The ecological rationality of betting on speed of retrieval in memory-based decision making

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wolfgang Gaissmaier ◽  
Lael J. Schooler ◽  
Julian N. Marewski
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Ecological Rationality

The Ecological Rationality of Situations

2019 ◽  
pp. 142-158
Author(s):  
Peter M. Todd ◽  
Gerd Gigerenzer
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Research Program ◽  
Behavioral Outcomes ◽  
Ecological Rationality ◽  
Decision Heuristics ◽  
Situation Theory ◽  
Personality Differences ◽  
Individual Personality ◽  
Precise Mapping ◽  
Adaptive Toolbox

The study of situations involves asking how people behave in particular environmental settings, often in terms of their individual personality differences. The ecological rationality research program explains people’s behavior in terms of the specific decision-making tools they select and use from their mind’s adaptive toolbox when faced with specific types of environment structure. These two approaches can be integrated to provide a more precise mapping from features of situation structure to decision heuristics used and behavioral outcomes. This chapter presents three examples illustrating research on ecological rationality and its foundations, along with initial directions for incorporating it into an integrated situation theory.

scholarly journals Mycological rationality: Heuristics, perception and decision-making in mushroom foraging

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roope Oskari Kaaronen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Selective Attention ◽  
Ecological Rationality ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Decisions Under Uncertainty ◽  
Rules Of Thumb ◽  
Intuitive Decision Making ◽  
Human Foraging ◽  
Simple Heuristics

How do mushroom foragers make safe and efficient decisions under uncertainty, or deal with the genuine risks of misiden-tification and poisoning? This article is an inquiry into ecological rationality, heuristics, perception, and decision-makingin mushroom foraging. By surveying 894 Finnish mushroom foragers, this article illustrates how socially learned rules of thumb and heuristics are used in mushroom foraging, and how simple heuristics are often complemented by more complex and intuitive decision-making. The results illustrate how traditional foraging cultures have evolved precautionary heuristics to deal with uncertainties and poisonous species, and how foragers develop selective attention through experience. The study invites us to consider whether other human foraging cultures might use heuristics similarly, how and why such traditions have culturally evolved, and whether early hunter-gatherers might have used simple heuristics to deal with uncertainty.

Heuristics in financial decision-making: the selection of SME financing by advisers in an increasingly diverse market

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsten Rauwerda ◽  
Frank Jan De Graaf
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Ecological Rationality ◽  
Personal Network ◽  
Research Attention ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Less Is More ◽  
Fast And Frugal Heuristics ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Simple Rules

PurposeIn order to better understand how heuristics are used in practice, the authors explore what type of heuristics is used in the managerial domain of financial advisors to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and what influences the shaping of these heuristics. In doing so, the authors detect possible fast-and-frugal heuristics in day-to-day decision-making of independent financial advisers who help owners of SMEs to acquire capital (e.g. loans, factoring, leasing and equity).Design/methodology/approachThe authors inductively assessed the work of financial advisers of SMEs. Based on group discussions, the authors drew up a semi-structured interview-protocol with descriptive questions about how financial advisers come to a deal for their clients. The interviews of 19 professionals were analysed by relating them to the theory of fast-and-frugal heuristics.FindingsWithin their decision-making, advisers estimate the likelihood of acceptance by a few financial providers they know well in their personal network with a strong bias towards traditional banking products, although there are a large number of alternatives on the Dutch market. “Less is more” seems to be a relevant principle when defined as satisficing. Heuristics help advisers to deal with behavioural and economic limitations. Also, the authors have found that client interaction, previous working experience and the company the adviser is working for influences the shaping of the simple rules the adviser is using.Research limitations/implicationsThe study shows how difficult it is to understand the ecological rationality of a certain group of professionals and to understand the “less is more” principle. Financial advisers to SMEs use cognitive shortcuts and simple rules to advise SME-owners, based on previous experiences, but it is difficult to determine whether that leads to the same or even better solutions for them and their clients than using probability theory and financial optimisation models. Within heuristics, satisficing seems to be a dominant mechanism. Here, heuristics help advisers in recognising possibilities by searching for similarities between a current financing case and previous experiences. The data suggests that if “less is more” is defined as satisficing for one or more stakeholders involved, the principle dominates the decision making of financial advisers of SME's.Practical implicationsThe authors suggest the relevance of a behavioural approach to finance by assessing the day-to-day decisions of financial advisers of SMEs. Also, the authors suggest that financial advisers are guided by previous experiences, and they do not fully assess a wide range of options in their work but need shortcuts to fulfil the needs of their clients.Originality/valueThe study comes close to day-to-day decision-making in finance by assessing how professionals make decisions. The authors try to understand types of heuristics in relation with “ecological rationality” and the less is more principle. The authors assess financial advisers of SME-companies, a group that has gotten little research attention until now. The influence of client interaction and of the company the adviser is working for is remarkable in the shaping of the advisers' simple rules.

scholarly journals Elective cardiovascular care in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic: managing tragic choices

