Issue: 2026/Vol.36/No.2, Pages 1-14
BOUNDED RATIONALITY AND MULTICRITERIA DECISION AIDING
Ignacy Kaliszewski
Cite as: I. Kaliszewski. Bounded rationality and multicriteria decision aiding. Operations Research and Decisions 2026: 36(2), 1-14. DOI 10.37190/ord/215783
Abstract
Compared to deciding under a single criterion, in Multicriteria Decision Aiding the role of the decision-maker is much more predominant. This is because in the former case, once the decision model is formulated, the notion of optimal decision is well defined, whereas in the latter, it is not. The behavioral biases influencing the model construction can be in both cases the same; however, in Multicriteria Decision Aiding decisions are selected from a range of incomparable Pareto optimal candidates. Thus, in Multicriteria Decision Aiding there is more space where behavioral biases can emerge. In this study we identify, within the Multicriteria Decision Aiding setting, the most important decision process drivers that cause the decisions to be satisficing but rarely the best possible. To tame the impact of those drivers on the decision aiding process, we propose a generic Multicriteria Decision Aiding tool, a sort of what-if analysis, and show how to make it operational.
Keywords: Multicriteria Decision Aiding, behavioral biases, decision process drivers, satisficing decisions, what-if analysis
Received: 16 July 2025 Accepted: 18 December 2025
Published online: 18 December 2025