This is a Lexicon entry: the mechanism, when it shows up, and the countermeasure. The full correction, with real-world cases and the audit prompt, hasn't been written yet.
Definition
The observation that each human being is not a single unified character but a collection of different selves - cognitive and emotional subsystems that take turns dominating behaviour depending on context. There is an office-you, a lover-you, an online-you, a grieving-you. These subselves can hold contradictory values and make promises to each other they cannot keep. Most internal conflict is not between a "true self" and its temptations - it is between rival subselves competing for control.
When it shows up
Internal conflicts, different behaviour in different contexts. The sense of being 'not myself' in certain situations.
Failure mode
Not a failure; a model. The self is not unitary. Different contexts activate different sub-selves (work self, family self, lover self, angry self). Decisions made by one sub-self bind the others who didn't participate.
Countermeasure
When making commitments, ask: 'Would all my sub-selves sign this?' Commitments made by the energetic morning self to the exhausted evening self often break because the evening self never agreed.
Related concepts
Also connected in the mapThe Introspection Illusion·Cognitive Dissonance
Origin
Read next
Entry #155 of 631 in The Lexicon · see the full Lexicon