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. e001069
Author(s):  
Adam E Berman ◽  
Douglas Miller ◽  
Robert A Sorrentino ◽  
Elias A Mossialos
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Health Systems ◽  
Behavioural Economics ◽  
Morbidity And Mortality ◽  
Ecological Rationality ◽  
Significant Morbidity ◽  
Cardiac Procedures ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Cardiovascular Care

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to significant morbidity and mortality globally. As health systems grapple with caring for patients affected with COVID-19, cardiovascular procedures that are deemed ‘elective’ have been postponed. Guidelines concerning which cardiac procedures should be performed during the pandemic vary by specialty and geography in the USA. We propose a clinical heuristic to guide individual physicians and governing bodies in their decision making regarding which cardiac procedures should be performed during the COVID-19 pandemic using the behavioural economics concept of heuristics and ecological rationality.

Affective states and ecological rationality in entrepreneurial decision making

2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (7) ◽  
pp. 1182-1197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oana Catalina Fodor ◽  
Petru Lucian Curşeu ◽  
Alina Maria Fleştea
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Strategic Decision ◽  
Ecological Rationality ◽  
Affective States ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Final Sample ◽  
Initial Support ◽  
Entrepreneurial Decision ◽  
The Impact

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of affective appraisal dimensions on the use of two ecologically rational, social heuristics: imitate the majority (IMH) and imitate the best (IBH) during an entrepreneurial strategic decision-making process (ESDM). Design/methodology/approach The authors test the hypotheses in a controlled field experiment, on a final sample of 98 entrepreneurs. Findings The study shows that entrepreneurs experiencing affect described by certainty appraisal display a preference for relying on IMH, but not on IBH. Moreover, entrepreneurs who experience unpleasant affect tend to rely more on IMH, rather than IBH. The reverse is true for the entrepreneurs who experience positive affect. Finally, the use of IMH is most likely under unpleasant and certain affect, while the use of IBH is most likely under pleasant and certain affect. Originality/value The main contribution of this study is that it provides initial support for the impact of affective appraisal dimensions on the use of ecologically rational heuristics (i.e. heuristics that save important resources, but bring beneficial results) during an ESDM process.

scholarly journals Conceptualizing Cuvée Organizations: Characteristics Leading towards Sustainable Decision-Making Practices

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (24) ◽  
pp. 13672
Author(s):  
Alexandra Köves ◽  
Tamás Veress ◽  
Judit Gáspár ◽  
Réka Matolay
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Corporate Strategy ◽  
Structural Features ◽  
Ecological Rationality ◽  
Business Organizations ◽  
Strategy Research ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
Behavioral Decision ◽  
Hypothetical Construct ◽  
Temporal And Spatial

This paper discusses the role and responsibility of business organizations in a sustainability transition with a thought-provoking hypothetical construct, the cuvée organization. The aim of the paper is to introduce and conceptualize this normative concept on what sustainable and responsible business would look like in an ideal world—more specifically, which meta features should characterize a business organization that is designed for sustainability? It also tests the concept’s applicability to a micro-process, an everyday challenge any organization aiming for sustainability would face, namely discounting. The concept of the cuvée organization emerged from participatory backcasting, a normative scenario-building exercise conducted with a sustainability expert panel. In this co-creative process, the panel capitalized on the metaphor of cuvée wine and winemaking, which provided the cognitive means to chart the unknown. The emerged concept of the cuvée organization stands for a business archetype which is designed to serve a prosocial cause, subordinating activities and structural features accordingly. When applying this construct to discounting, our approach lies with ecological rationality in behavioral decision making as well as the practice-based approach of corporate strategy research. In this theoretically rigorous effort, we aim to show which meta-characteristics could support an organizational structure leading to better decision making, aiming to avoid various forms of temporal and spatial discounting. The originality of the research is filling the normative vision with details through the conceptualization of the cuvée organization. On the level of methodologies, our research contributes to understanding the novelty and applicability of backcasting processes and provides an astounding example for the use of metaphors in future studies.

scholarly journals Concluding Thoughts

2021 ◽  
pp. 149-154
Author(s):  
Neil Levy
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Scarce Resource ◽  
Ecological Rationality ◽  
Good Information ◽  
Rational Agents ◽  
Self Image ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Human Decision ◽  
Higher Order Evidence

This brief concluding chapter draws the threads of the previous chapters together. Previous work on human decision-making has tended to conclude that rationality is a scarce resource and most cognition is arational or irrational. Pushback against this view has come from proponents of ecological rationality. They concede, in effect, that our decision-making is irrational, inasmuch as it fails to respond to good information, but argue that it is rational in a broader sense: we better achieve our epistemic goals by believing arationally. This chapter argues that the evidence surveyed in the previous chapters shows that this is false: we respond rationally to the higher-order evidence we’re presented with, and there’s therefore no need to appeal to ecological rationality to defend our self-image as rational agents. Once we recognize the pervasiveness of higher-order evidence, we can vindicate something very like the Enlightenment picture of ourselves as rational animals.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document