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Behavioral Sciences
Special Issues
Bounded Rationality: Bridging Cognition and Emotion in Decision Making
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Bounded Rationality: Bridging Cognition and Emotion in Decision Making

A special issue of Behavioral Sciences (ISSN 2076-328X). This special issue belongs to the section "Behavioral Economics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 26 June 2026 | Viewed by 3443

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Marcus Selart

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Strategy and Management, Norwegian School of Economics, 5045 Bergen, Norway
Interests: behavioral economics; judgment and decision making; risk and uncertainty; economic behavior and organization

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue aims to explore the cognitive and emotional foundations of bounded rationality. Bounded rationality is a concept that describes how decision-making is limited by cognitive constraints and incomplete information, leading individuals to make satisfactory rather than optimal choices. It acknowledges that while people generally try to act rationally, their abilities to gather, process, and understand information are limited.

Traditionally, bounded rationality has been associated with such issues as optimization under constraints and reasoning fallacies, but the focus has lately shifted from cognition to emotion. Consequently, analyses of motivation, affect, intuition, regret, and social norms have become important.

This Special Issue seeks submissions related (but not limited to) the following topics related to decision making processes:

  • The limits of human cognitive processing.
  • The impact of limited information.
  • The use of heuristics and mental shortcuts.
  • The importance of cognitive limitations or time constraints.
  • The influence of motivation, regret, feelings of fairness, satisfaction, or emotional arousal.
  • The influence of emotional conflict, social norms and expectations, or risk perception.
  • The importance of cognitive dissonance.

The Special Issue seeks contributions from such disciplines as behavioral economics, behavioral decision making, behavioral organizational theory, experimental economics, experimental social psychology, and marketing. It welcomes original research articles, review articles, case studies, and thought-provoking perspectives that contribute to a deeper understanding of the complexity inherent in the concept of bounded rationality. Furthermore, it seeks to foster dialogue among scientists and researchers interested in advancing knowledge and critical thinking in the field.

Prof. Dr. Marcus Selart
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Behavioral Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • bounded rationality
  • decision making
  • cognition
  • emotion
  • heuristics
  • cognitive constraints
  • risk perception

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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30 pages, 8681 KB  
Article
The Consumer’s Reservation Price as an Adaptive Aspiration Level
by Sebastian van Baal
Behav. Sci. 2026, 16(3), 421; https://doi.org/10.3390/bs16030421 - 13 Mar 2026
Viewed by 864
Abstract
Reservation prices determine which goods consumers are willing to buy and, therefore, shape demand curves in markets. Neoclassical economics postulates that reservation prices optimally reflect the marginal utility provided by a good given all other possible uses of the consumer’s budget, as well [...] Read more.
Reservation prices determine which goods consumers are willing to buy and, therefore, shape demand curves in markets. Neoclassical economics postulates that reservation prices optimally reflect the marginal utility provided by a good given all other possible uses of the consumer’s budget, as well as a rational response to the information environment. In contrast, behavioral economics suggests that reservation prices are influenced by extraneous factors and are, thus, less stable and more difficult to predict. In this article, I propose a behavioral model of how the reservation price changes during sequential price searches. The model assumes bounded rationality, is rooted in the psychological theory of aspiration levels, and posits that the reservation price adjusts towards the lowest price known. A corollary is that when higher prices are charged in a market, consumers become willing to pay more in the short term. Results from an online laboratory experiment with more than 400 participants from the general population suggest that the model performs well in explaining the dynamics of the reservation price during a search spell. While the results imply that reservation prices are malleable, competition can protect consumers from sellers exploiting their adaptiveness. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Bounded Rationality: Bridging Cognition and Emotion in Decision Making)
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24 pages, 3678 KB  
Article
Comparing Incommensurable Quantities: Intertemporal vs. Risky Choices with Single Outcomes
by Si-Chu Shen, Yuan-Na Huang, Yi-Juan Zhang, Yi Kuang, Shu-Wen Yang and Shu Li
Behav. Sci. 2026, 16(3), 372; https://doi.org/10.3390/bs16030372 - 5 Mar 2026
Viewed by 362
Abstract
The equate-to-differentiate (ETD) model posits that individuals tend to equate a less significant difference between options on one dimension and thus leave the greater one-dimensional difference to be differentiated as the determinant for the preferred option. However, when confronted with an ostensibly “simple” [...] Read more.
The equate-to-differentiate (ETD) model posits that individuals tend to equate a less significant difference between options on one dimension and thus leave the greater one-dimensional difference to be differentiated as the determinant for the preferred option. However, when confronted with an ostensibly “simple” choice between two risky options with single-nonzero outcomes or between two intertemporal options with single-dated outcomes, we face an insurmountable barrier against the ETD model’s explanation and prediction of these choices. The reason is that determining which intra-dimensional difference (∆PayoffA,B or ∆ProbabilityA,B/∆DelayA,B) between Option A and Option B is greater is meaningless and is considered to be a challenge in the physical world. To address this challenge and evaluate whether such decisions are indeed governed by the ETD process, the present study developed a visual analogue scale designed to capture individuals’ subjective comparisons across dimensions of different units. Across two studies, we demonstrate that the analogically measured intra-dimensional comparison reliably and consistently predicts choice patterns attributed to separate anomalies: the common difference effect and unit effect in intertemporal decisions, and subproportionality and the peanuts effect in risky decisions. These findings suggest that both types of decisions may share a common cognitive mechanism based on dimensional evaluation, despite involving distinct informational metrics (time vs. probability). By enabling direct measurement of dimension-wise comparisons, our analogue scale—though unconventional—offers a novel methodological tool for exploring the underlying structure of seemingly “simple” decisions. The implications of this work extend to the development of unified models capable of integrating intertemporal and risky decision-making under a shared explanatory framework. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Bounded Rationality: Bridging Cognition and Emotion in Decision Making)
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Review

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24 pages, 375 KB  
Review
Untested Assumptions and Tenuous Evidence: A Critique of the Dual-Process Account of Moral Judgment
by Philip T. Quinlan and Dale J. Cohen
Behav. Sci. 2026, 16(1), 20; https://doi.org/10.3390/bs16010020 - 22 Dec 2025
Viewed by 1034
Abstract
The dual-process theory of moral judgment asserts that moral judgments come about because of the operation of either of two independent decision processes, often described as a cognitive/rational process and an intuitive/affective process. In some cases, these processes are seen to operate in [...] Read more.
The dual-process theory of moral judgment asserts that moral judgments come about because of the operation of either of two independent decision processes, often described as a cognitive/rational process and an intuitive/affective process. In some cases, these processes are seen to operate in competition. We trace the development of this account and highlight how the neural and behavioral evidence almost universally relies on the validity of a series of untested statements that, collectively, we call the dual-process assumptions. We show how these assumptions produce experimental methods that cannot falsify the dual-process account. We provide an in-depth and critical analysis of the kind of neurophysiological and behavioral evidence that has been used to support the theory and conclude that it is tenuous, equivocal, or both. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Bounded Rationality: Bridging Cognition and Emotion in Decision Making)
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