Framing Our Thoughts: Ecological Rationality as Evolutionary Psychology’s Answer to the Frame Problem

Abstract

Decision makers challenged by real-world adaptive problems must often select a course of action quickly, despite two computational obstacles: There is usually a vast number of possible courses of action that can be explored, and a similarly vast number of possible consequences that must be considered when evaluating these options. Thus, decision makers routinely face the frame problem: how to focus attention on adaptively relevant information and how to keep this information set small enough that the mind can actually perform the computations necessary to generate adaptive behavior. By identifying simple, effective heuristics that work within the computational and informational constraints of an organism and still result in adaptively adequate behavior, the new ecological rationality perspective within evolutionary psychology suggests how intelligent agents can overcome this frame problem. In this chapter we show how ecologically rational psychological mechanisms can address two challenges derived from the frame problem: 1) Using the example of sequential mate choice, we demonstrate that a satisficing information search strategy can lead to good decisions using only a limited amount of information; and 2) We argue that emotions can guide information search, by focusing the computational mind on precisely that information which is most useful for making decisions that lead to good outcomes over the long run.

We further describe how a bottom-up approach to studying ecological rationality, which first identifies simple heuristic decision-making components and then builds more sophisticated cognitive modules out of these components, can generate fruitful new directions for psychological scientists attempting to illuminate the structure of our evolved computational minds.