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Overlooked issues in the selection and presentation of name generators may lead to extreme measurement errors in Web surveys. This paper compares networks elicited from the standard “important matters” (IM) name generator, which records alter names on one or five boxes per page, with a two-generator design and an alternative approach, the R5D. The R5D consists of five name generators focused on a range of topics commonly discussed as important matters. Each generator is restricted to recording one alter. Generally accepted practices in egocentric surveys result in inaccurate measures of network size and composition. They include the use of the stand-alone IM generator and advice to present a single name box to record one alter name per page. The use of a single name box encourages satisficing. The R5D is a parsimonious alternative with stronger construct validity. It has less measurement error, provides measures of social support, and enumerates alters with less slippage in importance than other approaches.

Uncertainty during the course of a trip is regarded as a particularly disturbing phenomenon by public transport (PT) passengers and has been shown to have a substantial impact on travel behaviour. However, so far there has been little empirical evidence within contemporary research concerning the degree of mid- to long-term adaptation among PT passengers to changes in the principal cause of such uncertainty within PT transport systems: Lack of service departure reliability. While most studies to date have focussed on instantaneous or short-term behavioural responses, this paper presents results from a one-year panel dataset consisting of individuals’ trip itineraries derived from smart card transactions enriched by automatic vehicle location (AVL) data. We measured long-term line route usage and departure reliability, the latter in terms of headway regularity and schedule adherence, in two panel waves. Thus, we aimed for practical indicators that may be associated with specific line routes and origin–destination PT stop pairs used for recurring trips over time. Results from logistic regression indicate a consistent significant impact of changed headway regularity and punctuality change for line routes with relatively high departure frequency. However, there is a relative indifference to long-term reliability change by a significant share of individuals that have actual trade-offs between at least two line route options, possibly indicating satisficing behaviour among PT passengers. Implications on PT path choice forecasting and route planning are discussed.

Altres ajuts: This project has received funding from "la Caixa" Foundation (project code LCF/PR/HR19/52160001). Evolutionary theory should be a fundamental guide for neuroscientists. This would seem a trivial statement, but I believe that taking it seriously is more complicated than it appears to be, as I argue in this article. Elsewhere, I proposed the notion of "bounded functionality" As a way to describe the constraints that should be considered when trying to understand the evolution of the brain. There are two bounded-functionality constraints that are essential to any evolution-minded approach to cognitive neuroscience. The first constraint, the bricoleur constraint, describes the evolutionary pressure for any adaptive solution to re-use any relevant resources available to the system before the selection situation appeared. The second constraint, the satisficing constraint, describes the fact that a trait only needs to behave more advantageously than its competitors in order to be selected. In this paper I describe how bounded-functionality can inform an evolutionary-minded approach to cognitive neuroscience. In order to do so, I resort to Nikolaas Tinbergen's four questions about how to understand behavior, namely: function, causation, development and evolution. The bottom line of assuming Tinbergen's questions is that any approach to cognitive neuroscience is intrinsically tentative, slow, and messy.

Diverse methodologies are employed for ethical intelligence analysis and operations: Kantian deontology optimizes fidelity to moral axioms; pragmatic realism optimally achieves righteous goals (usu...

Descendants of indigenous people in the United States (Native Americans) are underrepresented in happiness studies. The social-cognitive mechanisms involved in happiness are also poorly understood. Here we test a social-cognitive model for theorizing the happiness of Native Americans. Self-identified Native Americans (120 women, 59 men, aged 18–79 years) in the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area answered a survey which measured interdependent and independent self-construals, decision-making style (satisficing and maximizing), and subjective happiness. Relationships among these variables were examined using path analysis. For the participants’ happiness, independent self-construal was relatively less important than interdependent self-construal, as social harmony and interdependence with others tend to be salient traditional Native American cultural values. However, in agreement with previous studies with Euro-American samples, subjective happiness was positively correlated with satisficing, and negatively correlated with maximizing, suggesting societal factors such as the availability of options and choices in the U.S. as possible influences. These findings contribute to the literature by revealing the basis of happiness in social-cognitive processes, and have important implications for understanding the happiness of an under-researched population.

Appeals to human nature are ubiquitous, yet historically many have proven ill-founded. Why? How might frequent errors be remedied towards building a more robust and reliable scientific study of human nature? Our aim is neither to advance specific scientific or philosophical claims about human nature, nor to proscribe or eliminate such claims. Rather, we articulate through examples the types of errors that frequently arise in this field, towards improving the rigor of the scientific and social studies. We seek to analyze such claims rhetorically, cognitively, and epistemically. Namely, how do we think about human nature? Claims about human nature, we show, are susceptible to widely exhibited deficits in cognitive tendencies such as framing, confirmation bias, satisficing, and teleological perspectives, as well as motivated reasoning. Such missteps foster methodological, empirical, and psychological mistakes and biases. Specifically, they promote the naturalizing error, whereby cultural ideology and values are projected onto an apparently objective description of nature. Concrete remedies are offered to aid scientists in conducting and reporting their research goals and findings more responsibly and effectively (relevant also to educators and other communicators who convey these findings publicly). Recommendations include acknowledging that human nature claims are often context-dependent, seeking multiple critical perspectives, and explicitly labeling uncertainties.

