Unpacking effect

Biological Parallel

Chimpanzees respond more intensely to explicitly enumerated threats (snake-in-grass + leopard-in-tree + neighboring-troop-attack) than to aggregated 'danger' concept, even when the sets are identical. Unpacking activates multiple fear circuits simultaneously. Behaviorally, explicit enumeration produces higher total probability estimates than packed categories—the unpacking effect. Sales teams exploit this: 'revenue from enterprise + SMB + government' sounds larger than 'total revenue.' Venture capitalists assign higher success probability to 'succeed via acquisition OR IPO OR profitable exit' than 'succeed.' Risk managers assessing 'cyber + fraud + compliance violations' estimate higher total risk than 'operational failures.' Granular framing inflates subjective probability.