PhronesisCompulsive name-dropping is analyzed here as a wrong attractor within the Displacement Framework: a state in which the self sustains its apparent standing not through the generation of intrinsic worth, but through chronic invocation of associations with prestigious, powerful, or celebrated others. Drawing on Cialdini's BIRGing (basking in reflected glory) literature, Bourdieu's social capital theory, and Baumeister's self-esteem research, we show that what begins as an occasional social strategy can consolidate into a stable attractor state in which the architecture of self-presentation is built entirely around association.
The ground state S^0 in this domain is defined as calibrated independent standing: a condition in which self-worth is grounded in intrinsic qualities, capacities, and achievements, with associations cited accurately but not leveraged as primary worth-generators. We characterize the wrong attractor W_ND by its association architecture, map the intrinsic-worth foreclosure basin that deepens with repeated name-dropping episodes, and articulate nine formal propositions governing the dynamics of attractor capture, atrophy, escalation, and return.
The paper concludes with a treatment of the return path: the practices through which calibrated independent standing can be recovered from within the foreclosure basin.