Decision theory

Bounded rationality under limited attention

Bounded rationality describes how people make satisfactory rather than perfectly optimal decisions because information, time, cognition, and attention are limited.

Start a decisionSee the mechanism

Nicolas mechanism signals

These concepts follow the mathematical contract used by the app.

Convex cost

cost = c * sum a_ij^2

Voice budget

sum a_ij^2 <= B

Outcome rule

shifted softmax over support

Why perfect optimization is unrealistic

Real participants rarely have complete information, unlimited time, or the ability to evaluate every alternative perfectly.

Groups therefore use heuristics, delegation, defaults, and satisficing even when they want careful decisions.

Why structure helps

A structured decision process cannot remove bounded rationality, but it can reduce ambiguity about alternatives, costs, and outputs.

Delegation can also help when some participants trust others with more context on a specific issue.

How Nicolas relates

Nicolas asks the group to name alternatives and asks participants to allocate finite voice credits across them.

That narrows the decision surface while still allowing people to express intensity and rely on delegation when appropriate.

Use cases

Where this decision model helps

Complex proposals

Use delegation when expertise is uneven and not everyone can evaluate every detail.

Priority setting

Reduce vague debate into named alternatives and finite voice-credit tradeoffs.

Decision audits

Keep a record of the rule and signal that produced a choice.

FAQ

What is bounded rationality?

It is the idea that people make decisions under limits of information, time, cognition, and attention rather than optimizing perfectly.

Does Nicolas make decisions optimal?

No. Nicolas gives groups a structured way to reveal preference intensity under explicit constraints, but it does not prove optimality.

Why is delegation relevant?

Delegation can route decision control toward trusted participants when knowledge and attention are unevenly distributed.

Keep reading

Continue with adjacent concepts and practical Nicolas workflows.

Liquid quadratic votingLearn how delegation and finite voice credits work together.Collective decision-making softwareSee the broader Nicolas model for structured group decisions.