Talk:Rational choice theory/Archive 1

Obsolete?
The article Superseded scientific theories states that this model is obsolete. Based on this article, I'm guessing that is incorrect. --Cowlinator (talk) 02:33, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Elaborations
Could someone who is familiar with this topic elaborate on the following line: Over the last decades it has also become increasingly employed in other social sciences. In what other social sciences has rational choice theory been employed? In what way? -Sometimesthinking 15:05, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I cannot tell you when Rational Choice Theory was first used in other social sciences. The other social sciences referred to could include criminology. Rational Choice Theory has been used to explain why a person would commit a crime, when another would not. The criminal would act based on the utility, or amount to be gained from the act. The person that chooses not to commit the crime does so based on a different set of criteria. To a starving person, the consequences of stealing bread are reasonable, yet a wealthy individual would find this act irrational. It is often mistaken to inerpret the word "rational" as meaning "logical" or "common sense". The sense cannott be seen as common, but specific to the actor.


 * "A pioneering figure in establishing rational choice theory in sociology was George Homans (1961), who set out a basic framework of exchange theory, which he grounded in assumptions drawn from behaviourist psychology. While these psychological assumptions have been rejected by many later writers, Homans's formulation of exchange theory remains the basis of all subsequent discussion. During the 1960s and 1970s, Blau (1964), Coleman (1973), and Cook (1977) extended and enlarged his framework, and they helped to develop more formal, mathematical models of rational action (see also Coleman 1990). Rational choice theorists have become increasingly mathematical in orientation, converging more closely with trends in micro-economics. Indeed, some economists have attempted to colonise areas occupied by other social scientists. This trend towards formal, mathematical models of rational action was apparent in such diverse areas as theories of voting and coalition formation in political science (Downs 1957; Buchanan and Tullock 1962; Riker 1962) and explanations of ethnic minority relations (Hechter 1987) and, in a less rigorously mathematical form, social mobility and class reproduction (Goldthorpe 1996, Breen and Rottman 1995). Economists such as Becker (1976, 1981) set out theories of crime and marriage. A particularly striking trend of recent years has been the work of those Marxists who have seen rational choice theory as the basis of a Marxist theory of class and exploitation (Elster 1983, 1986; Roemer 1988. See also Wright 1985; 1989)." -- Palthrow 20:50, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Could someone explain the relation between Game Theory and Rational Choice Theory -Sometimesthinking 15:18, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Game Theory is essentially a methodology, an approach, a set of techniques. Rational Choice Theory is a statement about how human beings make decisions and behave. Most Game Theoretic models assume Rationality on part of the players (i.e. consistency and desire to maximize payoffs) but strictly speaking this is not necessary. In a way this is asking like what is the relation between Calculus and Rational Choice Theory. More generally speaking if the decision facing an agent is independent of other's choices (i.e. non-strategic) then one would use the tools of straight forward constrained optimzation, if there are strategic considerations, one would use the tools of Game Theory. In either case it is possible to assume that RTC holds or that it doesn't, although by far most models assume that it does.radek 01:36, 6 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Rational Choice Theory is the atmospheric ether of the 21st century social sciences.... It is amazing that it carries an encyclopedic article.... Stevenmitchell 03:02, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Reference Picoeconomics and George Ainslie?
I suggest referencing George Ainslie, picoeconomics, and hyperbolic devaluation curves (as opposed to exponential ones). See Picoeconomics. Joe Wiki (talk) 20:08, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Successor of game theory?
I removed this sentence:
 * "Rational choice theory is a successor of older descriptions of rational behavior such as game theory."

I don't get it. In at least one version, game theory is a special case of rational choice theory (that is, rational choices in strategic situations). I think this sentence is misleading at best and false at worst. --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 20:21, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks--I remember that bugging me, and should have gotten rid of it earlier. C RETOG 8(t/c) 04:26, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Intro etc
The intro section is too long - needs headings or dispersal elsewhere in the article. See Also is too long too. Also the relation between choice theory and the closely-related decision theory should be stated. 93.96.236.8 (talk) 13:03, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Rationality!=infinite want
I'm pretty sure that rationality does not mean that our wants are insatiable. I believe that that is a seperate assumption in the traditional economic paradigm. In fact, if I recall correctly, it is not strictly necessary; it's just that if a good can be maximised at a certain quantity, then you don't really need a model to tell you that. Um the Muse (is too lazy to sign in)174.24.113.183 (talk) 03:39, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

This is true. Rationality just assumes that preferences are complete, transitive, and have independence of irrelevant alternatives (if a waiter says they have chocolate and vanilla ice cream and I prefer chocolate, then if he comes back and says they also have strawberry, I won't suddenly prefer vanilla.) Non-satiation and convexity are added to make the optimization problems have nice solutions. Jonthawk (talk) 05:43, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Suggested sources for lead rewrite
and subsequent pages are probably what the lead should say... a normative theory, at the heart of microeconomics (today) etc. Someone not using his real name (talk) 10:28, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

