Topic
Rationality
About: Rationality is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 20459 publications have been published within this topic receiving 617787 citations.
Papers published on a yearly basis
Papers
More filters
01 Apr 1980
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the psychological principles that govern individual decision making produce predictable reversals of preferences when the same decision problem is framed in different ways, and highlight the dependence of the normative theory of choice on the psychology of hedonic experience.
Abstract: : The psychological principles that govern individual decision making produce predictable reversals of preferences when the same decision problem is framed in different ways. Inconsistencies are illustrated in choices involving monetary outcomes, both hypothetical and real, and in policy questions that pertain to the loss of human lives. Our analysis questions the descriptive adequacy of the standard rational model and highlights the dependence of the normative theory of choice on the psychology of hedonic experience. (Author)
365 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1992
TL;DR: Faigley as discussed by the authors argued that the very conservativism of composition teaching has resisted the challenges of postmodern thought, making it a revealing object of study Composition at first seemed ready to accommodate postmodern ideas, but by the late 1980s, writing teachers were beginning to question many of the traditional presumptions underlying their approach to the task This crisis in theory has come just as the tenacious back-to-basics movement, a heightened emphasis on education for economic productivity, cuts in funding for public education, and the increasing gap between the haves and the have-not
Abstract: An assessment of the study and teaching of writing against the larger theoretical, political and technological upheavals of the past 30 years, "Fragments of Rationality" asks why composition studies has been less affected by postmodern theory than other humanities and social science disciplines For Lester Faigley, the very conservativism of composition teaching - which has resisted the challenges of postmodern thought - makes it a revealing object of study Composition at first seemed ready to accommodate postmodern ideas, but by the late 1980s, writing teachers were beginning to question many of the traditional presumptions underlying their approach to the task This crisis in theory has come just as the tenacious back-to-basics movement, a heightened emphasis on education for economic productivity, cuts in funding for public education, and the increasing gap between the haves and the have-nots in US society have forced teachers to consider the role of literacy instruction in reproducing social inequality Drawing on the insights of Foucault, Lyotard and other postmodern analysts, Faigley addresses the theoretical debate about the "self" the student writer is asked to occupy, the "modernist" goal of producing a rational, coherent student subject, and the writing instructor's unconscious imposition of elite values and expectations in evaluating student work He explores how networked computer technologies in writing classrooms are destabilising texts and subjects, and he asks what this loss of authority will mean for teachers of literacy Faigley concludes by arguing that the electronically mediated culture in which we live has not brought an end to meaning, history, or subjectivity, but it does require thinking through the politics of location In postmodern theory he finds ways of describing how subjects encounter boundaries in negotiating across competing discourses, and how awareness of those boundaries can be introduced into classroom practice
363 citations
TL;DR: A number of reasons why deleting responses from DCEs may be inappropriate after first reviewing the theory underpinning rationality are outlined, highlighting that the importance placed on rationality depends on the approach to consumer theory to which one ascribes.
Abstract: Investigation of the 'rationality' of responses to discrete choice experiments (DCEs) has been a theme of research in health economics. Responses have been deleted from DCEs where they have been deemed by researchers to (a) be 'irrational', defined by such studies as failing tests for non-satiation, or (b) represent lexicographic preferences. This paper outlines a number of reasons why deleting responses from DCEs may be inappropriate after first reviewing the theory underpinning rationality, highlighting that the importance placed on rationality depends on the approach to consumer theory to which one ascribes. The aim of this paper is not to suggest that all preferences elicited via DCEs are rational. Instead, it is to suggest a number of reasons why it may not be the case that all preferences labelled as 'irrational' are indeed so. Hence, deleting responses may result in the removal of valid preferences; induce sample selection bias; and reduce the statistical efficiency and power of the estimated choice models. Further, evidence suggests random utility theory may be able to cope with such preferences. Finally, we discuss a number of implications for the design, implementation and interpretation of DCEs and recommend caution regarding the deletion of preferences from stated preference experiments.
363 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that consumers are engaged in authentic choices in the construction and communication of self and social meanings, and that these consumption choices can be conceptualized as the exercise of existential freedom, even if constrained by inequalities in the economic system and by ideological hegemony.
Abstract: In postmodernity, consumption is a prime site for the negotiation of conflicting themes of freedom and control. Explores the consumption of symbolic meaning through five consumption dialectics: the material versus the symbolic, the social versus the self, desire versus satisfaction, rationality versus irrationality, and creativity versus constraint. Argues that consumers are engaged in authentic choices in the construction and communication of self and social meanings, and that these consumption choices can be conceptualized as the exercise of existential freedom, even if constrained by inequalities in the economic system and by ideological hegemony.
363 citations