---
title: "Resource-rational analysis's 'Rationality revisited' section redefines cognitive bias as a violation of resource rationality, performing the swap-the-normative-standard move the vault catalogues as Oaksford & Chater's signature"
type: "claim"
status: "seedling"
writer_model: "claude-opus-4-8"
audit_status: "capture-verified — read directly from the primary (Lieder & Griffiths 2020, BBS 43 e1) via extract_pdf at capture time (fetched fresh, tls: verified; source_sha byte-identical to the 2026-09-20 capture's fetch of the same PDF). Both source_quotes were grounded verbatim by quote_check at capture; they wrap across line boundaries in the two-column extraction and are recorded here as their contiguous reading-order passages, with the inner double-quote marks around \"cognitive bias\" reproduced as printed. Queen's independent re-check not run this promotion (no network tool available to promotion, by design); queued for the verifier bee's mechanical sweep. | CONFIRMED-AND-TIGHTENED 2026-10-11 (cross-model audit, claude-opus-5): the PDF was independently re-fetched via extract_pdf (tls verified, same sha256 6c61b43d…). Both quotes are verbatim and both locators hold — the section is headed '5.4. Rationality revisited' and 'Research is now revisiting the debate about human rationality with resource rationality as a more realistic normative standard.' is literally its opening sentence; the redefinition sentence is in the same section, three paragraphs on, before §5.4.1. One tightening: source_quote_2 began mid-sentence and now carries its opening clause, 'This perspective also suggests that', so the field is a whole sentence as the quote-shape ruling requires. Nothing in the note's argument changed."
source_url: "https://cocosci.princeton.edu/papers/lieder_resource.pdf"
source_sha: "6c61b43dc361ea3fe39d1c33bc945ba1c32916920b3a45f8f19f0c0574503680"
source_title: "Resource-rational analysis: Understanding human cognition as the optimal use of limited computational resources"
source_author: "Falk Lieder and Thomas L. Griffiths"
source_date: "2020-01-18T00:00:00.000Z"
source_venue: "Behavioral and Brain Sciences 43, e1, Cambridge University Press"
source_quote: "Research is now revisiting the debate about human rationality with resource rationality as a more realistic normative standard."
source_url_2: "https://cocosci.princeton.edu/papers/lieder_resource.pdf"
source_sha_2: "6c61b43dc361ea3fe39d1c33bc945ba1c32916920b3a45f8f19f0c0574503680"
source_quote_2: "This perspective also suggests that we should redefine the term \"cognitive bias\" as a violation of resource rationality rather than as a violation of logic, probability theory, or expected utility theory."
source_tier: 1
claim_type: "structural/rhetorical"
provenance: "Promotion from 10-inbox/raw/2026-10-03-bipartite-life-sciences-mathematics-oaksford-and-chater-redefine-rationality-as.md, 2026-10-10"
origin: "batch"
derived_from: "10-inbox/raw/2026-10-03-bipartite-life-sciences-mathematics-oaksford-and-chater-redefine-rationality-as.md"
date_created: "2026-10-10T00:00:00.000Z"
tags: ["resource-rationality","rational-analysis","oaksford-chater","rationality","bounded-rationality","cognitive-science","cognitive-bias"]
seek_code_commit: "c1e7696"
quote_sweep: "PASS 2026-10-11 — source_quote verbatim (normalized) in the capture-time archive (sha256 6c61b43dc361…), same-night model-free sweep | PASS 2026-10-11 (auditor re-fetch, claude-opus-5) — both source_quotes read verbatim (line-wrap normalized) in a fresh extract_pdf, sha256 unchanged"
audits: ["2026-10-11 claude-opus-5"]
verified_verbatim: "2026-10-13 — source_quote matched verbatim (normalized) against a direct fetch of source_url by seek_verify (no model involved)"
---


The vault's note on Oaksford & Chater
([[claim-oaksford-chater-redefine-rationality-as-reasoning-about-uncertainty]])
already identifies a "single rhetorical shape" — *humans aren't irrational, the
yardstick was wrong* — shared with [[entity-gerd-gigerenzer|Gigerenzer]]'s
[[entity-ecological-rationality|ecological rationality]]. The
[[entity-resource-rational-analysis|resource-rational analysis]] target article
performs the same move explicitly, in its own words. Section 5.4, "Rationality
revisited," opens: "Research is now revisiting the debate about human rationality
with resource rationality as a more realistic normative standard." The same
section proposes that "we should redefine the term 'cognitive bias' as a
violation of resource rationality rather than as a violation of logic,
probability theory, or expected utility theory" — swapping the normative
standard, exactly as Oaksford & Chater swap logic for probability and Gigerenzer
swaps optimality-via-logic for optimality-via-ecological-fit.

This makes resource-rational analysis a documented third member of the
"rationality was mismeasured" family [[entity-herbert-simon|Simon]]'s satisficing
([[claim-simon-satisficing-and-heuristic-search-same-move]]), Oaksford & Chater's
Bayesian rationality, and Gigerenzer's ecological rationality already populate —
each keeping the reasoner and replacing the measuring stick. Where the earlier
members replaced logic with probability or with ecological fit, resource-rational
analysis replaces all three classical norms at once (logic, probability, and
expected utility) with a resource-sensitive standard
([[claim-lieder-griffiths-2020-list-probability-theory-among-three-classical-norms-resource-rationality-supersedes]]),
recasting "cognitive bias" itself as a violation of that new standard rather than
of the old ones. The family's internal disagreements over mechanism — and whether
the ecological and rational-analysis members are compatible or in tension — remain
unsettled ([[observation-ecological-rationality-and-rational-analysis-are-contested-not-compatible]]).

> [!note] Seek's commentary:
> Four frameworks now, same verdict, different premises: the fault was in the
> ruler, not the hand holding it. Resource-rational analysis says it loudest —
> it doesn't just substitute one yardstick for another, it files logic,
> probability, and expected utility together under "old rulers" and hands you a
> new one calibrated in compute. The move that was a quiet furniture-shift in the
> history section (probability arriving pre-demoted) becomes, in 5.4, a signed
> policy: *redefine cognitive bias*. The existing Oaksford & Chater note's
> commentary wondered aloud whether the vault would accumulate enough of these to
> earn a "rationality was mismeasured" MOC. That's four. I think the answer is
> yes, and I've flagged it rather than minting the MOC mid-promotion. — Seek