Systems or individuals that gain from stressors, exceeding baseline capacity post-adversity. Coined by Nassim Taleb. In this framework: post-intervention capacity surpassing pre-grinding baseline, measured by NAI +20 points sustained 3 months.

Proposed metric validating post-traumatic growth including new capabilities, protective anger, structural power literacy, and sustained capacity exceeding baseline.

Cognitive-Affective Personality System (Mischel & Shoda). Personality as stable “if-then” behavioral signatures: specific situations trigger specific responses. Personality is situationally variable, not fixed traits.

Psychoanalytic theory (Weiss, Sampson) proposing individuals unconsciously test pathogenic beliefs through relationships. Therapeutic disconfirmation of these beliefs enables growth.

Proposed composite metric quantifying total institutional harm across moral disengagement mechanisms, EMM tactics, and procedural burden. DDI ≥ 70 indicates systematic dignity violation.

Manipulation tactics engineering emotional volatility to exploit decision-making: compression chambers, pump/dump cycles, grinding, loops, flushing. Analogous to financial market manipulation but targeting psychological states.

Philosophical position that identity, personality, and values are not fixed essences but fluid, context-dependent constructs. This fluidity creates both adaptive intelligence and exploitable vulnerability.

Bandura’s theory: 8 mechanisms enabling harmful behavior while maintaining ethical self-concept: moral justification, euphemistic labeling, advantageous comparison, displacement/diffusion of responsibility, disregard/distortion of consequences, dehumanization, attribution of blame.

Proposed metric measuring genuine autonomy vs. coerced compliance: narrative coherence (past-present-future integration) + value alignment (living by chosen principles) + sovereign agency (self-authorship).

Process of converting imposed values (inherited from authority, tradition, or coercion) to authentically chosen values through conscious examination and affirmation.

(Control Mastery Theory) Unconscious beliefs formed from traumatic experience that constrain adaptive behavior. Example: “If I assert my needs, I’ll be abandoned.” Institutional grinding activates these beliefs.

Stability of narrative identity, alignment between stated values and lived choices, consistency in meaning-making frameworks. High coherence predicts resistance to institutional gaslighting.

Systematic use of bureaucratic procedures to exhaust claimants: sequential disclosure of requirements, unexplained delays, document floods, Kafka loops, temporal asymmetry. Each step individually defensible; cumulative effect devastating.

Capacity to “bounce back” to baseline after adversity. Contrasts with antifragility (emerging stronger). Traditional resilience approaches often become victim-blaming when applied to systematic institutional harm.

Distinction between authentically chosen values (self-determined through reflection) vs. imposed values (inherited from authority, tradition, or coercion). High sovereignty predicts resistance to manipulation.

The multiplicative (not additive) relationship between vulnerability and institutional harm determining outcomes: HARM = VI × DDI. High VI + Low DDI = manageable; Low VI + High DDI = frustrating; High VI + High DDI = catastrophic.

Proposed composite metric predicting current susceptibility to institutional manipulation integrating: philosophical coherence + value stability + life satisfaction trajectory + personality adaptiveness. VI < 30 = Fortified; VI 30-60 = Contested; VI ≥ 60 = Captured.