The information inelasticity of habits: Kahneman’s bounded rationality or Simon’s procedural rationality?
Why would decision makers (DMs) adopt heuristics, priors, or in short “habits” that prevent them from optimally using pertinent information—even when such information is freely-available? One answer, Herbert Simon’s “procedural rationality” regards the question invalid: DMs do not, and in fact canno...
| Published in: | Synthese Vol. 200; no. 4; pp. 1 - 41 |
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| Format: | Article |
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Springer Nature
Aug2022
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=158532690&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 158532690 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00397857 4LI jtl: Synthese issn: 00397857 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Aug2022 vid: 200 iid: 4 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 158532690 10.1007/s11229-022-03815-7 ppf: 1 ppct: 40 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 537KB tig: atl: The information inelasticity of habits: Kahneman’s bounded rationality or Simon’s procedural rationality? aug: au: Khalil, Elias L. affil: School of Economics, Administration and Public Policy, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, PO Box 200592, Altarfa Street, Zone 70, Doha, Qatar sug: keyword: American pragmatism (John Dewey) Bourdieu’s habitus Cognitive cost Cognitive illusions Dual process theory Heuristics (priors) Institutions Mental economy Perspectives (framing contexts) Prejudice Ratio bias Routines Satisficing ab: Why would decision makers (DMs) adopt heuristics, priors, or in short “habits” that prevent them from optimally using pertinent information—even when such information is freely-available? One answer, Herbert Simon’s “procedural rationality” regards the question invalid: DMs do not, and in fact cannot, process information in an optimal fashion. For Simon, habits are the primitives, where humans are ready to replace them only when they no longer sustain a pregiven “satisficing” goal. An alternative answer, Daniel Kahneman’s “mental economy” regards the question valid: DMs make decisions based on optimization. Kahneman understands optimization not differently from the standard economist’s “bounded rationality.” This might surprise some researchers given that the early Kahneman, along with Tversky, have uncovered biases that appear to suggest that choices depart greatly from rational choices. However, once we consider cognitive cost as part of the constraints, such biases turn out to be occasional failures of habits that are otherwise optimal on average. They are optimal as they save us the cognitive cost of case-by-case deliberation. While Kahneman’s bounded rationality situates him in the neoclassical economics camp, Simon’s procedural rationality echoes Bourdieu’s “habitus” camp. To abridge the fault line of the two camps, this paper proposes a “two problem areas hypothesis.” Along the neoclassical camp, habits satisfy wellbeing, what this paper calls “substantive satisfaction.” Along the Bourdieu camp, habits satisfy belonging, love, and bonding with one’s environment, what this paper calls “transcendental satisfaction.” pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Synthese is a copyright of Springer, 2022. All Rights Reserved. item: Synthese holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2022 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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