Rational Or Irrational Decisions

When decision-makers are satisficing, it is not hard to see why they would be more likely to choose an item that appears earlier on a list, because they stop as soon as they find one that meets their pre-existing criteria, and might not even look at every item in a list.

Contrast this strategy with rational decision making, which is a standard assumption in many economic models. It turns out that making a decision “rationally”—which in economics terms means analyzing every possible option—requires a great deal of cognitive horsepower.