Let a ‘heuristic’ be any preference or behavior that is anticipated to facilitate the achievement of some long-term objective, to wit, an objective which comprises of, at the very least, two sequential sub-objectives. The choice of any specific heuristic (an ‘adopted heuristic’) implies, necessarily the existence of some alternate heuristic that is an antithesis (an ‘antithesis heuristic’) of the adopted heuristic. Whereas the conventional wisdom posits that it is efforts for the maintenance of an adopted heuristic that approximate rationality, modeling in discrete time, which is the ideal, and modeling the generic mathematical space that is occupied by any two antithetical preferences or behaviors, this study's formal theory turns the conventional wisdom on it's head. For concreteness, the formal theory explicitly establishes that a socioeconomic agent maintains the capacity for first-best rationality ‘if and only if’ consequent on the choice of an adopted heuristic (e.g. prudence, respectively risk aversion), simultaneously the agent remains willing, whenever necessary to tatonne to an antithesis heuristic (e.g. adventuresomeness, respectively risk seeking preferences). In stated respect, feasibly a restriction of the self to an adopted heuristic induces an agent to deviate from first-best rationality. In presence of study findings, if socioeconomic agents are to maintain first-best rationality, all heuristics - preferences, behaviors etc. - that are adopted for decision making have characterization as ‘default (anchor) heuristics’, not ‘defining (immovable) heuristics’. In essence, all heuristics are to be regarded to be no more than tools which, engaged with, decrease the risk of engagement with irrational actions. It is then rationality that is to be maintained ad infinitum, not any specific behavior or preference.
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