Mental Model
Identity-Based Habits (Clear)
James Clear's identity-based habits model inverts the conventional approach to behavior change
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Mental Model
Ideological Bias (Seeing Through Political Lens)
The systematic distortion of evidence evaluation based on political or ideological commitments—where people accept evidence that supports their ideology and reject evidence that challenges it, regardless of the evidence'…
Mental Model
Ijma (Consensus Building)
Ijma is the Islamic jurisprudential principle that scholarly consensus constitutes a binding source of authority, ranked after the Quran and Prophetic tradition (Sunnah)
Mental Model
Ijtihad (Independent Reasoning)
Ijtihad is the Islamic jurisprudential practice of independent reasoning to derive legal or ethical rulings on new situations not explicitly addressed by foundational texts
Mental Model
IKEA Effect (Valuing What You Build)
The cognitive bias where people place disproportionately high value on things they've personally created or assembled—even when the result is objectively inferior to alternatives
Mental Model
Ikigai (Life Purpose Framework)
Ikigai (literally 'life worth living' or 'reason for being') is a Japanese concept for finding sustained meaning and motivation through the intersection of four dimensions: what you love (passion), what you are good at (…
Mental Model
Ikigai Career Framework
Ikigai, a Japanese concept meaning 'reason for being,' has been adapted into a career framework with four overlapping circles: what you love, what you're good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for
Mental Model
Illusion of Attention
The false belief that we notice everything important in our visual and cognitive field—when in reality, attention is extremely selective and we miss enormous amounts of information that we're 'looking at.' Simons and Cha…
Mental Model
Illusion of Control
Ellen Langer's finding that people believe they have more influence over random or uncontrollable outcomes than they actually do—especially when superficial features of control are present (choosing your own lottery numb…
Mental Model
Illusion of Explanatory Depth
Rozenblit and Keil's finding that people believe they understand complex systems and mechanisms FAR more deeply than they actually do—and that this illusion is specific to explanatory knowledge (how things work) rather t…
Mental Model
Illusion of Transparency
The false belief that your internal states—thoughts, feelings, intentions—are more visible to others than they actually are
Cognitive Move
Imagine absence
Delete one piece of the situation and watch what collapses. Not what would cause failure, but what quietly holds the plan up. Whatever breaks when you subtract it was load-bearing, and you now know exactly what you were depending on.
Cognitive Move
Immediate
The nearest measurable payoff, the one that lands right after the effort ends. Write it as a specific result at a specific date, so you can tell whether a method actually worked at all before you judge whether it lasted.
Mental Model
Immunity to Change (Kegan & Lahey)
A framework for exploring whether a desired change is constrained by a competing commitment and a protective assumption
Cognitive Move
Impact, Rights, and Distribution
Look past the average to who bears the worst loss and whose rights constrain the choice.
Mental Model
Impatience
The tendency to overvalue immediate rewards and undervalue delayed ones (hyperbolic discounting)
Mental Model
Impermanence (Anicca)
Anicca is the Buddhist teaching that conditioned phenomena are impermanent
Cognitive Move
Implementation authority
Names who is authorized to actually carry the decision out once it is approved, and how much discretion they hold over the details. Deciding is one job; building, installing, and running the thing is a separate one that needs its own named owner.
Mental Model
Implementation Intention Formula (Gollwitzer)
A goal-achievement protocol based on Peter Gollwitzer's research showing that specifying the when, where, and how of goal-directed action doubles to triples the likelihood of follow-through
Mental Model
Implementation Intentions (Gollwitzer)
Implementation intentions are specific if-then plans linking a situational cue to a planned response: 'If X arises, then I will do Y.' Peter Gollwitzer's research demonstrates this roughly doubles follow-through probabil…
Mental Model
Imposter Syndrome
An experience of doubting or discounting evidence of competence and fearing exposure as less capable than others believe.
Mental Model
Imposter Syndrome Spiral
Beyond the basic concept of feeling like a fraud despite evidence of competence, the spiral model maps how imposter syndrome creates a self-reinforcing cycle that worsens over time: (1) initial success is attributed to l…
Mental Model
Impostor Phenomenon (Clinical Framework)
The impostor phenomenon, identified by Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, describes the persistent internal experience of intellectual phoniness despite objective evidence of competence