The quality of a group decision depends on its members sharing and adopting their various perspectives. Multi-criteria models provide an appropriate vehicle for managing this information sharing because they break down the decision into small, single-issue questions that can be treated independently. We present a new lexicographic decision method with three equivalence classes for use by a group. Our algorithm is the first to combine the hidden profile and multi-criteria paradigms and thereby improving the consensus by identifying critical disagreements and inviting the decision makers to share their mental models of them. A computer simulation demonstrates the algorithm’s effectiveness and efficiency. Unless the problem parameters are very unfavorable, the method achieves the desired choice set or a close approximation to it significantly faster than the commonly used compensatory methods. Our algorithm can either provide step-by-step instructions to a human facilitator, or it can be implemented as a software agent acting as a fully automated digital facilitator, allowing decision makers to participate “on the go” using their internet-connected mobile devices.

There is evidence that labor intensity is endogenous to wage compensation and that inter- and intra-industry wage differentials are non-negligible and persistent. We explore the implications of firms periodically choosing between alternative wage compensation strategies to extract labor from labor power more effectively. The frequency distribution of labor extraction strategies across firms is endogenously time-varying as driven by satisficing evolutionary dynamics that generate wage inequality as a stable long-run equilibrium under plausible conditions. Firms willing to extract more labor from labor power remunerate workers with a higher wage. Yet a larger proportion of firms following such strategy does not necessarily result in a lower (higher) unit labor cost (profit share) and hence in higher rates of profit and saving-determined output growth. The larger the proportion of firms that attempt to extract more labor from labor power by remunerating workers with a higher wage, the less these firms are successful. This result can be seen as characterizing another contradiction of the capitalist economy.

Exploration and exploitation in strategic decision-making entails decisions about whether and where to search for new alternatives to improve the status quo. Prior research has not explored how decisions about whether to continue search (vs. stop search or satisfice) and where to search (near vs. far) are interrelated. We report laboratory experiment results on how individuals decide whether and where to search in a complex, combinatorial task. We find that different feedback variables influence the decision to stop search from decisions regarding how broadly to search. Our results suggest that not accounting for the decision to continue (or stop) searching, separately from breadth of search, can lead to incorrect predictions regarding how feedback influences search behavior. Managerial Abstract: Managers concerned about the performance of their company face two challenges—they have to find out what potential performance is feasible given their business environment and which organizational policies to implement to realize it. We use a stylized laboratory experiment to better understand how feedback from experimentation informs such a learning process. We find that early-stage feedback has a lasting impact on performance aspirations and managerial expectations about feasible performance. Superior early feedback thereby motivates more sustained experimentation with organizational policies. In contrast, more recent feedback guides the extent to which managers are willing to engage in more radical policy adjustments, especially in the latter stages of a learning process.

The economic principles formulated for a Rational Man does not fit in the real world. These have led to conclusions that are far away from reality and do not provide real life solutions. The present research work has been built on the premise of ‘Contextual’ Development of the region according to the wishes and aspirations of the local people. The Ontological belief is based on Truth that has a ‘Perspective’ and is ‘Contextual’. The Economic Actor tries to act in accordance with the prescribed Ideal Value for the society but in reality the Economic Actor reaches at some Achieved value. The difference is referred to as ‘Value Dissonance’. Given the Value Dissonance the standard ‘Development Dissonance’ is determined. Through the interrelationships of Impulses and Action Tendencies in a medium an economic actor reaches at a ‘Satisficing’ goal that reduces the dissonance. A method has been developed to capture the dissonance and for quantification of qualitative data. The method has been experimented with the representative case of Adventure Sports. The data is collected by organizing discussion with the respondents in their natural setting and coding the data through a coding scheme. The conclusion derived is at three levels- the Universal Solution, the ‘Satisficing’ solution for Many and the ‘Satisficing’ solution to All. At the policy level the future policy implications and the need for the changes regarding the representative case is depicted. A strategy to increase pleasure is one that reduces Dissonance. Therefore, the developmental policy should aim to reduce Dissonance.

‘Inspiration’ is a concept that comes up frequently in the Library and Information Science literature on artists and designers. But what do we mean by ‘inspiration’? This article discusses a selection of the psychological research on creativity and inspiration, as well as four information behaviour theories that help in finding inspiration - browsing, information encountering, satisficing, and serendipity.

Drawing on the empirical evidence that heterogeneity in inflation expectations is persistent and endogenously time-varying, we embed two inflation forecasting strategies—one based on costly ex ante perfect foresight, and the second based on costless ex ante extrapolative trend-following—in a macrodynamic model. Drawing also on the empirical evidence that inflation forecast errors may have to exceed some threshold before agents abandon their previously selected forecasting strategy, we describe agents as switching between forecasting strategies according to evolutionarily satisficing learning. Convergence to a long-run equilibrium consistent with output growth, unemployment and inflation at their natural levels may be achieved even if heterogeneity in inflation forecasting strategies (with predominance of the extrapolative foresight strategy) is an attractor of an evolutionarily satisficing dynamic perturbed by mutant agents. Thus, in keeping with the empirical evidence, heterogeneity in strategies to form inflation expectations (with prevalence of bounded rationality) can be a stable long-run equilibrium.

