In many public discourse environments, statements that generate attention, conflict, and amplification tend to be prioritized over those that improve deliberation quality. This paper documents a Recurring Capture Pattern (RCP) observed in public discourse environments and political decision-making processes. Under the institutional condition of an evaluation structure in which deliberation quality is not institutionally visible and attention, amplification, and conflict intensity function as proxy evaluation variables, individually rational behavior systematically converges not toward the improvement of deliberation quality but toward statements that maximize conflict, stimulation, and amplification. As these behaviors accumulate, they alter the information environment and deliberative culture itself, resulting in an environment structurally biased toward conflict-driven discourse and reinforcing the same behavioral convergence through a recursive institutional feedback loop. The pattern ultimately produces a structural degradation of deliberation quality and a persistent misalignment between public decision-making objectives and rational communicative behavior, indicating a structural misalignment between institutional objectives and rational behavioral adaptation. This paper analytically describes the structural relationship between institutional design and rational behavioral adaptation.
Hiromi Shimamoto (Wed,) studied this question.