Quick decision exercises for the foundational skill: given a scenario, identify which mechanism is the primary driver of behaviour. Most scenarios involve multiple mechanisms. You're looking for the primary driver — where would intervention have the most leverage?

What

Read a scenario, identify the primary mechanism, then check against the answer key. No theory names needed yet — just sort by which system is doing the work.

When to use

Start here. This is the first analytical exercise in the ethical decision-making programme. Master this before attempting mechanism explanation or multi-level analysis.

Preparation

Print or display the mechanism table above for reference while working scenarios. Work alone. Write your answer before checking.

How

Work through all eight scenarios. For each: read once, identify the primary mechanism, then open the answer key. If you got it wrong, re-read the scenario and note what you missed.

Scenario 1

A soldier sees a suspicious package but doesn't report it because "it's probably nothing" — a feeling he can't quite justify.

Which mechanism?

Pattern detector. The decision is driven by a gut feeling ("probably nothing") that precedes reasoning. He can't justify it — it's an automatic affective judgement, not a reasoned conclusion.

Scenario 2

A soldier sees a suspicious package but doesn't report it because reporting is complicated — he'd need to find his section commander, fill out a form, and probably get questioned about why he was in that area.

Which mechanism?

Affordance auction. The environment makes reporting costly (friction, effort, scrutiny). The situation shapes behaviour by making one affordance (ignore) easier than another (report).

Scenario 3

A soldier sees a suspicious package but doesn't report it because last week someone reported a false alarm and got mocked for being paranoid.

Which mechanism?

Prestige engine. Social consequences (mockery, reputation cost) drive the decision. The group's response to the previous reporter changed what behaviour is rewarded.

Scenario 4

A soldier sees a suspicious package but doesn't report it because he thinks: "It's probably just rubbish. And even if it's not, EOD will say I wasted their time. And I'm already late for my task..."

Which mechanism?

Lazy controller. This is reasoning — rationalisation, weighing (badly), generating justifications. The lazy controller is generating reasons to avoid the effortful action.

Scenario 5

A soldier sees a suspicious package but doesn't report it because in this unit, people handle things themselves rather than "making a fuss." Escalating is seen as weak.

Which mechanism?

Enforcement infrastructure. This is cultural — an institutional norm about what kind of behaviour is valued. It's not about this specific group's reaction (prestige engine) but a broader cultural expectation.

Scenario 6

An officer gives a harsh punishment to a soldier she dislikes, then a lenient one to a soldier she likes. When asked, she generates different reasons for each.

Which mechanism is PRIMARY?

Pattern detector drives, lazy controller follows. The liking/disliking is automatic affective tagging (pattern detector). The different reasons are post-hoc rationalisation (lazy controller). Primary driver is the pattern detector — the reasoning serves the gut reaction.

Scenario 7

A unit has excellent safety statistics, but only because near-misses aren't reported. Everyone knows this, but reporting would make the unit look bad compared to rivals.

Which mechanism?

Prestige engine (inter-group competition) with enforcement infrastructure enabling (metrics culture). Primary: prestige engine — the comparison with rival units drives the behaviour. Enforcement infrastructure sets up the conditions (metrics matter) but the active driver is group competition.

Scenario 8

After 20 hours without sleep, a commander makes a decision he later can't explain. "I just... decided. I don't know why I picked that option."

Which mechanism?

Lazy controller failure exposes pattern detector default. The lazy controller disengaged due to fatigue (resource depletion), so the pattern detector's gut response drove action without deliberative oversight. Primary: lazy controller (its absence is the story).

Why it works

The skill being trained is triage. Before you can explain or intervene, you need to sort — which system is doing the work? This builds the prediction engine's pattern library for mechanism recognition: repeated practice with varied scenarios and corrective feedback creates the pattern-matching that makes later analysis faster.

The scenarios are deliberately similar in surface structure (same suspicious package, five different drivers) to force attention to the mechanism, not the content. The later scenarios introduce multi-level interactions, previewing the interaction skill without requiring it yet.

Outcomes

After completing these exercises, you should be able to:

• Sort a novel scenario by primary mechanism within a few seconds
• Articulate why you chose that mechanism (not just which one)
• Spot when two mechanisms are interacting and identify the primary driver