Recent years have seen a growing number of studies investigating the accuracy of nonprobability online panels; however, response quality in nonprobability online panels has not yet received much attention. To fill this gap, we investigate response quality in a comprehensive study of seven nonprobability online panels and three probability-based online panels with identical fieldwork periods and questionnaires in Germany. Three response quality indicators typically associated with survey satisficing are assessed: straight-lining in grid questions, item nonresponse, and midpoint selection in visual design experiments. Our results show that there is significantly more straight-lining in the nonprobability online panels than in the probability-based online panels. However, contrary to our expectations, there is no generalizable difference between nonprobability online panels and probability-based online panels with respect to item nonresponse. Finally, neither respondents in nonprobability online panels nor respondents in probability-based online panels are significantly affected by the visual design of the midpoint of the answer scale.

The procurement decision-making process for complex military product systems (CoPS) has significant implications for military end-users, suppliers, and exchequers. This study examines the usefulness of adopting a fast and frugal decision-making approach for the acquisition of military CoPS. Defence procurement environment is complex. On the one hand, there are uncertainties and severe resource constraints due to regularly changing threat perceptions, limited flow of information about new technologies, and the growing demand to reduce defence related expenses. On the other hand, several stakeholders remain pre-occupied with the demand for ‘zero-error’ technologies. In such a setting, recurrent cost overruns and delays in supply are common in defence procurement programmes, across countries. Taking the illustrative examples of the missile system, fighter jet, and radar system acquisitions in India, we elucidate on ‘optimising’ versus ‘satisficing’ dynamics in the procurement decisions. The paper argues that a fast and frugal decision-making process by relying on judgement, experiential knowledge, and intuitive learning might make procurement processes, adaptively, more efficient. Such an approach would enable a ‘good enough’ technology to be inducted, and improved upon, through regular feedback from the actual environment. The study has implications for policy scholarships on innovation policy instruments under uncertainty.

Purpose Different housing development stakeholders need to cooperate and collaborate to perform various project activities. Housing development requires infrastructure development, which includes preparation of sand material embankment as much as ± 200,000 m3. The objectives are to find a model for agreement options and coalition, to validate the algorithms of the best fit for material locations and to determine how much the proposed agreement option was achieved. This study provides a structured methodology that can lead to systematic support system and automated negotiation for decision-making on housing development process. Design/methodology/approach Agreement option on group decision techniques was applied to determine the relative value of the alternative solutions for performing the function of project solutions. Analytical hierarchy process based on satisficing option was applied for decision process and game theory-based agent system for coalition formation. It is conducted in two stages that determine the decision preference and decision process consisting of four steps. The steps are constructing decision hierarchy, making judgment and synthesis, determining payoff optimum and analyzing the best fit option for all decision-makers. Findings The proposed model enables each decision-maker to select individually its coalition. It will improve the value of strategic decision. All solutions are chosen by more than one decision-maker and coalitions, where all decision-makers agree with the result. It becomes possible location for the material of a housing development. A support model enables negotiation process in group decision. Decision algorithms are based on the cooperative game theory to develop the agreement options and coalition formation. Similar research studies were carried out in this area, but this research is – to the knowledge of the authors – the first to apply the satisficing of value-based on desirable and considerable. Research limitations/implications The result is limited to the first-round negotiation of collaborative decision. A trade-off algorithm among decision-maker preference is needed for negotiation process. Future research is to continue working on multi-attribute decision-making, specifically on the process of eliciting user preference models such as neural network application and value function, and on establishing expert quantitative data from qualitative description of the feature of the alternative solution. It will need the development of trade-off algorithms to analyze value of technical solution in real time. Practical implications The support model can be extended to an automated negotiation and in different strategic decision on all stages of housing development. Social implications The satisficing algorithm of the coalition will satisfy all stakeholders. This will reduce any potential conflict. Originality/value Combination of value-based decision, group decision and collaborative support. Application of coalition formation for agreement options is used to select the best fit material location. It is based on satisficing game theory rather than optimization.

This study explores the relationship between decision-making styles and moral judgements to understand how maximizers and satisficers differ in their analysis of ethical dilemmas. It also explores the linkage between decision-making styles and the moral reasoning perspectives of absolutism and relativism, investigating if ethical ideologies play a mediating role in how maximizers and satisficers evaluate ethical situations. In order to test these relationships, data is collected from a sample of 187 upper level business students. Results indicate that maximizers are significantly more likely than satisficers to judge ethically ambiguous actions as immoral. Underlying this effect, maximizers (vs. satisficers) have a more idealistic ethical ideology.

The factorial survey is an experimental design in which the researcher constructs varying descriptions of situations or individual persons (vignettes), which will be judged by respondents with regard to a particular aspect. Some researchers present vignettes in text format as short stories, others present the central information of vignettes in a tabular format. To date, only a few sentences have been published, by Auspurg and Hinz, on the impact of the presentation format (text vs. table) on the answer behavior of students. Empirically, no differences were found between either format. Based on an Internet experiment conducted with a quota sample, we find evidence that ordinary tabular formats outperform text vignettes in terms of total vignette nonresponse but not when it comes to processing time. The former result especially applies in the case of less well-educated people. We further find that tabular format does not perform worse than text format regarding response inconsistency.

