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
