In 1956 Herbert Simon published “Rational Choice and the Structure of the Environment” in Psychological Review. He wrote: “Evidently, organisms adapt well enough to ‘satisfice’; they do not, in general, ‘optimize.'”
The term joins satisfy and suffice. A person who satisfices stops searching when an option meets the need. In 1978 Simon received the Nobel Prize in economics “for his pioneering research into the decision-making process within economic organizations.”