01 / SELF-AWARENESS
Why insight isn't enough
Understanding a pattern can be the beginning of change, not proof that change has occurred.
Psychology × Organisational Behaviour × Everyday Life
Knowing yourself is not the same as changing.
Why do humans understand their patterns, name their fears, recognise their biases — and still struggle to act differently? Welcome to an independent lab for questions that refuse to stay inside textbooks.
The questions
Human behaviour, without easy answers.
Psychology offers useful maps, not a complete instruction manual for being human. These are the territories this lab explores.
02 / COGNITIVE BIASES
The mind's shortcuts
How attention, memory and judgment simplify reality — sometimes helpfully, sometimes misleadingly.
03 / BEHAVIOUR CHANGE
From intention to action
Friction, habits, environments, incentives and the surprisingly difficult business of doing.
04 / AGENCY
What can I influence?
Distinguishing genuine choice from constraints, chance and stories we tell ourselves about control.
05 / RELATIONSHIPS
Humans among humans
Boundaries, reciprocity, attachment and the difference between observation and mind-reading.
06 / ORGANISATIONS
Behaviour at work
Informal power, identity, motivation and human capital — from management classrooms to family retail.
An evolving research framework
The Identity–Action Gap
When the story of who we are runs ahead of what we do.
People can construct sophisticated identities — curious, capable, disciplined, compassionate — while everyday behaviour lags behind those self-descriptions. The Identity–Action Gap is my working framework for examining that mismatch and the frictions that sustain it.
Identity ≠ Action
Its central question is not “Why are people weak?” but “What prevents intentions and self-concepts from becoming observable behaviour?” The framework considers identity, action, environmental conditions, social context and friction.
Research status: conceptual, exploratory and open to empirical testing. This is not a validated diagnostic scale or an established clinical theory.
Explore Sahil's wider research and writing →The person behind the lab
From business school to the shop floor.
I'm Sahil Tayal, an MBA graduate of Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS), Mumbai, with a background in commerce, professional services and human resources.
My interest in organisational behaviour extends beyond formal institutions. My family's retail business in Mehrauli, Delhi, offers a daily vantage point on incentives, trust, informal authority and the gap between theories of behaviour and behaviour itself.
I write as an independent researcher and practitioner, not as a licensed psychologist or mental-health clinician. My ideas are hypotheses to examine, not truths to impose.
Read my story →Reading paths
Follow the questions further.
WRITING
Essays on human agency
Reflections on consciousness, psychology, personal change and the human condition.
PERSONAL JOURNEY
The Phoenix
A metaphor for rebuilding without pretending the difficult chapters never happened.
WIDER ECOSYSTEM
Consciousness & creativity
Explore the other creative and intellectual rooms in this evolving personal project.
“The point isn't to have the final answer about human nature. It's to ask better questions — and remain willing to change our minds.”
— Sahil Tayal