This paper offers a critique of UK government policy based on mode of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 (which in turn followed misleading advice from the World Health Organisation) through the lens of policymaking as narrative. Two flawed narratives—“Covid is droplet- not airborne-spread” and “Covid is situationally airborne” (that is, airborne transmission is unusual but may occur during aerosol-generating medical procedures and severe indoor crowding)—quickly became dominant despite no evidence to support them. Two important counter-narratives—“Covid is unequivocally airborne” and “Everyone generates aerosols; everyone is vulnerable”— were sidelined despite strong evidence to support them. Tragic consequences of the flawed policy narrative unfolded as social dramas. For example, droplet precautions became ritualised; care home residents died in their thousands; public masking became a libertarian lightning rod; and healthcare settings became occupational health battlegrounds. In a discussion, we call for bold action to ensure that the science of SARS-CoV-2 transmission is freed from the shackles of historical errors, scientific vested interests, ideological manipulation and policy satisficing.

Web readers usually skim through the text to keep up with the amount of available content. The effectiveness of skim reading is ensured by keeping the focus on the meaningful part of the text rather than the less meaningful part. To assure if the skim reading shows efficient results for a particular screen resolution, this research presents variations in the memory of significant data when a text is read on a mobile screen or a desktop screen. Moreover, the study aims to understand the knowledge gained from the text at a given time. In total, sixty participants contributed to the study and it is found that, relative to reading the text on a mobile screen, skimming showed improved memory for the ideas defined in the text on a computer screen. A software prototype is developed in this research study to analyze the impact of skim reading on a desktop computer screen versus a mobile device screen. The findings of the study have been interpreted as evidence in support of a skimming process called satisficing.

The authors discuss a new conceptual model to examine the phenomenon of fake news. Their model focuses on the relationship between the creator and the consumer of fake news and proposes a mechanism by which to determine how likely users may be to share fake news with others. In particular, it is hypothesized that information users would likely be influenced by seven factors in choosing to share fake news or to verify information, including the user’s: (1) level of online trust; (2) level of self-disclosure online; (3) amount of social comparison; (4) level of FoMO anxiety; (5) level of social media fatigue; (6) concept of self and role identity; and (7) level of education attainment. The implications reach into many well-established avenues of inquiry in education, Library and Information Science (LIS), sociology, and other disciplines, including communities of practice, information acquiring and sharing, social positioning, social capital theory, self-determination, rational choice (e.g., satisficing and information overload), critical thinking, and information literacy. Understanding the multiple root causes of creating and sharing fake news will help to alleviate its spread. Relying too heavily on but one factor to combat fake news—education level, for example—may have limited impact on mitigating its effects. Establishing thresholds for a certain combination of factors may better predict the tendency of users to share fake news. The authors also speculate on the role information literacy education programs can play in light of a more complex understanding of how fake news operates.

The finance sector’s response to pressures around climate change has emphasized disclosure, notably through the recommendations of the Financial Stability Board’s Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). The implicit assumption—that if risks are fully revealed, finance will respond rationally and in ways aligned with the public interest—is rooted in the “efficient market hypothesis” (EMH) applied to the finance sector and its perception of climate policy. For low carbon investment, particular hopes have been placed on the role of institutional investors, given the apparent matching of their assets and liabilities with the long timescales of climate change. We both explain theoretical frameworks (grounded in the “three domains”, namely satisficing, optimizing, and transforming) and use empirical evidence (from a survey of institutional investors), to show that the EMH is unsupported by either theory or evidence: it follows that transparency alone will be an inadequate response. To some extent, transparency can address behavioural biases (first domain characteristics), and improving pricing and market efficiency (second domain); however, the strategic (third domain) limitations of EMH are more serious. We argue that whilst transparency can help, on its own it is a very long way from an adequate response to the challenges of ‘aligning institutional climate finance’.

Political scientists rely heavily on survey research to gain insights into public attitudes and behaviors. Over the past decade, survey data collection has moved away from personal face-to-face and telephone interviewing towards a model of computer-assisted self-interviewing. A hallmark of many online surveys is the prominent display of the survey’s sponsor, most often an academic institution, in the initial consent form and/or on the survey website itself. It is an open question whether these displays of academic survey sponsorship could increase total survey error. We measure the extent to which sponsorship (by a university or marketing firm) affects data quality, including satisficing behavior, demand characteristics, and socially desirable responding. In addition, we examine whether sponsor effects vary depending on the participant’s experience with online surveys. Overall, we find no evidence that response quality is affected by survey sponsor or by past survey experience.

In this research note the satisficing newsvendor problem is considered which is defined as the maximization of the probability of exceeding the expected profit multiplied by a positive constant. This constant called optimism coefficient can be chosen by the firm’s management either based on their preference or the market conditions. The coefficient indicates whether there is a low or high optimistic decision maker. For the general demand distribution the results are significantly dependent on this coefficient.

In this paper, we are concerned with exploring the theoretically and technically research outcomes for the conflict resolution (CR) of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) by using the Internet of Things technologies. We propose a satisficing algorithm to mitigate the CR problem of multiple UAVs. Specifically, we first formulate the CR problem as a game model and design strategies of the game model based on flight characteristics of UAVs. Next, a satisficing game theory is used to mitigate the formulated problem. Furthermore, required time of arrival, which is a new judgment parameter of the strategy utility, is developed to ensure that the whole system can reach a socially acceptable compromise. Simulation results verify the effectiveness and adaptability of the proposed algorithm under complex environments.

