A framework for understanding heuristic shifts and adaptation

Heuristic research has developed along three major traditions: heuristics-as-biases, fast-and-frugal tools, and simple rules. While each has contributed substantially, they remain theoretically fragmented, offering limited insight into how heuristics change over time, across contexts, or between levels of analysis. This conceptual article addresses that gap by introducing the Heuristic Spectrum—a novel framework that conceptualizes heuristics not as fixed types, but as positionally fluid cognitive logics. Heuristics are mapped across four core dimensions: cognitive effort, intentionality, domain specificity, and goal alignment. Shift from one logic to another is theorized not as a categorical transformation but as a movement along this spectrum, shaped by mechanisms such as feedback and performance monitoring, socialization and knowledge transfer, codification and institutionalization, and contextual pressures and scaling demands. This dynamic, multidimensional framework advances Simon’s vision of bounded rationality as adaptive behavior under constraint. By enabling comparisons, the framework bridges paradigmatic divides and offers practical tools for the design, evaluation, and evolution of heuristics in strategy, AI, and public policy.