THE PERSONA AS AN IDENTITY HEURISTIC:

SUBJECTIVITY AND ADAPTATION IN REGIMES OF SCARCE ATTENTION

Abstract

This article examines why, in the attention economy, social presence tends to consolidate into stable, rapid, and predictable identity forms. It argues that the Persona can be understood, in contemporary conditions, as an identity heuristic: a functional shortcut that reduces decisional cost and social friction in environments that penalize delay and reward immediate response. The analysis articulates three theoretical axes: the concept of heuristics in cognitive psychology (KAHNEMAN; TVERSKY, 1974), the Persona in analytical psychology (JUNG et al., 2016), and sociological diagnoses of liquid modernity and the performance society (BAUMAN 2008, HAN 2015). The article’s main contribution lies in proposing the Persona-as-heuristic model, which accounts for contemporary malaise without resorting to moral judgment. It is argued that the same adaptation that ensures protection, legibility, and belonging may, when it becomes dominant, displace the authorship of the self and reduce tolerance for ambiguity. The problem addressed is not the use of the Persona itself, but its transformation into a practical condition for social participation, with ethical and existential implications.