Does attentiveness matter in survey responses? Do more attentive survey participants give higher quality responses? Using data from a recent online survey that identified inattentive respondents using instructed-response items, we demonstrate that ignoring attentiveness provides a biased portrait of the distribution of critical political attitudes and behavior. We show that this bias occurs in the context of both typical closed-ended questions and in list experiments. Inattentive respondents are common and are more prevalent among the young and less educated. Those who do not pass the trap questions interact with the survey instrument in distinctive ways: they take less time to respond; are more likely to report nonattitudes; and display lower consistency in their reported choices. Inattentiveness does not occur completely at random and failing to properly account for it may lead to inaccurate estimates of the prevalence of key political attitudes and behaviors, of both sensitive and more prosaic nature.

Systems vary based on a variety of different dimensions including the level of complexity. Some systems are simple, some systems are complicated, some systems are complex, and there are eve...

The objective of this paper is to show that the behavioral mission of modeling a human being as an agent driven by economic as well as psychological impulses can be accommodated to a large extent within the neoclassical framework which consists of optimizing agents arriving at equilibrium. First, it attempts to show that the non-homoeconomicus is as capable of ‘rationality’ as a homoeconomicus (self-centered human); in fact being self-centered has no major implications for the ability to be ‘rational’. Second, it shows that the systematic biases associated with neoclassical predictions of human behavior can be resolved in many cases by re-specifying the utility function to accommodate psychological factors. Thus, the contribution of the behavioral school would probably lie in altering the way in which neoclassical models are specified but not in rejecting the neoclassical methodology altogether. At the same time, it is pointed out in this paper that bounded rationality (satisficing behavior) of human beings in real life can often generate group behavior that is systematically different from predictions emerging from the neoclassical assumption of perfect rationality (optimizing agents).

A growing empirical literature demonstrates that the size of the expenditure multiplier varies over time, being both larger and consistently greater than one during periods of slow growth and/or recession. This paper contributes to the theory of the time-varying multiplier. It is shown that a combination of Kalecki's dynamic theory of investment and Harrod's ‘satisficing’ approach to the investment decision furnish a theory in which the ‘crowding in’ of investment expenditures following an initial demand stimulus gives rise to an elevated expenditure multiplier during times of pronounced macroeconomic distress.

Herbert Simon’s (1956) concept of satisficing provides an intuitive explanation for the reasons why respondents to surveys sometimes adopt response strategies that can lead to a reduction in data quality. As such, the concept rapidly gained popularity among researchers after it was first introduced to the field of survey methodology by Krosnick and Alwin (1987), and it has become a widely cited buzzword linked to different forms of response error. In this article, we present the findings of a systematic review involving a content analysis of journal articles published in English-language journals between 1987 and 2015 that have drawn on the satisficing concept to evaluate survey data quality. Based on extensive searches of online databases, and an initial screening exercise to apply the study’s inclusion criteria, 141 relevant articles were identified. Guided by the theory of survey satisficing described by Krosnick (1991), the methodological features of the shortlisted articles were coded, including the indicators of satisficing analyzed, the main predictors of satisficing, and the presence of main or interaction effects on the prevalence of satisficing involving indicators of task difficulty, respondent ability, and respondent motivation. Our analysis sheds light on potential differences in the extent to which satisficing theory holds for different types of response error, and highlights a number of avenues for future research.

Recent years have seen a renaissance of conjoint survey designs within social science. To date, however, researchers have lacked guidance on how many attributes they can include within conjoint profiles before survey satisficing leads to unacceptable declines in response quality. This paper addresses that question using pre-registered, two-stage experiments examining choices among hypothetical candidates for US Senate or hotel rooms. In each experiment, we use the first stage to identify attributes which are perceived to be uncorrelated with the attribute of interest, so that their effects are not masked by those of the core attributes. In the second stage, we randomly assign respondents to conjoint designs with varying numbers of those filler attributes. We report the results of these experiments implemented via Amazon's Mechanical Turk and Survey Sampling International. They demonstrate that our core quantities of interest are generally stable, with relatively modest increases in survey satisficing when respondents face large numbers of attributes.

Classical choice theory assumes that a decision-maker considers all feasible alternatives. However, a decision-maker in the real world can not consider all alternatives because of limited attention. In this paper, we propose a satisficing choice model to describe the choice procedure based on the incomplete preferences under the limited attention of the decision-maker. Moreover, the existence and rationality properties of the satisficing choice model on the different domains are studied combined with some proposed rationality conditions. Further, the proposed satisficing choice model is applied to a case of quality competition. Results show that the satisficing choice model of this paper is of a certain theoretical guiding significance to a kind of emergency decisions made by decision-makers under the circumstance of time pressure and limited information. It can also be the theoretical foundation for the study on the boundedly rational decision-making.

