Herbert A. Simon

American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist (1916–2001)

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Lived 1916–2001, aged 85United States

United States AcademicsAcademic

Fame37.5
Momentum6.2
United States rank#250
Academics rank#63
Wikipedia18.5K

Wikipedia
63 languages
Cross-language footprint
Rank in United States
#250
Academics
Era
1916–2001
Aged 85

Summary

Updated 2026-05-29

Herbert Simon shaped how we think about human decision-making through bounded rationality and satisficing—the idea that we're rational, just not perfectly so. A Turing Award and Nobel Prize winner who bridged computer science, economics, and psychology.

Biography

About

Herbert Alexander Simon was an American scholar whose work influenced the fields of computer science, economics, and cognitive psychology. His primary research interest was decision-making within organizations and he is best known for the theories of "bounded rationality" and "satisficing". He and Allen Newell received the ACM Turing Award in 1975, and he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1978.

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