ABSTRACT

Herbert Simon’s renowned theory of bounded rationality is principally interested in cognitive constraints and environmental factors and influences which prevent people from thinking or behaving according to formal rationality. Simon’s theory has been expanded in numerous directions and taken up by various disciplines with an interest in how humans think and behave. This includes philosophy, psychology, neurocognitive sciences, economics, political science, sociology, management, and organization studies.

The Routledge Handbook of Bounded Rationality draws together an international team of leading experts to survey the recent literature and the latest developments in these related fields. The chapters feature entries on key behavioural phenomena, including reasoning, judgement, decision making, uncertainty, risk, heuristics and biases, and fast and frugal heuristics. The text also examines current ideas such as fast and slow thinking, nudge, ecological rationality, evolutionary psychology, embodied cognition, and neurophilosophy. Overall, the volume serves to provide the most complete state-of-the-art collection on bounded rationality available.

This book is essential reading for students and scholars of economics, psychology, neurocognitive sciences, political sciences, and philosophy.

chapter 1|54 pages

Why bounded rationality?

chapter 2|15 pages

What is bounded rationality?

part I|112 pages

Naturalizing bounded rationality

chapter 4|13 pages

Bounded rationality

The two cultures

chapter 7|24 pages

Bounded rationality and problem solving

The interpretative function of thought

chapter 9|13 pages

Bounded knowledge

part III|119 pages

Occam's razor

chapter 17|12 pages

Rationality without optimality

Bounded and ecological rationality from a Marrian perspective

chapter 18|33 pages

The winds of change

The Sioux, Silicon Valley, society, and simple heuristics

chapter 19|11 pages

Ecological rationality

Bounded rationality in an evolutionary light

chapter 20|14 pages

Mapping heuristics and prospect theory

A study of theory integration

chapter 22|25 pages

Psychopathological irrationality and bounded rationality

Why is autism economically rational?

part IV|45 pages

Embodied bounded rationality

part V|85 pages

Homo Oeconomicus Bundatus

chapter 27|14 pages

Modeling Bounded Rationality in Economic Theory

Four examples

chapter 29|11 pages

Beyond economists' armchairs

The rise of procedural economics

chapter 31|13 pages

Less is more for Bayesians, too

chapter 33|14 pages

Beyond “bounded rationality”

Behaviours and learning in complex evolving worlds

part VII|89 pages

Behavioral public policies

chapter 38|7 pages

“Better off, as judged by themselves”

Bounded rationality and nudging

chapter 40|19 pages

Against nudging

Simon-inspired behavioral law and economics founded on ecological rationality

chapter 42|15 pages

Layering, expanding, and visualizing

Lessons learned from three “process boosts” in action

chapter 44|13 pages

How much choice is “good enough”?

Moderators of information and choice overload