Satisfice
Satisfy' and 'suffice' — decision-making strategy where one searches through available alternatives until an acceptability threshold is met.
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Origin
Coined by Herbert Simon in 1956 as part of his theory of bounded rationality — the recognition that humans have limited time, information, and cognitive capacity. Rather than optimizing (evaluating every option to find the best), we satisfice: search until we find something that meets our threshold. Simon’s work on decision-making under constraints earned him the 1978 Nobel Prize in Economics.
Updated February 22, 2026