Although Simon's work on bounded rationality was influential and can be seen as the origin of behavioral economics, the distinction between maximizing and satisficing gained new life 40 years later in psychology.
Schwartz, Ward, Monterosso, Lyubomirsky, White, and Lehman (2002) defined maximization as an individual difference, arguing that some people were more likely than others to engage in a comprehensive search for the best option.
[3] Thus, instead of conceptualizing satisficing as a universal principle of human cognitive abilities, Schwartz et al. demonstrated that some individuals were more likely than others to display this style of decision-making.
[8] Along similar lines, Hughes and Scholer (2017) proposed that researchers could differentiate between the goals and strategies of maximizers.
However, as disagreement over the definition of maximizing grew, research began to show diverging effects: some negative, some neutral, and some positive.
[4][7][14][15][16] In contrast, alternative search and decision difficulty have shown much stronger associations with the negative outcomes listed above.
However, several studies have shown maximizing to be associated with perfectionism,[12][17] and Nenkov et al. (2008) qualified this relationship as being true primarily for the high standards component.