Toward a Cognitive Science of Markets : Economic Agents As Sense-Makers

Behavioral economics characterizes decision-makers using psychologically-informed models. Cognitive science produces psychologically-informed models. Why don't these disciplines talk more? Here, I present several arguments for why cognitive science should inform behavioral economics — it characterizes internal psychological states, builds a richer conception of human nature, pays equal attention to cognition's successes and failures, embraces multidisciplinary insights, and avoids blind spots produced by behavioral economics' intellectual lineage. I illustrate these principles using the cognitive science of sense-making — how humans understand information — including mental tools such as hypothesis-evaluation heuristics, narratives, and intuitive theories. The science of mind can produce new insights to enrich economics