Algorithmic decision tools (ADTs) are being introduced into public sector organizations to support more accurate and consistent decision-making. Whether they succeed turns, in large part, on how administrators use these tools. This is one of the first empirical studies to explore how ADTs are being used by Street Level Bureaucrats (SLBs). The author develops an original conceptual framework and uses in-depth interviews to explore whether SLBs are ignoring ADTs (algorithm aversion); deferring to ADTs (automation bias); or using ADTs together with their own judgment (an approach the author calls “artificing”). Interviews reveal that artificing is the most common use-type, followed by aversion, while deference is rare. Five conditions appear to influence how practitioners use ADTs: (a) understanding of the tool (b) perception of human judgment (c) seeing value in the tool (d) being offered opportunities to modify the tool (e) alignment of tool with expectations.

Humans, by nature, tend to act like pack animals and participate in groupthink. We are also reluctant to disagree with our supervisors for fear of retribution or being criticized for not being a team player. Further, if we become invested in a plan, we are loath to let go of it because we view our time and effort as having been wasted. We tend to engage in satisficing when all our presumed criteria for action have been met. Red Teaming teaches us to diverge before we converge. It permits us to remain agile so we can change quickly when the anticipated future changes.

Satisficers, in contrast to maximizers, are content with attaining the reasonable target that they set for themselves. Such behavior is prevalent in decision makers especially when they are facing complex situations under risks and uncertainty (Simon 1955). While there is an abundance of prescriptive analytics tools for maximizers, it is not the case for satisficers. To fill this gap, we develop a new prescriptive analytics tool called robust satisficing that uses data to help a satisficer achieve her target expected reward or consumption as well as possible under ambiguous risks and prediction uncertainty. It builds upon the robustness optimization framework recently proposed by Long et al. (2021), and we extend it to incorporate aspects of predictive analytics. We adopt linear regression as the underlying predictive model and propose a new estimator uncertainty and residual ambiguity set to characterize the relations between the underlying regression coefficients, which is uncertain but non-stochastic, and the stochastic random variables representing residuals that have ambiguous distributions. The robust satisficing model is also useful in allocating resources for multiple satisficing agents to meet their expected reward targets. We present some useful robust satisficing models that can be solved efficiently, and provide tractable approximations to tackle adaptive linear optimization problems. The simulation studies for newsvendor problems elucidate the benefits of the robust satisficing framework in helping the firm attain the target expected profits, mitigate shortfalls, and limit target surplus, if desired. The robust satisficing model can also improve solutions over one that is obtained by solving a baseline empirical optimization model using estimated parameters. The improvement is also more pronounced when data availability is limited. Paradoxically, maximizers can also benefit from the analytics of robust satisficing.

We examine in an experiment how the allocation of decision rights over selecting most creative output and the form of incentive scheme interact to influence creative performance. The literature commonly assumes more autonomy leads to higher creativity. We propose that this is not necessarily the case. Specifically, we draw on literature on decision rights, creativity, and satisficing. We propose that giving employees decision rights over selecting the most creative output leads to less creativity due to employees satisficing and settling for less creative output. This is due to the uncertain nature of creativity, which makes it difficult to assess one’s creative output. We find for performance dependent incentives (creativity-dependent incentive scheme), the quantity and creative quality of output is lower when employees have decision rights over selecting the most creative output versus the absence of such decision rights. We do not observe such an effect for fixed compensation. Supplemental analysis show that our findings are consistent with a process, whereby employees with decision rights consistently check, evaluate, and settle for a lower performance level while producing output, but only as long as employees have an incentive to exert effort as it is the case in the performance dependent compensation condition.

When selecting from too many options (i.e., choice overload), maximizers (people who search exhaustively to make decisions that are optimal) report more negative post-decisional evaluations of their choices than do satisficers (people who search minimally to make decisions that are sufficient). Although ample evidence exists for differences in responses after-the-fact, little is known about possible divergences in maximizers' and satisficers' experiences during choice overload. Thus, using the biopsychosocial model of challenge/threat, we examined 128 participants' cardiovascular responses as they actively made a selection from many options. Specifically, we focused on cardiovascular responses assessing the degree to which individuals (a) viewed their decisions as valuable/important and (b) viewed themselves as capable (vs. incapable) of making a good choice. Although we found no differences in terms of the value individuals placed on their decisions (i.e., cardiovascular responses of task engagement), satisficers-compared to maximizers-exhibited cardiovascular responses consistent with feeling less capable of making their choice (i.e., greater relative threat). The current work provides a novel investigation of the nature of differences in maximizers'/satisficers' momentary choice overload experiences, suggesting insight into why they engage in such distinct search behaviors.

This chapter shows that in practice often necessary changes in companies are not carried out, although the necessity is obvious. This phenomenon can be explained by findings from four different areas. Psychology teaches that people avoid or devalue information that contradicts their previous attitude (avoidance of cognitive dissonance) and that they only look for alternatives when real dissatisfaction has occurred (satisficing). Organizational theory has proven that large bureaucratic corporations hinder change just as much as excessively strong corporate cultures. More or less rational cost arguments often stand in the way of necessary changes and finally, the situation can be so complex that one shuns intervention. However, since standstill normally leads to failure, it is important to overcome these obstacles and to dare to change.

