Oversimplified

Call it algorithms, behavior patterns, generalizations, or whatever you want. You are just talking about human decision making. I don't think calling it an algorithm provides any extra insight. That said, whatever you call it, this is an interesting topic. The books recommended in other comments would definitely interest you.

Our brains may be governed by a bunch of algorithms, but be careful of overgeneralizing when you apply this analogy to real people and their decision making abilities. Human behavior is a very complex system. Someone may have impaired judgment, but sitting in the sun when there is shade nearby is not as simple as a broken temperature regulation algorithm.

This type of thinking can cause problems when applied wrongly. For example, hand-writing analysis or personality tests to determine employment eligibility are unproven and unfair. Standardized tests for school children are misleading too unless good statistical analysis is done. Your eHarmony example is ok because there is no harm done if the algorithm makes a bad match. The success rate might not be much higher than random, but we only tend to notice the matches.

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