PhronesisCompulsive devil's advocacy is the chronic pattern of opposing whatever position others currently hold, not as a deliberate intellectual exercise but as a habitual identity stance. We formalize this pattern as a wrong attractor W_DA in the displacement framework, where the ground state S^0 is calibrated dialectical engagement: genuine willingness both to challenge and to be challenged, critique that serves truth-seeking rather than positioning, and openness to agreement when agreement is warranted.
The paper identifies the reflexive-opposition trigger as the basin entry mechanism: confronted with any expressed position, the compulsive devil's advocate experiences automatic pressure to find and voice its negation, regardless of the merits, regardless of whether objection is appropriate. We characterize the architecture of W_DA—the identity-reinforcing cycle by which “I am the one who challenges assumptions” becomes a self-concept that deepens with each contrarian episode—and distinguish this attractor from legitimate critical thinking, genuine skepticism, and the deliberate, context-appropriate use of devil's advocacy as a group decision tool.
Nine formal propositions characterize the trigger mechanism, basin depth, displacement cost function D(), accumulated displacement = D()\,dt, group-level effects, return conditions, and the phenomenology of the chronic contrarian role. Return paths through position-first inquiry, steelmanning practice, and agreement-rate tracking are analyzed as escape trajectories from the basin.
The paper situates compulsive devil's advocacy within the broader taxonomy of contrarian-engagement wrong attractors, distinguishing it from compulsive contrarianism, epistemic cowardice, and chronic hedging.