The economic rationality of homoeconomicus put to the test of cognitive biases: an alternative reading

Abstract

With the abundance of goods and the diversity of choices, the consumer has introduced several new considerations in the phase of materializing his needs in the form of desires, this operation is associated with errors of judgments explained by the cognitive biases of the human being, which requires a new reading of the models and rules on which consumer behavior is based.

Based on this observation, also characterized by the emergence of behavioral economics, in particular with Daniel Kahneman's obtaining the “Nobel Prize” in economics for his work in this field, I tried to clarify this point in the microeconomics field by re-reading the laws of economic rationality (Gossen's laws, etc.) to conclude that the consumer is no longer governed by the laws of microeconomics and the latter's shift from “homo- economicus "to" homo-relative "from where I thought of making an attempt to diagnose the variables allowing the construction of a model which can explain the behavior of the consumer.

We can say that the objective of this article is to show the anomalies of homoeconomicus, the figure which represents the neoclassical model of a rational economic agent which remains normative and abstract, hence the need to find another alternative model , more realistic, more efficient and relevant, capable of reflecting the true motivations of human behavior and of defining economic rationality in its multidimensional sense which respects the cognitive and psychosociological peculiarities of the human entity.

JEL Classification : D910

Paper Type : Theoretical Research