Mental Model
Conflict Escalation Ladder (Glasl)
Friedrich Glasl's nine-stage model maps how conflicts escalate from mild tension to mutual destruction, providing a diagnostic framework for intervention
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Mental Model
Conflict Resolution (Force, Power, Negotiation)
The three fundamental approaches to resolving disputes: force (coercion, threat, or violence), power (using positional, informational, or relational leverage), and negotiation (finding mutually acceptable solutions)
Mental Model
Conflict Resolution Conversation Protocol
A structured seven-step protocol for resolving interpersonal conflicts through direct conversation
Mental Model
Conflicts of Interest Detection
A conflict of interest exists when a person's professional judgment or duty is compromised by a competing personal interest—financial gain, career advancement, loyalty to friends, or desire to avoid discomfort
Cognitive Move
Confounders
Ask what hidden third thing could be driving both sides at once, faking a link between them. Unlike a mediator, which sits on the causal path, this factor sits off to the side and manufactures the correlation you noticed.
Mental Model
Confounding Variable
A hidden third variable that influences both the apparent cause and the apparent effect, creating a spurious correlation between them
Mental Model
Confucian Rectification of Names (Zhengming)
When asked what he would do first with political power, Confucius answered: 'rectify names.' If names are incorrect, speech doesn't accord with reality; if speech doesn't accord, affairs cannot be completed (Analects 13.…
Mental Model
Confucian Self-Cultivation (Xiuyang)
Xiuyang is the conviction that moral and intellectual excellence is developed through deliberate, lifelong practice
Mental Model
Conjoined Triangles of Success
A fictional management diagram in HBO’s Silicon Valley, used as satire of authoritative business frameworks
Mental Model
Conjunction Fallacy
The error of judging a specific, detailed scenario as MORE probable than a general one that contains it—violating the basic law that a subset cannot be more probable than its superset
Mental Model
Connectionism (Learning by Analogy)
Connectionism models cognition using interacting connected units
Mental Model
Consensus as Compromise Trap
The failure pattern where consensus-seeking produces decisions that no one actually supports—watered-down compromises that incorporate enough of everyone's preferences to be collectively acceptable but individually unins…
Mental Model
Consent as Ongoing Process
The evolving consent framework moves beyond the binary 'yes/no' model to understand consent as a continuous, context-dependent, communicative process throughout sexual encounters
Cognitive Move
Consent authority
Names whose active yes the plan needs before it can legitimately proceed, usually people whose rights, bodies, data, or money are directly at stake. Deciding picks the option; consent makes it permissible. Scope it to those genuinely required, not everyone.
Cognitive Move
Consent, Control, and Decision Rights
Assign who may propose, decide, consent, veto, and revise the goal before conflict forces the question.
Mental Model
Consequence vs Conviction
A two-axis decision and delegation heuristic: consider the consequences of being wrong separately from confidence in a preferred answer
Mental Model
Consequence-Conviction Matrix
A framework for matching decision-making approach to the situation: high-conviction/low-consequence decisions should be made quickly by individuals; high-conviction/high-consequence decisions deserve rapid execution with…
Mental Model
Consequences (Second-Order Effects)
The discipline of tracing effects beyond the immediate first-order consequence by repeatedly asking 'And then what?' Every action creates ripples: first-order effects are obvious, second-order effects require thought, an…
Mental Model
Consequentialism
Consequentialism is a family of ethical views grounding moral assessment in consequences, with different accounts of value, uncertainty, and the object evaluated
Mental Model
Conservation Laws (What's Conserved When Things Change)
Conservation laws preserve specified physical quantities under stated conditions
Cognitive Move
Consider
Can you generate at least one genuinely different interpretation or response than the one gripping you?
Mental Model
Conspicuous Consumption
Conspicuous consumption, associated with Thorstein Veblen, describes consumption that displays wealth or social standing
Cognitive Move
Constrain / Precommit
Add a voluntary boundary, delay, or friction before a predictable failure state arrives.