About PsyCogSec
Building the mind's immune system against manipulation
What is Psychological Cognitive Security?
PsyCogSec (Psychological Cognitive Security) focuses on building internal psychological capabilities to resist manipulation, disinformation, and cognitive exploitation. Unlike traditional "cognitive security" approaches that emphasize external defenses (detecting fake accounts, flagging misinformation, platform policies), PsyCogSec trains the individual mind.
Think of it as building your mind's immune system rather than relying solely on external sanitization of your information environment.
Why This Matters
External Defenses Are Insufficient
Fact-checkers cannot keep pace with content creation. Platform moderation has fundamental limitations. New manipulation techniques constantly emerge. Even in a "clean" information environment, cognitive biases leave us vulnerable.
Manipulation Exploits Psychology
Effective influence operations target emotional responses, tribal instincts, and cognitive shortcuts. Understanding and strengthening these psychological mechanisms is the most robust defense.
Skills Transfer Across Domains
The same capabilities that protect against online manipulation also guard against in-person manipulation, advertising, cult tactics, and abusive relationships. These are life skills.
The Six Skill Areas
Metacognition
The ability to observe your own thinking processes in real-time. Notice when emotions are driving conclusions, when certainty exceeds evidence, and when biases are operating.
Protects against: Blind spots, overconfidence, reasoning errors you cannot see
Affect Regulation
Managing emotional responses to prevent hijacking of rational thought. Creating space between stimulus and response, especially when triggered.
Protects against: Outrage bait, fear-based manipulation, emotional contagion
Attention Governance
Controlling what captures and holds your attention. Resisting infinite scrolls, attention-hijacking design, and compulsive checking.
Protects against: Doomscrolling, attention capture, algorithmic manipulation
Epistemic Hygiene
Maintaining good practices around what you believe and share. Source verification, belief calibration, and intellectual humility.
Protects against: Misinformation, motivated reasoning, echo chambers
Social-Self Boundaries
Maintaining independent judgment under social pressure. Resisting conformity, groupthink, and tribal identity hijacking.
Protects against: Social proof manipulation, in-group pressure, identity exploitation
Narrative Inoculation
Recognizing manipulative narrative patterns and building immunity through controlled exposure. Seeing the technique behind the story.
Protects against: Propaganda, conspiracy theories, deceptive framing
Research Foundation
PsyCogSec draws on established research from multiple fields:
- Cognitive Psychology: Understanding biases, heuristics, and reasoning errors
- Social Psychology: Group dynamics, conformity, obedience, and persuasion
- Behavioral Economics: Decision-making under uncertainty and bounded rationality
- Inoculation Theory: Pre-exposure to weakened arguments builds resistance
- Mindfulness Research: Meta-awareness and emotion regulation techniques
- Information Literacy: Source evaluation and lateral reading strategies
The approach synthesizes these into practical, trainable skills rather than just theoretical knowledge.
Our Approach
Practice Over Theory
Knowing about biases does not prevent them. We emphasize active practice through drills, simulations, and real-world protocols that build genuine capability.
Self-Paced Learning
Learn at your own pace with modular content. Start with assessment, focus on your weak areas, and track progress over time.
Privacy-First
All your data stays on your device. No accounts, no tracking, no cloud storage. Your psychological profile is yours alone.
Realistic Scenarios
Practice with simulations based on real manipulation tactics. Build pattern recognition in a safe environment before encountering the real thing.