PhronesisCompulsive correction refers to the persistent, often automatic drive to identify and rectify inaccuracies in others' speech, reasoning, or behavior, even when doing so carries disproportionate relational cost. This paper proposes a formal framework in which compulsive correction is understood not as a trait or pathology but as a wrong attractor—a dynamically stable behavioral basin displaced from the ground state S^0, which we define as calibrated constructive precision: the optimal coordination of accuracy, context-sensitivity, and relational attunement.
We introduce the displacement field D() and the accumulated displacement functional = D()\,dt to characterize the distance from S^0 over time. We identify the accuracy-override architecture as the self-reinforcing mechanism sustaining the wrong attractor, and the relational-foreclosure basin as the structural consequence of unchecked correction. Nine formal propositions characterize the geometry of this basin, the dynamics of error-detection overfiring, and the conditions necessary for return to S^0.
The paper concludes with analysis of compulsive correction's intersections with pedantry, perfectionism, social rejection, and workplace friction, and sketches exit dynamics for individuals and systems trapped in the wrong attractor.