PhronesisCompulsive contrarianism — the chronic pattern of taking opposing positions reflexively rather than on the basis of evidence — is here formally reconceptualized as a wrong attractor W_CC in the landscape of grounded intellectual independence. The healthy ground state S^0 is defined as grounded intellectual independence: forming and holding positions based on evidence and reasoning, disagreeing when genuine disagreement is warranted, and agreeing when agreement is warranted — all without these responses being determined by the social position of the interlocutor or the need to assert autonomy.
W_CC is maintained by three interlocking mechanisms: the autonomy defense (opposition as proof of non-conformity), identity differentiation (the self-concept constituted by not-being-like-them), and Brehm's psychological reactance (the affective sense that agreement constitutes a loss of freedom). The central paradox is that compulsive contrarianism is as conformist as total agreement, merely in the negative direction: the contrarian's position is entirely determined by what others believe, constituting a form of dependence on the consensus they oppose.
Nine formal propositions characterize these mechanisms alongside epistemic costs (taking wrong positions when consensus is correct), relational costs, identity-update resistance, the distinction from genuine intellectual independence and the devil's advocate role, and return paths through position-identity decoupling.