(GB preview) is probably even better, though not substantively different from the aforementioned source. (It's a good general intro to the topic, despite its title.) Someone not using his real name (talk) 10:54, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Does this topic have a history?
Presumably it is not just an eternal set of concepts, but emerged from a particular set of sources and circumstances, spread, etc. The term began to appear in the 1970s, or possibly as early as the late 50s for "choice theory. Virtually nothing about its context or history here, it is presented as if recent economic debates were eternal. Can somebody who knows about this actually write a bit of a history of this topic? Human fella (talk) 12:56, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Its ultimate source is Aristotle and Aquinas, who broke down human action as a process into stages. But as far as I can tell the entire influence of Aristotle on the theory of human action has been erased from wikipedia. In particular, here there is no mention of aristotle, the page unintended consequences claims the notion was coined by Thomas Merton, the page on Human action cycle claims it was formed by Dan Norman. I cant find the simple subcategories of action I was taught in catholic school decades ago and that were attributed to Aristotle and Aquinas, that are in fact the basis of criminal law rational choice theory (criminology). Those stages were roughly: motivation precedes intention precedes action precedes consequence, precedes evaluation. This doctrine is probably hundreds if not thousands of years old-- how have its roots been lost?Mrdthree (talk) 00:29, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Criticisms should be added
There are several criticisms by those who emphasize on social structure role rather than agency as well as Critical social theory which should be covered in the article.-- Seyyed(t-c) 12:06, 16 October 2015 (UTC)


 * I understand Gary Klein (Sources of Power) to argue against Rational Choice Theory, too, with his Recognition-Primed Decision (RPD) Model: http://sourcesofinsight.com/how-experts-make-decisions/ —j9t (talk) 16:02, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Dr. Khalil's comment on this article
Dr. Khalil has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:

"In the Introduction, I suggest rewriting this sentence (in 3rd paragraph): "A particular version of rationality is instrumental rationality, which involves seeking the most cost-effective means to achieve a specific goal without reflecting on the worthiness of that goal."

Please rewrite as: "In economics, as well as in those disciplines, rationality is understood as "instrumental rationality, " i.e., which involves seeking the most cost-effective means to achieve a specific goal without reflecting on the worthiness of that goal."

Under the section “Definition and Scope”, after the 3rd paragraph which ends with the sentence: “To use an example from Milton Friedman, if a theory that says that the behavior of the leaves of a tree is explained by their rationality passes the empirical test, it is seen as successful.”

I suggest adding the following: To be more precise, the promoters of the Homo economicus view are careful not confuse rationality with self-interest. One’s preferences usually include the utility of friends, neighbors, one’s country, and so on, insofar as one cares about the wellbeing of friends, neighbors, one’s country, and so on. To wit, in his Nobel lecture, Gary Becker [1993] took pride in economic approach to understanding behavior by the fact that, unlike Marxian economics, the objective function (preferences) do not only consist of self-interest. For Becker [1974, 1981], the objective function can include other-regarding interests (altruism, patriotism) and even non-pecuniary tastes such as envy and self-respect.

Becker, Gary S. “A Theory of Social Interactions.” Journal of Political Economy, 1974, 82, pp. 1063-1093.

________. "Altruism in the Family and Selfishness in the Market Place." Economica, February 1981, 48, pp. 1-15.

Becker, Gary S. "Nobel Lecture: The Economic Way of Looking at Behavior." Journal of Political Economy, June 1993, 101:3, pp. 385-409.

After the end, after the last sentence: “Despite the empirical shortcomings of rational choice theory, the flexibility and tractability of rational choice models (and the lack of equally powerful alternatives) lead to them still being widely used,” I suggest adding the following: Given the empirical shortcomings of rational choice theory, as amply shown by behavior economics, proponents of the theory have embarked on a different approach. For these proponents, rational choice theory, to start with, is not a descriptive theory of behavior. As such, the criticisms highlighted by behavioral economics are ultimately misguided, even though highly informative. For these proponents, rational choice theory is rather prescriptive: how should humans behave if rationality matters. For instance, Elias Khalil [2016] studies the phenomenon of self-deception. Self-deception, for Khalil, is clearly irrational: why would agents lie to themselves? The main and obvious reason is that agents want to save face, i.e., they care so much about being rational. For such agents, to be caught by the self that they deviate from rationality is so intolerable that these agents construct laborious fibs and other made-up excuses to deceive themselves. If rationality is not a primary concern in human life, there would be no self-deception.

Likewise, Khalil [2015] argues, if rationality is not a primary concern, we could not make sense of temptations and why humans erect various institutions, such as precommitments, to alleviate the succumbing of temptations. To wit, if rationality is not a central force in human decision making, we could not make much sense of the multi-billion dollar industry of self-help books, not to mention memberships in rigid clubs and communities that help the person to sustain precommitments to stave off temptations.

The prescriptive basis of rational choice theory is not view. The early founders of expected utility theory such as Leonard Savage [1954] already supposed that humans actually do not behave rationally in every instant. For them, the whole project of showing actual deviations from rationality should not undermine the primacy and importance of rational choice theory.

