People settle for easy, available information even when better decisions are attainable.

Evidence

Just like the drunk who looked for his keys not where he dropped them, but under the lamp-post where the light was better, people often seek inadequate information that is readily available, use misleading measures because they are simple, and employ methods of calculation whose main virtue is ease. … This argument is straightforward and makes minimal demands on one’s ability to find and process information. But it is not satisfactory. Even a person who believed that the Air Force should be larger than 58 groups still should want to know the costs and effectiveness of smaller forces. If a much larger force was beyond reach, one could prefer a force of 48 groups to one that was 10 groups larger if the gap in effectiveness was relatively slight and the cost difference very great. Furthermore, the most important consideration might not be the size of the Air Force, but its composition, training, state of readiness, and supplies. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2552

Categorization

• XREF: This is the classic ‘streetlight effect’ — connects to research on heuristics and biases (Kahneman’s WYSIATI) and to the concept of satisficing from Simon’s bounded rationality. — connects to: Cost-benefit’s guarantee of better outcomes rests on an assumed costless information premise. — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere: Environmental…, 535
• APHORISMS: ‘People often seek inadequate information that is readily available, use misleading measures because they are simple’ — about how ease of use substitutes for adequacy, a genuinely useful warning.