Mental Model
Cognitive Apprenticeship
Cognitive apprenticeship makes expert thinking visible by applying the traditional apprenticeship model to cognitive skills
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Mental Model
Cognitive Dissonance
Leon Festinger's theory that holding two contradictory beliefs simultaneously produces psychological discomfort (dissonance) that the mind resolves by changing one of the beliefs, adding a rationalizing belief, or reduci…
Mental Model
Cognitive Load Theory
An instructional theory about working-memory demands for unfamiliar interacting information, prior knowledge, and learning
Cognitive Move
Cognitive operation
Name the kind of mental work involved, not the output: acquiring, persisting, representing, generating, computing, judging, coordinating, acting, or learning. Verbs decide the carrier. Anything requiring judgment or coordination cannot be handed to a script, and a task mixing several verbs usually needs splitting.
Mental Model
Cognitive Restructuring Technique
Cognitive restructuring is the systematic process of identifying, challenging, and modifying distorted thoughts and beliefs that contribute to emotional distress and maladaptive behavior
Mental Model
Cognitive Switching Penalty (Context Switching)
Changing tasks can impose reconfiguration, interference, and resumption costs that vary with the tasks and circumstances.
Mental Model
Coherent Stories vs Accurate Statistics
Kahneman's observation that the human brain finds coherent narratives more compelling than accurate statistics—and when the two conflict, the narrative usually wins
Cognitive Move
Cohort alignment
Reset the clock so every case is measured from its own day zero, then stack those runs side by side. Calendar dates stop being the axis. You compare week four to week four instead of comparing a beginner to a veteran.
Mental Model
Coincidences and Miracles
Statistically improbable events are not just possible but expected when the sample size is large enough
Cognitive Move
Collaborate
Work jointly when mutual adaptation and shared context are themselves part of the value.
Mental Model
Collective Action and Common Pool Resource Problems
Common-pool resource problems arise when exclusion is difficult and use subtracts from others’ availability
Mental Model
Collective Action Dilemma in Civic Life
Mancur Olson's collective action dilemma explains why groups with shared interests often fail to act: when benefits are shared (public goods) but costs fall on participating individuals, rational self-interest predicts f…
Mental Model
Collective Effervescence (Durkheim)
Durkheim's concept describing the heightened emotional energy that emerges when people gather in shared ritual activity—the feeling at concerts, protests, religious services, sports events, and great team experiences
Mental Model
Collective Effervescence (Durkheim) — Applied Framework
Émile Durkheim's collective effervescence describes the heightened energy, emotional intensity, and sense of transcendence that emerges when groups engage in shared ritual activity
Mental Model
Collective Grief Processing
Collective grief occurs when a community, organization, or society mourns a shared loss—a mass tragedy, a beloved public figure's death, an organizational failure, or a cultural shift that eliminates a shared way of life
Mental Model
Colonel Blotto Game
Colonel Blotto is a family of games about simultaneous allocation of limited resources across contests whose outcomes depend on relative allocations.
Cognitive Move
Color roles
Give every color one job and write that job down. Instead of highlighting whatever looks important today, decide in advance what blue means, what red means, and use them the same way on every page.
Cognitive Move
Combination/dependencies
Ask what else the option is bundled with, and what has to be true or in place first for it to work. You are not changing the terms or the exit, but the pairings and prerequisites the option rides on.
Mental Model
Comfort Zone Calcification
The progressive hardening of the comfort zone boundary until it becomes a prison rather than a base
Cognitive Move
Comfortable Breath Experiment
A few unforced, comfortable slower breaths are a small experiment to create thinking room, not a nervous-system reset, and you retest the task function afterward.
Mental Model
Commander's Intent
A military concept that communicates purpose and a desired end state so subordinates can exercise initiative within the commander’s intent
Mental Model
Commander's Intent Cascade (Nested Purpose Statements)
Commander's intent as a cascade describes how purpose flows through organizational levels, with each translating higher intent into their context while maintaining alignment