Bounded rationality

Recognition of the cognitive limits we face when making choices.

After Herbert Simon.

Rather than optimizing for the best possible outcome, bounded rationality suggests we “satisfice”; selecting options judged “good enough” given the constraints of our knowledge, time, and mental capacity.

• [?] What heuristics or “rules of thumb” do you rely on to navigate complex choices, and how are these shaped by your social and cultural contexts?
• [?] How might technologies designed with idealised notions of rationality fail to account for their users’ bounded realities?

• [?] What alternative notions of rationality might we uncover by studying diverse knowledge systems and decision-making practices ethnographically?

• [&] See also: heuristic reasoning

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