Pillar I
Foundations & Classic Studies.
The classic experiments and core mechanisms everything else rests on — obedience, dissonance, attribution, comparison, and the human need to know what others are doing.
16 entries ·search the index →
175+ found this interesting
Obedience to Authority
Ordinary people will inflict serious harm on an innocent stranger when a legitimate-seeming authority tells them to — and most will keep going after the victim protests.
- #Authority
- #Ethics
- #Classic Studies
150+ found this interesting
Cognitive Dissonance
Holding two conflicting beliefs — or acting against your own values — creates genuine discomfort, and the mind resolves it by rewriting the belief rather than the behaviour.
- #Cognition
- #Self-Justification
- #Classic Studies
125+ found this interesting
Fundamental Attribution Error
We explain other people's behaviour by their character and our own by our circumstances — overestimating personality and underestimating situation every day.
- #Attribution
- #Judgement
- #Classic Studies
100+ found this interesting
Social Proof
When unsure what is correct, people infer it from what others appear to be doing — treating the crowd's behaviour as evidence of what is right.
- #Influence
- #Consensus
- #Classic Studies
100+ found this interesting
Social Comparison
People evaluate their opinions and abilities by comparing themselves with others — especially when no objective standard exists — and the comparison quietly becomes the standard.
- #Self-Concept
- #Status
- #Classic Studies
100+ found this interesting
Just-World Hypothesis
The belief that the world is fair — that people get what they deserve — which leads observers to blame victims and excuse systems in order to feel safe and in control.
- #Belief
- #Fairness
- #Classic Studies
125+ found this interesting
Mimetic Desire
Desire is not born inside us but borrowed from others: we want what our models want, and the model becomes a rival the moment we pursue the same object.
- #Philosophy
- #Desire
- #Rivalry
125+ found this interesting
Costly Signalling
Reliable signals of quality must be expensive to fake — only traits that are genuinely costly are believed, which is why humans display hard-won knowledge, scars, and sacrifices.
- #Evolution
- #Signalling
- #Commitment
125+ found this interesting
Prestige vs Dominance
Humans climb rank by two distinct routes: dominance, which compels deference through fear, and prestige, which earns it through valued skill — and the two produce opposite social climates.
- #Hierarchy
- #Leadership
- #Evolution
125+ found this interesting
Optimism Bias
People systematically believe they are less likely than others to suffer negative events and more likely to enjoy positive ones — and the belief survives education, experience, and statistics.
- #Cognition
- #Risk
- #Denial
100+ found this interesting
Locus of Control
The degree to which a person attributes life outcomes to their own actions (internal) or to outside forces such as luck, chance, or powerful others (external) — a stable orientation that shapes conformity and resilience.
- #Agency
- #Attribution
- #Resilience
125+ found this interesting
Reciprocity
The near-universal obligation to repay what has been given — a norm so strong that an unrequested favour creates a real debt, and so exploitable that it opens every compliance script ever written.
- #Influence
- #Compliance
- #Norms
150+ found this interesting
Commitment & Consistency
Once people take a stand — especially a public one — they bend their later behaviour and beliefs to match it, which makes a small initial commitment the cheapest route to a large later concession.
- #Influence
- #Consistency
- #Self-Concept
125+ found this interesting
Liking
We say yes to people we like — and liking is manufactured far more easily than we assume: familiarity, similarity, flattery, cooperation, and attractiveness all raise compliance without anyone noticing the lever move.
- #Influence
- #Rapport
- #Persuasion
75+ found this interesting
Egocentric Insecurity
Insecurity is not the opposite of egotism but one of its expressions: the feeling of inadequacy arises from excessive self-focus, so the person who feels small is often the person thinking about themselves the most.
- #Insecurity
- #Self-Focus
- #Identity
75+ found this interesting
Deflective Egotism
The insecure egotist manages their own self-importance by accusing others of the egotism they cannot acknowledge in themselves — a defence that converts self-criticism into an attack.
- #Projection
- #Egotism
- #Defence Mechanisms
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