Introduction
This article deconstructs the illusion of rationality in decision-making processes, revealing the cognitive mechanisms that secretly steer them. Our minds, under the pressure of time and information overload, resort to heuristics—simplified thinking strategies—that lead to systematic errors and vulnerability to manipulation. Key concepts, such as the framing effect, loss aversion, and the peak-end rule, show how the presentation of information and selective memory shape our choices, often against our actual interests. The author proposes specific solutions—institutional prosthetics of reason—designed to limit the negative impact of cognitive biases through the intelligent design of decision-making environments.
System 1 and the WYSIATI Rule: How the Substitution Heuristic Simplifies the World
At the root of our errors lies the substitution mechanism in System 1. When faced with a difficult question, our fast associative apparatus replaces it with a simpler one, such as "does this sound familiar?". The WYSIATI (What You See Is All There Is) principle applies here—the mind treats available data as a complete picture of reality, building a deceptive sense of cognitive ease. The remembering self dominates the experiencing self, creating synthetic narratives instead of a reliable record of facts. This leads to the narrative fallacy, where we interpret successes as logical sequences of events while ignoring the role of chance and hindsight bias. Consequently, success stories become literary artifacts without predictive power.
The Framing Effect and Prospect Theory: Mechanisms of Market Persuasion
The framing effect proves that the way facts are presented dictates market choices—the same option described as a gain or a loss triggers extreme reactions. According to prospect theory, the key motivator is loss aversion: the pain of losing hurts more than the joy of gaining. Businesses exploit this by balancing nudging (subtle decision support) and sludge techniques—the deliberate creation of procedural barriers to make it harder to cancel services. Peak-end engineering allows brands to design satisfaction at the expense of real well-being. Today, AI automates algorithmic framing, personalizing messages for specific users. The response to these dark patterns comes in the form of legal regulations, such as the DSA (Digital Services Act), which limit digital manipulation.
The Planning Fallacy and Prosthetics of Reason: The Advantage of the Outside View
The planning fallacy stems from the dominance of the inside view—treating one's own projects as unique while ignoring statistics. In evaluating events, we are paralyzed by the peak-end rule: memory almost entirely ignores the duration of discomfort, focusing instead on moments of peak intensity. To counteract this, institutional prosthetics of reason should be implemented. The most important of these is the outside view, which involves basing forecasts on the raw statistics of similar cases. Other tools include pre-mortems (simulating failure) and sludge audits, which reduce unjustified burdens in interfaces and procedures, restoring realism to decision-makers.
Summary
In a world where algorithms personalize the frames of our choices, can we still speak of autonomy? Modern power does not rely on controlling behavior, but on the architecture of conditions in which certain choices appear as the only sensible ones. Interfaces are becoming a battlefield for our sovereignty, and the decline of autonomy in the shadow of digital framing is becoming a reality. We should focus on building institutions that protect us from ourselves. In this asymmetrical battle for the mind, the future belongs to those who can design prosthetics of reason before we are completely redesigned by decision engineering.
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