The irreducible epistemic atoms underlying the curriculum. 2,888 atoms across 3 types and 2 molecules
Thoughts and behaviors can be separated from core identity and treated as objects of analysis rather than definitions of self.
Habit automaticity develops along a logarithmic curve — rapid early progress followed by diminishing returns as behavior approaches an asymptotic plateau.
Humans discount future rewards hyperbolically, with value dropping steeply in the near term and flattening further out.
Self-monitoring of behavior produces significant and consistent positive effects on goal attainment.
Temporal proximity between behavior and reward determines the strength of associative learning.
Physical proximity and visibility of objects in an environment determine the likelihood of interacting with those objects independent of conscious intention.
A more probable behavior can reinforce a less probable behavior when access to the former is made contingent on performing the latter.
Specifying when, where, and how a behavior will occur in advance increases the probability of execution.
Neural pathways that encode habits persist even after the behavior stops — habits cannot be deleted, only suppressed or replaced.
Behaviors spread through social networks following network topology up to three degrees of separation.
Wanting and liking are neurologically distinct systems mediated by different brain pathways.
The three basic psychological needs are autonomy, competence, and relatedness, and behavior satisfying these needs is more persistent and satisfying than behavior motivated by external rewards.
Extinction does not erase original learning but creates competing inhibitory associations that overlay it.
A behavioral sequence in progress tends to continue unless disrupted, with resistance to disruption proportional to reinforcement history.
The completion of one action can serve as a discriminative stimulus (cue) for the next action in a sequence.
Chain reliability is multiplicative — the probability that all links fire equals the product of each link's individual reliability.
Default options determine behavior more reliably than information or motivation when individuals take no deliberate action.
Under acute stress, the prefrontal cortex degrades in function while subcortical systems remain operational.
Organisms perceive environments not as abstract physical properties but as action possibilities (affordances).
There is no neutral way to present choices - every arrangement of options influences what people choose.
Emotional suppression increases physiological stress and impairs memory while failing to reduce internal emotional experience.
Between every event and every emotional response is a cognitive appraisal that interprets what the event means.
Naming an emotion reduces its intensity through increased prefrontal cortex activation.
There exists a window of approximately 200 milliseconds between conscious awareness of an initiated action and the point of no return for that action.