Rationality

About: Rationality is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 20459 publications have been published within this topic receiving 617787 citations.

A Behavioral Approach to the Rational Choice Theory of Collective Action: Presidential Address, American Political Science Association, 1997

Abstract: Extensive empirical evidence and theoretical developments in multiple disciplines stimulate a need to expand the range of rational choice models to be used as a foundation for the study of social dilemmas and collective action. After an introduction to the problem of overcoming social dilemmas through collective action, the remainder of this article is divided into six sections. The first briefly reviews the theoretical predictions of currently accepted rational choice theory related to social dilemmas. The second section summarizes the challenges to the sole reliance on a complete model of rationality presented by extensive experimental research. In the third section, I discuss two major empirical findings that begin to show how individuals achieve results that are “better than rational” by building conditions where reciprocity, reputation, and trust can help to overcome the strong temptations of short-run self-interest. The fourth section raises the possibility of developing second-generation models of rationality, the fifth section develops an initial theoretical scenario, and the final section concludes by examining the implications of placing reciprocity, reputation, and trust at the core of an empirically tested, behavioral theory of collective action.

Collective identity and social movements

Abstract: ■ Abstract Sociologists have turned to collective identity to fill gaps in resource mobilization and political process accounts of the emergence, trajectories, and impacts of social movements. Collective identity has been treated as an alternative to structurally given interests in accounting for the claims on behalf of which people mobilize, an alternative to selective incentives in understanding why people participate, an alternative to instrumental rationality in explaining what tactical choices activists make, and an alternative to institutional reforms in assessing movements’ impacts. Collective identity has been treated both too broadly and too narrowly, sometimes applied to too many dynamics, at other times made into a residual category within structuralist, state-centered, and rationalist accounts.

A primer on decision making : how decisions happen

Abstract: Building on lecture notes from his course at Stanford University, James G. March provides an introduction to decision making, a central human activity, fundamental to individual, group, organizational, and societal life. March draws on research from all the disciplines of social and behavioural science to show decision making in its broadest context. By emphasizing how decisions are actually made - as opposed to how they should be made - he enables those involved in the process to understand it both as observers and as participants. In addition, March explains key concepts of vital importance to decision makers, such as limited rationality, history-dependent rules, and ambiguity, and weaves these ideas into a full depiction of decision making.

Reason, truth, and history

Abstract: Hilary Putnam deals in this book with some of the most fundamental persistent problems in philosophy: the nature of truth, knowledge and rationality. His aim is to break down the fixed categories of thought which have always appeared to define and constrain the permissible solutions to these problems.

Bounded rationality, ambiguity, and the engineering of choice

Abstract: conceptions of bounded rationality Recently, behavioral studies of choice have examined the second guess, the way preferences are processed in choice behavior These studies suggest possible modifications in standard assumptions about tastes and their role in choice This paper examines some of those modifications, some possible approaches to working on them, and some complications 1 The engineering of choice and ordinary choice behavior * Recently I gave a lecture on elementary decision theory, an introduction to rational theories of choice After the lecture, a student asked whether it was conceivable that the practical procedures for decisionmaking implicit in theories of choice might make actual human decisions worse rather than better What is the empirical evidence, he asked, that human choice is improved by knowledge of decision theory or by application of the various engineering forms of rational choice? I answered, I think correctly, that the case for the usefulness of decision engineering rested primarily not on the kind of direct empirical confirmation that he sought, but on two other things: on a set of theorems proving the superiority of particular procedures in particular situations if the situations are correctly specified and the procedures correctly applied, and on the willingness of clients to purchase the services of experts with skills in decision sciences The answer may not have been reasonable, but the question clearly was It articulated a classical challenge to the practice of rational choice, the possibility that processes of rationality might combine with properties of human beings to