Mental Model
Mean, Median, Mode (Central Tendency)
Three different ways to measure the 'center' of a distribution, each revealing different information
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Mental Model
Meaning (Semantic Precision)
Most disagreements are semantic rather than substantive—people using the same words to mean different things
Mental Model
Meaning Reconstruction After Loss (Neimeyer)
Robert Neimeyer's constructivist grief framework proposing that the central challenge of bereavement isn't emotional recovery but meaning reconstruction—rebuilding a coherent narrative identity that incorporates the loss
Mental Model
Meaning Reconstruction after Loss (Neimeyer) — Extended Framework
Robert Neimeyer's meaning reconstruction approach frames grief as fundamentally a process of remaking meaning in a world disrupted by loss
Mental Model
Meaning-Making Coping Model (Park)
Crystal Park's meaning-making coping model provides a comprehensive framework for understanding how people process and cope with stressful events through meaning
Cognitive Move
Measure
The rule that turns what was captured into a number: what counts as the thing, on what scale, over what denominator and window, and whether the act of measuring changes the answer. Not who collected it, and not who got counted.
Cognitive Move
Measure
Spell out the instrument and unit that turn your observable into a number: which data source, which event, counted how, in what units, per what thing. Anyone reading it should be able to produce the same number without asking you.
Cognitive Move
Measure and indicator
Define exactly what you're measuring, in what units, against what denominator, and how precise the number really is.
Mental Model
Measure Twice Cut Once Principle
The most universal maxim in building trades encodes a deep asymmetry: verification is cheap, correction is expensive or impossible
Cognitive Move
Measurement Card
A Measurement Card is a one-page form you fill in before reporting a number, pinning down exactly what it counts, on whom, over what period, and what it cannot prove.
Mental Model
Measuring Tips
In the tipping-point context, measuring tips concerns changes in the probability distribution of possible future outcomes when a state or contextual variable changes near a threshold
Cognitive Move
Mechanism
Spell out the actual process the vague word points to: what causes what, step by step. Your indicators and cases only show that something happens; this says why it happens, which is what tells you whether a new behavior belongs in the category.
Cognitive Move
Mechanism
The causal route: what actually does the work that produces your result. Swap the engine, not the packaging. Two candidates that run on the same engine are one candidate, no matter how different they look on the surface.
Cognitive Move
Mechanism
Find out through what sequence of steps or bottleneck the outcome actually arises.
Mental Model
Mechanism Design
Mechanism design studies how feasible rules and information arrangements can achieve specified objectives when participants respond strategically
Cognitive Move
Mechanism trace
For each rival explanation, spell out how it would leave a different fingerprint in the world.
Cognitive Move
Mechanisms
The concrete how of a function: the specific method, routine, or machinery you would actually run. Swappable by design, since several different mechanisms can serve the same function equally well. If you can't picture doing it Tuesday morning, it isn't here.
Mental Model
Media Framing Analysis (How Frame Shapes Perception)
Media framing analysis studies how the same facts produce different reactions depending on presentation
Mental Model
Media Literacy Framework
Media literacy encompasses critical skills for evaluating media messages
Mental Model
Median
The middle value when data is sorted from lowest to highest—exactly half the values fall above and half below
Mental Model
Mediation Triangle
The Mediation Triangle describes a conflict resolution structure where a neutral third party facilitates dialogue between two disputants
Cognitive Move
Mediators
Name the in-between step the cause has to run through to reach the outcome. Not what else could explain the link, and not what changes its strength, but the actual chain: cause acts on this, and this acts on the result.
Cognitive Move
Medical
Route the moment to a clinician when a body symptom is in play. You cannot tell from the inside whether chest tightness, dizziness, or numbness is stress or a heart problem, so treat that uncertainty itself as the reason to get checked.
Mental Model
Medical Emergency Decision Tree
A decision protocol for non-medical-professionals to determine the appropriate response level during a medical emergency