Mental Model
Intermittent Reinforcement Bond
The most addictive relationship pattern, based on the same mechanism that makes slot machines compelling: unpredictable alternation between reward and punishment
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Mental Model
Internal Family Systems (IFS) Model
Internal Family Systems, developed by Richard Schwartz, models the mind as a multiplicity of sub-personalities ('parts'), each with its own perspective, feelings, and agenda
Mental Model
Interpretation and Reinterpretation
The cognitive process by which meaning is constructed from events—and the transformative power of deliberately reinterpreting past events through new frameworks
Mental Model
Interrupt Coalescing
A computing technique where, instead of processing every interrupt (notification, request, signal) immediately as it arrives, the system batches multiple interrupts and processes them together at scheduled intervals
Cognitive Move
intersection matrix
Sets down the side and across the top, with the size of each overlap written in the cell. The diagonal holds the size of each set on its own. There is no geometry to lay out, so it takes as many sets as fit on the page, and a cell reading zero is as easy to spot as a large one.
Cognitive Move
Intervention points
For each rival mechanism you listed, name the specific spot you could actually reach in and change something, and say what would shift downstream if that mechanism is the real one. Handles you can grab, not structure you can only describe.
Mental Model
Intimacy-Passion-Commitment Triangle (Sternberg)
Robert Sternberg's Triangular Theory of Love identifies three components—intimacy (emotional closeness, bonding, connectedness), passion (physical attraction, sexual desire, romantic arousal), and commitment (decision to…
Mental Model
Intrapreneurship Path
Intrapreneurship develops entrepreneurial ventures within existing organizations, leveraging corporate resources while managing innovation risk
Mental Model
Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation
Intrinsic motivation comes from the inherent satisfaction of the activity itself—curiosity, mastery, meaning, autonomy
Mental Model
Intro_ The Prisoners' Dilemma and Collective Action
The prisoner's dilemma shows how a specific set of individual incentives can make mutual defection an equilibrium even when mutual cooperation would benefit both players
Mental Model
Introduction To Growth
Growth models distinguish rules such as constant addition, constant proportional increase, and specific forms of capacity-limited change
Mental Model
Introduction to Linear Models
Linear models express additive effects with fixed coefficients
Mental Model
Introversion vs Extraversion
A contrast concerning patterns of sociability, assertiveness, and engagement, usually treated as a continuum in contemporary trait models
Mental Model
Intuition
Rapid, unconscious pattern recognition based on accumulated experience—what Gary Klein calls 'the power of thinking without thinking.' Intuition works by matching current situations to patterns stored in memory from thou…
Mental Model
Intuitive Eating Model (Tribole & Resch)
Intuitive Eating, developed by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, is a 10-principle framework rejecting external diet rules to reconnect with internal hunger and satiety cues
Mental Model
Invasive Species Dynamics
Invasion ecology distinguishes introduction, establishment, spread, and impact
Mental Model
Inverse Conway Maneuver
A strategy of changing communication and collaboration arrangements to encourage a desired system structure
Mental Model
Inversion
Approaching a problem through an opposite or failure-oriented formulation to reveal constraints, dependencies, and preventable mistakes.
Cognitive Move
Invert the arrow
Flip which side of a relationship you treat as the cause. Instead of walking a chain from a different end, swap the roles: treat the supposed effect as the driver and the supposed driver as the result, then see which version survives.
Mental Model
Inverted Pyramid (Information Priority Structure)
The inverted pyramid presents the most important information first, then supporting details in descending importance, so the piece can be cut from the bottom without losing essentials
Mental Model
Investing vs Speculation
Graham distinguished investment operations supported by analysis of value, protection of principal, and adequate prospective return from operations that did not meet those conditions
Mental Model
IQ vs EQ
A comparison between measured cognitive abilities and constructs concerning emotional information or competencies
Mental Model
Iron Cage of Rationality (Weber)
Weber's prediction that modern society's pursuit of efficiency, calculability, and control would trap humanity in an 'iron cage' of bureaucratic rationality—where everything is optimized but nothing is meaningful
Mental Model
Iron Law of Bureaucracy
Jerry Pournelle's observation that in any bureaucratic organization, people devoted to the bureaucracy itself (its processes, hierarchies, and self-preservation) will always end up in control, displacing people devoted t…