Khalil, Elias L. “Temptations as Impulsivity: How far are Regret and the Allais Paradox from Shoplifting?” Economic Modelling, 2015, 51, pp. 551–559.

Khalil, Elias L. “Self-Deception as a Weightless Mask.” Facta Universitatis, Series: Philosophy, Sociology, Psychology, and History, 2016.

Savage, Leonard J. The Foundations of Statistics, New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1954."

We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.

We believe Dr. Khalil has expertise on the topic of this article, since he has published relevant scholarly research:


 * Reference : Marciano, Alain & Khalil, Elias L., 2012. "Optimization, Path Dependence and the Law: Can Judges Promote Efficiency?," IEL Working Papers 9, Institute of Public Policy and Public Choice - POLIS.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 16:42, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Clean up Suggestions
I've shortened the first paragraph of the lead to make it more concise. I rephrased the second & third sentences and deleted the last one. Astra8 (talk) 04:37, 5 April 2021 (UTC).

I've reduced the size of the lead and moved the more detailed information into an overview section. --Juzblack (talk) 23:28, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

This whole theory presupposes the death of a higher power in the individuals life. Therefore it is invalid as it does not account for irrationality. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.93.20.144 (talk) 10:33, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Could whoever posted the cleanup message suggest how this article can be cleaned up? It seems to me that parts of the article should be rewritten in a more concise way.-Sometimesthinking 14:54, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I didn't post, and don't know the area well, but think it could use a critiques section.131.238.201.12 00:00, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I formalized a lot of the material and added some simple formal math of rational choice theory. I made new sections in the article and tagged some facts as unreferenced. I hope to remove the cleanup tag - does anyone agree?--Vince 07:22, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

This is a difficult subject and the one thing that comes out clearly is that the article has not been written by those who have a good knowledge of the subject. Even though there are references, if one goes to the actual references, they don't support what is being said. example: citation 4 from milton friedman. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nishdemel (talk • contribs) 07:24, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

I have included a new section on its application to also assist in shortening the lead. ThomasW1212 (talk) 00:17, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Introducing sub-headings in the section on "Criticism"
Hello, at present, the section on "Criticism" is quite long and includes many different kinds of critiques (methodological, empirical, philosophical, etc.). To provide readers with a better overview, I would suggest inserting sub-headings that reflect the gist of the respective criticisms. What do you think? Socialsciencenerd (talk) 19:29, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Hi there, I have now had a chance to take a closer look at this section, and I would suggest inserting the following sub-headings to better structure the section on "Criticism":

1) The limits of rationality (bounded rationality);

2) Philosophical critiques (Hollis and Nell’s 1975 book; Nell and Errouaki’s 2011 book chapter)

3) Empirical critiques (Green and Shapiro’s 1994 book)

4) Ideological critiques (Foley’s 2003 book)

5) Methodological critiques (Schram and Caterino’s 2006 book)

6) Sociological critiques (Bourdieu)

7) Critiques on the basis of evolutionary psychology (Rubin and Capra’s 2011 article)

8) The difference between public and private spheres (Gintis’ argument)

If you have any misgivings about this, please get in touch.Socialsciencenerd (talk) 14:52, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Hi there, I have discussed the idea of introducing these subheadings with a colleague. He felt that subheading 4 ("Ideological critiques") may not be appropriate for Foley's work. It could be seen as sounding disrespectful. He suggested to include Foley's book under subheading 2 ("Philosophical critiques") instead. If I don't hear any complaints from you, I will go ahead making these changes. All best, Socialsciencenerd (talk) 18:44, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Hello, I have now made the suggested changes and introduced the following subheadings:

1) The limits of rationality (bounded rationality)

2) Philosophical critiques (Hollis and Nell’s 1975 book; Nell and Errouaki’s 2011 book chapter; Foley’s 2003 book)

3) Empirical critiques (Green and Shapiro’s 1994 book)

4) Methodological critiques (Schram and Caterino’s 2006 book)

5) Sociological critiques (Bourdieu)

6) Critiques on the basis of evolutionary psychology (Rubin and Capra’s 2011 article) 7) The difference between public and private spheres (Gintis’ argument)

All best, Socialsciencenerd (talk) 11:31, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Changing the order of some sub-headings
Hi there! At present, the sub-headings are ordered as follows:

"Its Application" "Overview" "Actions, assumptions, and individual preferences" "Utility maximization" "Criticism" "Benefits"

What do you think about the following alternative ordering:

"Overview" "Actions, assumptions, and individual preferences" "Utility maximization" "Benefits" "Criticisms" "Its Applications" "Rational choice theory in politics" [...] Socialsciencenerd (talk) 19:31, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Hello, a quick update: I have discussed the issue of the sub-headings with a couple of colleagues, who agreed that the suggested new order would be more intuitive.

It's better to first mention the approach's "benefits" and then the "criticisms." And the section on "Applications" (now at the top of the page) fits better with the section on empirical applications in politics and other fields at the bottom of the page. So I will make these changes now. If anyone is unhappy about this, please don't hesitate to respond here. Socialsciencenerd (talk) 11:18, 25 April 2021 (UTC)