Ecological RationalityIntelligence in the World

The idea that more information and more computation yield better decisions has long shaped our vision of rationality. Yet humans and other animals typically rely on simple heuristics or rules of thumb to solve adaptive problems, focusing on one or a few important cues and ignoring the rest, and shortcutting computation rather than striving for as much as possible. In this book, the authors argue that in an uncertain world, more information and computation are not always better, and instead ask when, and why, less can be more. The answers to these questions constitute the idea of ecological rationality, as explored in the chapters in this book: how people can be effective decision makers by using simple…