Since the 1960s, Democrats and Republicans in U.S. Congress have taken increasingly polarized positions, while the public's policy positions have remained centrist and moderate. We explain this apparent contradiction by developing a dynamical model that predicts ideological positions of political parties. Our approach tackles the challenge of incorporating bounded rationality into mathematical models and integrates the empirical finding of satisficing decision making---voters settle for candidates who are "good enough" when deciding for whom to vote. We test the model using data from the U.S. Congress over the past 150 years, and find that our predictions are consistent with the two major political parties' historical trajectory. In particular, the model explains how polarization between the Democrats and Republicans since the 1960s could be a consequence of increasing ideological homogeneity within the parties., 13 pages, 5 figures

In education policy and implementation literature, the decoupling of policy and implementation, and the messiness involved in putting research into practice in education, are well documented. In this chapter, the authors propose the idea of “satisficing,” as it has been defined in policy and implementation literature, as a useful lens for considering the apparent decoupling of actual impacts and anticipated outcomes for programs that have adopted research- and evidence-based approaches. Using examples from EGR programs in African and Asian contexts, the authors argue that “satisficing” occurs at multiple levels, including the classroom, school, district, and even the program implementation (i.e., contractor or grantee) levels. The authors also argue that this lens has important implications for education program design and research.

The somatic marker hypothesis (SMH) has been utilized to demonstrate the role of emotion and somatic state in decision-making under uncertainty over the past two decades. Despite some debate, the SMH has provided not only a neurobiological framework for understanding emotion and decision-making but also a good empirical support for ecological rationality and embodied emotion. Unlike the traditional maximizing rationality and bounded satisficing rationality, the ecological rationality stresses that emotions should be brought to the decision-making process. The embodied emotion furthermore emphasizes that emotions are embodied in the body and the brain. On the other hand, behavioral decision-making has spawned many new interdisciplines, including neuroeconomics. In this case, the SMH could act as a bridge to translate the ecological rationality and the embodied emotion into emerging neuroeconomics. Thus, this mini-review article aims to propose an integrated framework for introducing ecological rationality and embodied emotion into the field of neuroeconomics by virtue of insights from the SMH.

This is an extension from a selected paper from JSAI2019. Social learning is crucial in acquisition of the intelligent behaviors of humans and many kinds of animals, as it makes behavior learning far more efficient than pure trial-and-error. In imitation learning, a representative form of social learning, the agent observes specific action-state pair sequences produced by another agent (expert) and reflect them into its own action. One of its implementations in reinforcement learning is the inverse reinforcement learning. We propose another form of social learning, emulation learning, which requires much less information from another agent (pioneer). In emulation learning, the agent is given only a certain level of achievement by another agent, or a record. In this study, we implement emulation learning in the reinforcement learning setting by applying a model of satisficing action policy. We show that the emulation learning algorithm works well both in stationary and non-stationary reinforcement learning tasks, breaking the often observed trade-off like relationship between efficiency and flexibility.

This final chapter sums up the lessons that can be learned from this book. It discusses the fact that, in a world as messy and chaotic as ours, anthropologists must seek theories that explore societies’ workings by looking at the local, experiential, and practical—explaining societies as the products of individuals working together. Empathy, satisficing, and shared problem-solving are essential tools for our subjects, and, for anthropologists, figuring out how to deal with difference is every bit as important as understanding conformity. Cultural ecosystems, then, are laboratories for experimenting, exploring, and learning, as well as the places where people teach one another about what they have found.

Respondents may use satisficing (i.e., nonoptimal) strategies when responding to self-report questionnaires. These satisficing strategies become more likely with decreasing motivation and/or cognitive ability (Krosnick, 1991). Considering that cognitive deficits are characteristic of depressive and anxiety disorders, depressed and anxious patients may be prone to satisficing. Using data from the Netherland’s Study of Depression and Anxiety ( N = 2,945), we studied the relationship between depression and anxiety, cognitive symptoms, and satisficing strategies on the NEO Five-Factor Inventory. Results showed that respondents with either an anxiety disorder or a comorbid anxiety and depression disorder used satisficing strategies substantially more often than healthy respondents. Cognitive symptom severity partly mediated the effect of anxiety disorder and comorbid anxiety disorder on satisficing. The results suggest that depressed and anxious patients produce relatively low-quality self-report data—partly due to cognitive symptoms. Future research should investigate the degree of satisficing across different mental health care assessment contexts.

The phenomenon of immigrant population innumeracy has drawn considerable attention from social researchers over the past 15 years. This tendency to overestimate the size of foreign born populations has understandably generated concern about the consequences of faultily perceiving demographic realities. Indeed this ignorance is often associated with anti-immigrant policy positions related to the halting of immigration, the deportation of foreigners, or the rescinding of immigrants’ rights. However, largely omitted from the innumeracy research is consideration of those who do not provide an estimate. Like overestimators and underestimators, those responding with “don’t know” also display ignorance about a demographic reality. But is this ignorance meaningful? The current study considers this possibility through a detailed examination “don’t know” responses. Four general questions guide the analysis. First, what is the extent of “don’t know” regarding immigrant population size estimates across nations? The analysis combines data from four international surveys with similar size estimate prompts to document the extent across Europe and North America. Second, how can we characterize the “don’t knows”? The analysis examines data from the 2014 European Social Survey (ESS) to determine what factors make respondents more or less likely to provide no estimate across 14 countries. These multivariate models include several independent variables related to cognitive availability, negative affect, survey satisficing, and demographic factors, which are hypothesized to predict “don’t know” responses. The results reveal that providing no estimate is much more than simple random ignorance. Third, are there any consequences to “don’t know” responses? This multivariate analysis considers whether providing no estimate makes one more likely to support hypothetical policies limiting the flow of immigrants into their country. Fourth, what should future researchers do with the “don’t knows”? This final analysis re-estimates the previous results using two common strategies for handling missing observations—listwise deletion and multiple imputation—with the goal of determining how the results would differ if the “don’t know” responses are treated as a nuisance. This study concludes with recommendations for future research.

