PhronesisSycophancy — the chronic pattern of inauthentic agreement, flattery, and self-suppression in pursuit of approval — is here formally reconceptualized as a wrong attractor W_SY in the landscape of grounded self-expression. The healthy ground state S^0 is defined as grounded self-expression: honest, boundaried, authentic communication that accepts disapproval as a normal cost of genuine relationship.
W_SY arises when the anticipated cost of disapproval consistently exceeds the displacement cost of self-suppression; each suppressed authentic response reinforces the attractor through intermittent reinforcement of approval-seeking. Two structural variants are characterized: relational sycophancy (chronic flattery and agreement in personal relationships) and institutional sycophancy (upward deference and yes-man architecture in organizations).
Nine formal propositions characterize the validation engine, the dopaminergic reward structure of approval, basin deepening through perfectionism and anxious attachment, organizational intelligence degradation, the suppressed self paradox, the distinction from healthy tact, and return paths through graduated authentic expression and values clarification.