Satisficing
The Basic Idea
Imagine that you want to purchase a television. There are certain criteria that you want your TV to meet: you want it to have Ultra HD, be at least 55” in size, and be a Smart TV. Even with that criteria in mind, there are hundreds of different available TVs you could purchase, which also means there is a vast amount of information you could obtain to make the best decision – but that would be incredibly time consuming. Instead, you are likely to pick a TV that satisfies your criteria, whether or not it is the absolute best possible option. This kind of consumer decision is called satisficing.
Satisficing is a decision-making process in which an individual makes a choice that is satisfactory rather than optimal.2 It would require a great deal of effort – and may not even be possible – to gather all the necessary information in order to make the best decision, and satisficing thus represents the kinds of decisions we are actually capable of making. Satisficing is all about making ‘good enough’ decisions instead of perfect ones.
Satisficing and heuristics save time, cost and resources and are therefore efficient, fast and frugal.
– Gerd Gigerenzer and Peter Todd in Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart
About the Authors
Dan Pilat
Dan is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. Dan has a background in organizational decision making, with a BComm in Decision & Information Systems from McGill University. He has worked on enterprise-level behavioral architecture at TD Securities and BMO Capital Markets, where he advised management on the implementation of systems processing billions of dollars per week. Driven by an appetite for the latest in technology, Dan created a course on business intelligence and lectured at McGill University, and has applied behavioral science to topics such as augmented and virtual reality.
Dr. Sekoul Krastev
Sekoul is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. A decision scientist with a PhD in Decision Neuroscience from McGill University, Sekoul's work has been featured in peer-reviewed journals and has been presented at conferences around the world. Sekoul previously advised management on innovation and engagement strategy at The Boston Consulting Group as well as on online media strategy at Google. He has a deep interest in the applications of behavioral science to new technology and has published on these topics in places such as the Huffington Post and Strategy & Business.