The current age is characterized by having too many options. Decision-making is harder when there are numerous options to choose from. However, having a large number of options is not necessarily a problem for everyone and in this context, maximizing and satisficing tendencies are described. Yet, there is a debate about the effect of these tendencies on well-being and it has to be asked as to whether maximizing and satisficing have an adaptive or maladaptive effect on our well-being. Moreover, it raises questions regarding the conceptualization and measurement of maximizing and satisficing tendencies. In a sample of 480 subjects from the general population, a two-component model of maximizing was examined. The results show that the two-component model (maximizing as a strategy and maximizing as a goal) is an efficient way to measure maximizing tendency. The results show that maximizing as a strategy (measured as alternative search) was maladaptive (was positively related to depression and negatively related to happiness), whereas maximizing as a goal (measured as high standards) had no maladaptive effect (was not related to well-being at all). In addition, the two components were differently associated with personality factors which strengthen the need for measuring maximizing as a two-component model. In the current study, it was found that even though great effort was invested in studying maximizing tendency, satisficing tendency stayed behind and its conceptualization and measurement are unclear. Therefore, the (mal)adaptive effect of these tendencies depends on their conceptualization as well as on how these tendencies are measured, and also on their different relationship with personality factors.

The purpose of the paper is to contribute to the development of best practices at emerging factories of the future, i.e. smart factories of Industry 4.0. Smart factories need to develop effective managerial early warning systems to identify and respond to subtle threats or opportunities, i.e. weak signals, in order to adapt to an ever-changing environment in a timely manner and thus gain or maintain a competitive advantage on the market. These factories need to develop and implement a several-stage early warning system that is specific to their industry. The aim of our study is, with the help of semi-structured group interviews, to examine which stages of a managerial early warning system are present in the case of a global innovative supplier in the automotive industry. As such, a four-stage managerial early warning system model for a knowledge-based automotive smart factory is proposed, in which aggregate activities and management decision-making strategies are defined for each stage, with the importance of intuition being taken into consideration. We found that managers rely on intuition and extensive analysis for satisficing strategies and teamwork for optimizing strategies, when using their managerial early warning system.

Methodological knowledge on surveying young adolescents is scarce and researchers often rely on theories and methodological studies based on adult respondents. However, young adolescents are in the process of developing their cognitive, psychological, emotional and social skills, therefore present a unique set of considerations. Question characteristics including; question type and format, question difficulty, wording, ambiguity, the number of response options, and the inclusion of a neutral mid-point, play a pivotal role in the response quality of young adolescents. Failure to address these factors is likely to encourage young adolescents to use satisficing techniques. In this article, we provide a science based guide for developing surveys for use with adolescents aged 11 to 16 years. The guide considers the characteristics and developmental stages of adolescents as survey responders and incorporates advice on appropriate question characteristics, survey layout and question sequence, approaches to pre-testing surveys and mode of survey administration. The guide provides recommendations for developmentally appropriate survey design to improve response quality in survey research with young adolescents.

Often, network users are not perfectly rational, especially when they are satisficing—rather than optimizing—decision makers and each individual’s perception of the decision environment reflects personal preferences or perception errors due to lack of information. While the assumption of satisficing drivers has been used in modeling route choice behavior, this research uses a link-based perception error model to describe driver’s uncertain behavior, without assuming stochasticity. In congestion-free networks, we show that the perception error model is more general than the existing bounded rationality models with satisficing drivers with special cases when the two approaches yield the same results; that is, satisficing under accurate perception is equivalent to optimizing under inaccurate perception. This motivates us to define generalized bounded rationality in route choice behavior modeling. The proposed modeling framework is general enough to capture link-specific cost-perception of drivers. We use a Monte Carlo method to estimate modeling parameter values to guarantee a certain coverage probability in comparison with the random utility model. We demonstrate how the notion of generalized bounded rationality can be used in robust multicommodity network design problems and devise a cutting plane algorithm. We illustrate our approaches in the context of hazardous materials transportation. The electronic companion is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/opre.2017.1621 .

Recent research suggests that policy attitudes should be assessed with surveys that use branched rating scales that separately measure the direction and intensity of issue preferences. However, past studies have not tested whether branched rating scales improve the quality of survey data in the context of self-administered web surveys. In the current study, I compare the effects of different issue scale formats on response distributions, survey satisficing and issue-based voting in multiparty elections. Using data from a randomized web experiment, I find that partially labeled seven- and eleven-point issue scales and fully verbalized branched scales produce very similar response distributions and comparable effects of policy attitudes on party choice. However, the findings regarding the extent of satisficing behavior are mixed. Based on the efficiency of different scale formats, scholars are encouraged to use seven- or eleven-point rating scales to measure policy attitudes in web surveys.