Rational Choice Theory
Rational choice theory forms the basis for understanding and modeling the reasons why people make decisions or perform actions that lead to specific results and for prediction of their decisions and actions under specific circumstances. The roots of rational choice theory lie in political and classical economic theories. Its sociological use is innovative as allows to explain how social interactions influence people’s decisions and shape social order. However, rational choice theory is criticized for several reasons including over-rationalization of human thoughts, modernism, and ignoring of the social determinants. This critic seems well argued, as social behavior does not withstand economic standards. The aim of this paper is to give the core assumptions of rational choice theory and assess the extent to which they are reasonable as part of an explanation for social behavior.
First, it is important to note that rationality is a rather relative term. In economics, rational choice theory refers to maximization benefits and minimization costs. It is assumed that a rational agent has alternatives and determines his preferences on the basis of available information, predictable advantages of the product, and its costs. However, one can say that economic rationality is not the same as the social one, and will be right. The major idea of economic rationality is to get a better product and to save money at the same time. In other words, it is an analysis of a quality-price ratio. The human behavior in relation to other people is much more complicated.
Heath gives out five common fallacies of rational choice theory (Heath, 1976, pp. 75-79). The first fallacy refers to the strong connection between rationality and complete information. Indeed, economists assume that people have meaningful knowledge about the situation and make a choice on the basis of this knowledge. However, this idea refers to the misunderstanding between knowledge and beliefs in their accuracy. The rational choice may turn to be non-rational if it is made according to incorrect information. The second fallacy says that it is necessary to gain information before making a decision. A lot of people keep beliefs and have preferences and interests that can be at variance with the information around them. For instance, vegetarians will refuse to eat meat even if everyone tells them meat is beneficial to health, or Christians will continue to believe in heaven-born origins of humankind even despite the Darwinian theory. Next, rational choice theory suggests that quick means irrational. It is also not exactly true, as humans’ beliefs determine their answers in a great measure. One more fallacy implies to the idea that rational decision is conscious. However, the issue of consciousness does not directly refer to rational choice theory, as the matter is the prediction of the resulting behavior. The last fallacy is that rationality is strongly connected with pursuing self-interests. Again, rational choice theory has no relevance to human’s goals, only to means by which these goals are achieved.
According to Homans, it is possible to predict human behavior, as it is determined by the rewards and punishments (Scott, 2000, 3). For instance, employees perform better when their employers use the system of rewards and fines for their work. This statement refers to the idea of reciprocity that is natural for human society. Reciprocity means “responding” to actions of other people. Positive actions usually cause positive reciprocity, and negative actions, on contrary, mother negative response. Indeed, if one imagines that society always keeps in with the idea of reciprocity, the possibility to predict human behavior becomes more realistic, as reciprocity is a rational action. For example, Fehr and Gacher found that with great probability, reciprocity would not take place if it were costly (Fehr and Gacher, 2000, p. 169). However, reciprocity does not work in every situation. All of us know about the term of altruism that fundamentally differs from reciprocity because refers to the idea of unconditional kindness. Altruism is not a rational action, as it is the product of emotions, not thoughts. It often requires self-sacrifices and implies to the idea that altruist does not get any “responses” for his or her kind actions. What makes people perform altruistic actions? It can be a deal of character, emotions, education, upbringing, or beliefs. What makes people perform altruistic actions from rational choice theory’s point of view? It is really hard to answer this question. Altruism might be a threat of punishment from society or the desire to distinguish yourself from the crowd. In such a case, altruism can be called “altruism” only formally, as it pursues specific goals, becomes a mean to an end, and turns to be reciprocity. However, the real altruism does not fit the framework of the rational choice theory.
Furthermore, it is worth mentioning that human behavior is rational though not always. We can often see how people commit actions based on their emotions and mental state. For instance, when you are very tired or sad, you can go and spend money on something useless just to cheer yourself up. In this case, you do not evaluate your decisions but perform impulsively and unconsciously. It is not a regular action but the one made under the influence of emotions. People are more susceptive to inductive stimulus, can easily change their opinion, and their behavior under unexpected circumstances is often unpredictable even for themselves. Next, one can consider the behavior of the crowd. Rational choice theory is mostly applied to individuals, as crowd psychology significantly differs from the individual one. However, in society, people can act as individuals and crowd in turn. Again, emotions play the key role here. According to Le Bon, people in the crowd loose their sense of self and generate common emotions that unite them and attract new members (Reicher, 2008, p. 6). Emotions leave no space for rationality, and the application of rational choice theory becomes impossible.
Generally, rationality is based on knowledge and mind. According to rational choice theory, people make their decisions on the basis of information and its careful analysis that allows them to get more profit with fewer costs. However, the human behavior does not fit the rational choice theory, as rather often it is defined by emotions, not mind. Humans can be impulsive and perform unconscious or altruistic actions. At the same time, rational choice theory can be applied only to individuals, as the psychology of the crowd significantly differs from the psychology of one, and is mostly based on common strong emotions. Moreover, the misunderstanding between knowledge” and beliefs” that determine human’s actions to a great extent also takes place. The use of rational choice theory for social behavior becomes rather limited and questionable.
References
Fehr, E. & Gachter, S. (2000). Fairness and retaliation: The economics of reciprocity. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 14 (3), pp159-181.
Heath, A. (1976). Rational choice revisited. In: Heath, A., Rational Choice and Social Exchange: A Critique of Exchange Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 75-90.
Reicher, S., 2008. The psychology of crowd dynamics. Available at: http://www.uni-kiel.de/psychologie/ispp/doc_upload/Reicher_crowd%20dynamics.pdf
Scott, J (2000) Rational choice theory. Available at: http://www.soc.iastate.edu/sapp/soc401rationalchoice.pdf
