CORE DEFINITION

A decision technique that substitutes a third-person vantage for your own: you ask what you would tell a trusted friend, or how a named stakeholder would experience the choice, and decide on that basis. It is a practical application of perspective-taking research and of the observation that people give more rational advice to others than to themselves, because advising carries less ego exposure. The proxy must be specific, a real person with known interests, otherwise the imagined perspective collapses back into projection. It informs a decision but does not transfer responsibility for it.

SCAFFOLDING EFFECT

psychology

Reduce cognitive load

- Escaping self-interest: Restate your dilemma as a friend's dilemma and give them the advice you would give. - Testing stakeholders: Walk the decision through each affected party and note where their reactions diverge. - Breaking deadlock: Ask which option a respected outsider would pick, and why they would pick it.

anchor

Anchor fast decisions

Advice given to others is less contaminated by ego defence and sunk cost, so identical reasoning produces different conclusions depending on whose problem it is said to be. Renaming the problem as someone else's strips the identity stakes that trigger motivated reasoning, and the advice then tracks the evidence rather than the need to stay consistent with past choices. Cycling through named stakeholders adds information a single vantage cannot supply, because each party holds a different model of the consequences. The mechanism is distance, not empathy.

MINIMUM ACTION

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Practice this model in one real situation:

Write the decision as if a close friend faced it, and record the advice you would give them. 2. Name three affected parties and predict what each would object to in your preferred option. 3. Compare your own choice with the advice you just wrote, and note every difference. 4. Ask which party holds information you lack, then go and ask them directly. 5. Decide, and keep the decision in your own name rather than hiding behind the proxy.

Check to track your progress (stored locally)

Learning progress0%

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Source support: Explicit

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analogypkm.comhttps://analogypkm.com/experience/mental-models/zh/043_替身决策.htmlZH · Explicit
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