The Rational Use of Cognitive Resources

A new approach to understanding irrational behavior and modeling human cognition

What does it mean to act rationally? Mathematicians, economists, and statisticians have argued that a rational actor chooses actions that maximize their expected utility. By this standard, people routinely behave irrationally—and psychologists have amassed long lists of cognitive biases and heuristics to explain why. This book suggests a different approach: resource-rational analysis. With finite time and brain ...