MENTAL MODEL · M13112

Human Misjudgment Psychology

SystemsHigh supportCognitive Bias

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Updated 2026-08-17

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INTRODUCTION

English translation pending.

CORE DEFINITION

A catalogue of about twenty-five psychological tendencies, among them incentive-caused bias, envy, social proof, commitment and consistency, and deprivation super-reaction, which Munger assembled in a 1995 Harvard address and later published in Poor Charlie's Almanack. The central claim is that these tendencies are evolutionarily rooted, operate outside awareness, and compound when several fire at once, which is why extreme irrationality appears in otherwise competent people. The intended use is diagnostic rather than moral: run the list against a live decision and ask which tendencies are currently loaded. Munger treated incentive-caused bias as the most underrated member of the set.

SCAFFOLDING EFFECT

psychology

Reduce cognitive load

- Auditing a decision: Run the tendency list against a live choice and name which biases are currently loaded. - Designing incentives: Check what behaviour your reward scheme actually pays for, not what it announces. - Explaining extremes: When competent people act absurdly, look for several tendencies firing together.

anchor

Anchor fast decisions

The tendencies are shortcuts that usually pay off, which is why they survive; they misfire only in environments that differ from the ones that shaped them. Because they operate automatically and outside awareness, introspection reports the conclusion rather than the process, so self-correction requires an external list rather than more thinking. Several tendencies firing at once multiply rather than add, which explains why ordinary people produce extreme outcomes in crowds and incentive-heavy organisations. Naming the tendency interrupts the automatic path long enough for deliberate reasoning to run.

MINIMUM ACTION

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Practice this model in one real situation:

Before a significant decision, read the tendency list once and name the two most likely to be active. 2. Write down what the incentive structure pays you for, including reputational and social rewards. 3. Ask who benefits if you reach this conclusion, and what the answer would look like if you were wrong. 4. Check for compounding: count how many tendencies point the same way and treat that as a red flag. 5. Record the decision and revisit it later, since the tendencies stay invisible while they operate.

Check to track your progress (stored locally)

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Source support: Explicit

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analogypkm.comhttps://analogypkm.com/experience/mental-models/zh/049_人类误判心理.htmlZH · Explicit
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