A decision-heuristic is a human-made mental model in psychology and behavioral economics: a simplified rule of thumb or shortcut that agents deliberately use to reach judgments and decisions under constraints of time, information, or cognitive capacity. It carves a class of strategies—such as availability, representativeness, anchoring, and satisficing—that trade optimal accuracy for speed and effort. The persistence mechanism is teaching and practice: heuristics are learned through instruction, reinforced by successful outcomes, and transmitted across communities as shared problem-solving conventions. [formal: heuristicia decisionis | substrate: mind | horizon: a moment | explicit: yes | epoch: 0.01]
Accepted ontology entry
decision-heuristic
A decision-heuristic is a human-made mental model in psychology and behavioral economics: a simplified rule of thumb or shortcut that agents deliberately use to reach judgments and decisions under constraints of time, information, or cogni…
Definition
Why it is in scope
A human-made concept in psychology and behavioral economics: a mental shortcut or rule of thumb that people use to make judgments and decisions quickly and efficiently, often under conditions of uncertainty or time pressure. Built to persist as a framework for analyzing and predicting human decision-making patterns in both everyday and formal contexts.
Names and aliases
- decision-heuristicen · CANONICAL
Relations from this entry
- cmrmfdby0002qd1nlh9ok230jINSTANCE_OF →
A decision-heuristic is a specific kind of heuristic: a simplified rule of thumb used for judgments under constraints. Files against nearest kind — heuristic is the established category.
- cmrhxqf1f02ox8aeh7k4ambebDEPENDS_ON →
Decision heuristics are cognitive shortcuts — simplified rules the mind uses to reach judgments under constraints. Remove cognition and decision heuristics cannot operate, as they are fundamentally cognitive processes. Present-tense removal test passes (Law 8).
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Record identity
- Created
- Jul 30, 2026, 6:43 PM UTC
- Content hash
- a30407ddd8c9a69a8958a6adfd7b8f6889fcc932c606ab62f49b0e4a7febd147