Rational choice model

[7] The basic premise of rational choice theory is that the decisions made by individual actors will collectively produce aggregate social behaviour.

The preference between two alternatives can be: Research since the 1980s sought to develop models that weaken these assumptions and argue some cases of this behaviour can be considered rational.

Alternative theories of human action include such components as Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman's prospect theory, which reflects the empirical finding that, contrary to standard preferences assumed under neoclassical economics, individuals attach extra value to items that they already own compared to similar items owned by others.

It provides a compact theory that makes empirical predictions with a relatively sparse model - just a description of the agent's objectives and constraints.

In the field of political science rational choice theory has been used to help predict human decision making and model for the future; therefore it is useful in creating effective public policy, and enables the government to develop solutions quickly and efficiently.

It is from this very simple framework that more complex adjustments can be made to describe the success of politicians as an outcome of their ability or failure to satisfy the utility function of individual voters.

The use of rational choice theory as a framework to predict political behavior has led to a rich literature that describes the trajectory of policy to varying degrees of success.

According to Abell, Rational Choice Theory is "understanding individual actors... as acting, or more likely interacting, in a manner such that they can be deemed to be doing the best they can for themselves, given their objectives, resources, circumstances, as they seem them".

Rational Choice Theory in this instance, heavily emphasizes the individual's interest as a starting point for making social decisions.

[27] Since the theory behind rational choice is that individuals will take the course of action that best serves their personal interests, when considering relationships it is still assumed that they will display such mentality due to deep-rooted, self-interested aspects of human nature.

In a social setting, the focus is often on the current or past reinforcements, with no guarantee of immediate tangible or intangible returns from another individual in the future.

As mentioned above, some economists have developed models of bounded rationality, such as Herbert Simon, which hope to be more psychologically plausible without completely abandoning the idea that reason underlies decision-making processes.

Simon argues factors such as imperfect information, uncertainty and time constraints all affect and limit our rationality, and therefore our decision-making skills.

[30] Other economists have developed more theories of human decision-making that allow for the roles of uncertainty, institutions, and determination of individual tastes by their socioeconomic environment (cf.

However, the authors believe that the issues arising from basic maximizing models have extensive implications for econometric methodology (Hollis and Nell, 1975, p. 2).

Foley (2003, p. 9) went on to argue thatThe concept of rationality, to use Hegelian language, represents the relations of modern capitalist society one-sidedly.

The burden of rational-actor theory is the assertion that ‘naturally’ constituted individuals facing existential conflicts over scarce resources would rationally impose on themselves the institutional structures of modern capitalist society, or something approximating them.

The well-known limitations of rational-actor theory, its static quality, its logical antinomies, its vulnerability to arguments of infinite regress, its failure to develop a progressive concrete research program, can all be traced to this starting-point.

They contend that much of the applicable literature, at least in political science, was done with weak statistical methods and that when corrected many of the empirical outcomes no longer hold.

When taken in this perspective, rational choice theory has provided very little to the overall understanding of political interaction - and is an amount certainly disproportionately weak relative to its appearance in the literature.

Yet, they concede that cutting-edge research, by scholars well-versed in the general scholarship of their fields (such as work on the U.S. Congress by Keith Krehbiel, Gary Cox, and Mat McCubbins) has generated valuable scientific progress.

The same argument is made by William E. Connolly, who in his work Neuropolitics [39]shows that advances in neuroscience further illuminate some of the problematic practices of rational choice theory.

Pierre Bourdieu fiercely opposed rational choice theory as grounded in a misunderstanding of how social agents operate.

[40] Other social scientists, inspired in part by Bourdieu's thinking have expressed concern about the inappropriate use of economic metaphors in other contexts, suggesting that this may have political implications.

Therefore, in line with structural functionalism and social network analysis perspectives, rational choice explanations are considered mainstream in sociology .

[48] The basic assumptions of rational choice theory do not take into account external factors (social, cultural, economic) that interfere with autonomous decision-making.

Representatives of the biopolitical paradigm such as Michel Foucault drew attention to the micro-power structures that shape the soul, body and mind and thus top-down impose certain decisions on individuals.

[49] Humans - according to the assumptions of the biopolitical paradigm - therefore conform to dominant social and cultural systems rather than to their own subjectively defined goals, which they would seek to achieve through rational and optimal decisions.

Thus, when living at subsistence level where a reduction of resources may have meant death it may have been rational to place a greater value on losses than on gains.

Emotions are inextricably intertwined with people's social norms and identities, which are typically outside the scope of standard rational choice models.