If you define “rationality” as having good meta level cognitive processes for carving the future into a narrower set of possibilities in alignment with your goals, then what you’ve described is simply a set of relatively poor heuristics for one specific set of goals, namely, the gaining of social status and approval. One can have that particular set of goals and still be a relatively good rationalist. Of course, where do you draw the line between “pseudo” and “actual” given that we are all utilizing cognitive heuristics to some degree? I see the line being drawn as sort of arbitrary.
If you define “rationality” as having good meta level cognitive processes for carving the future into a narrower set of possibilities in alignment with your goals, then what you’ve described is simply a set of relatively poor heuristics for one specific set of goals, namely, the gaining of social status and approval. One can have that particular set of goals and still be a relatively good rationalist. Of course, where do you draw the line between “pseudo” and “actual” given that we are all utilizing cognitive heuristics to some degree? I see the line being drawn as sort of arbitrary.