PhronesisCompulsive name-repeating—the systematic and non-contextual insertion of an interlocutor's name into conversational turns as a rapport-building technique—is analyzed here as a paradigmatic wrong attractor in the displacement framework of social dynamics. We define ground state S^0 as the basin of calibrated genuine connection, characterized by contextual responsiveness, proportionate warmth, and the absence of manufactured intimacy signals.
Compulsive name-repeating constitutes a displacement D() from S^0 whose accumulated cost = D()\,dt grows monotonically with deployment frequency. We show that the intimacy-through-familiarity architecture—a learned heuristic that conflates nominal recall with relational depth—forms a stable wrong attractor W whose basin is deepened by social-reinforcement feedback loops and by the practitioner's internal narrative of skilled connection.
The basin geometry implies a foreclosure effect on natural-contact pathways: once habituated into W, the practitioner cannot access S^0 through incremental adjustment but requires a qualitative phase transition. We derive conditions for this transition, characterize the recovery dynamics, and analyze systemic effects including the contagion of rapport-simulation norms within organizations.
Ethical dimensions of the wrong attractor are addressed, and return paths to genuine calibrated connection are specified.