Inequality, Decisions, and Altruism

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 282-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Dietz ◽  
Cameron T. Whitley
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Adaptive Landscape ◽  
Major Influence ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Heuristics And Biases ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
Class Model ◽  
Redistributive Policies ◽  
Rational Actor

We argue that sociological analyses of inequality could benefit from engaging the literatures on decision-making. In turn, a sociological focus on how contexts and structural constraints influence the outcomes of decisions and the strategies social groups can use in pursuit of their goals could inform our understanding of decision-making. We consider a simple two-class model of income and the need of capitalists and workers to mobilize resources to influence the adaptive landscape that shapes responses to decisions. We then examine the implications of the rational actor model and the heuristics and biases literature for class-based decision-making. We consider the importance of altruism in mobilizing collective action, and we offer some evidence that altruism is most common in the middle ranges of income and that altruism is a major influence on support for redistributive policies. These results, while tentative, suggest the value of having scholars of development and inequality engage with the literatures on decision-making.

Soviet security

1988 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-76
Author(s):  
J. T. G. Jukes
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
Rational Actor ◽  
Policy Fields ◽  
Historical Methods

Most early attempts to assess Soviet behaviour in the defence and foreign policy fields perforce used historical methods, perhaps better known to political scientists under the title of the 'rational actor model', or assumed implicitly or explicitly a 'balance of power' framework, or imposed a 'world domination' totalitarian scenario for Soviet decision-making and setting of national goals.

The Unification of the Behavioral Sciences

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herbert Gintis
Keyword(s):  
Game Theory ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Complexity Theory ◽  
Strategic Interaction ◽  
Journal Articles ◽  
Behavioral Sciences ◽  
Unified Framework ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
Graduate Curriculum ◽  
Rational Actor

The behavioral sciences include economics, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and political science, as well as biology insofar as it deals with animal and human behavior. These disciplines have distinct research foci, but they include four conflicting models of decision making and strategic interaction, as determined by what is taught in the graduate curriculum and what is accepted in journal articles without reviewer objection. The four are the psychological, the sociological, the biological, and the economic. These four models are not only different, but are also incompatible. That is, each makes assertions concerning choice behavior that are denied by the others. This means, of course, that at least three of the four are certainly incorrect. This chapter argues that in fact all four are flawed but can be modified to produce a unified framework for modeling choice and strategic interaction for all of the behavioral sciences. The framework for unification includes five conceptual units: (a) gene-culture coevolution; (b) the sociopsychological theory of norms; (c) game theory, (d) the rational actor model; and (e) complexity theory.

Virtue Ethics and Contractarianism: Towards a Reconciliation

1995 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet McCracken ◽  
Bill Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Business Ethics ◽  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Moral Decision Making ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
Business Decision ◽  
Business People ◽  
Rational Actor ◽  
Aristotelian Ethics ◽  
Apparent Conflict

Abstract:The notion of rationality underlying contemporary business and business ethics, or the “rational actor” model of moral decision-making in business, links a roughly utilitarian notion of the good to a contractarian notion of human agency. The “C-U model” provides inadequate means for explaining how business people do or ought to behave or think about their behavior, because the notion of rationality upon which it relies is far too narrow a picture of business people’s character. An alternative to these assumptions and to the Contractarian-Utilitarian model, is offered in an ethics of virtue. Despite the traditional apparent conflict between these divergent models, the C-U model, if founded in a notion of rationality consistent with Aristotelian ethics, is recognized as a useful instrument in business ethics and business decision-making. Hence, a reconciliation is effected between the C-U model and virtue ethics.

Behavioral Democratic Theory

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamie Terence Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Behavioral Approach ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
Rational Actor ◽  
Human Decision ◽  
Three Stages ◽  
Theoretical Considerations ◽  
Epistemic Competence

This chapter lays out the advantages of a behavioral approach to democratic theory. In particular, it contrasts this approach with three more common ways of treating the decision making of citizens in a democracy. In order to bring out the contrast, it uses the notion of epistemic competence to stand in for the various cognitive skills and abilities that are required for democracy to function properly. It shows that rejecting the rational actor model of human decision making allows us to focus on three important theoretical considerations. The chapter proceeds in three stages. First, it proposes the notion of epistemic competence as a way to simplify discussion of the empirical data relevant to the author's account. Next, it considers and reject three familiar approaches to democratic theory. Finally, it explains the benefits of a behavioral approach to normative theories of democracy.

Alternative Behavioral Law and Economics

2014 ◽  
pp. 166-192
Author(s):  
Gregory Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Law And Economics ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Judgment And Decision Making ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
Rational Actor ◽  
Legal Problems ◽  
Legal Contexts ◽  
Behavioral Law And Economics

This chapter considers the psychological, methodological, and normative paths taken by behavioral law and economics (“BLE”) and alternative paths that BLE might have taken, and might still take. The counterfactual BLE imagined here focuses on performing behavioral analyses of legal problems rather than promoting the heuristics and bias view of judgment and decision-making to compete with law and economics’ rational actor model. This change in focus would give priority to empirical studies in which particular legal institutions and specific legal tasks are simulated or studied in situ rather than to studies of abstract and general judgment and decision-making problems that may provide more theoretical bang but have less clear applied payoff in specific legal contexts.

Conclusion

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamie Terence Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Framing Effects ◽  
Behavioral Approach ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
Empirical Psychology ◽  
Rational Actor ◽  
Theoretical Results

This concluding chapter summarizes key themes and presents some final thoughts. The book has demonstrated that a behavioral approach to democratic theory—one that rejects the rational actor model of decision making in favor of a picture of choice informed by empirical psychology—can yield important theoretical results. In order to do this, it focused on the phenomenon of framing effects and its relevance to normative theories of democracy. The author generated two results that will validate the behavioral approach. The first concerns democratic theories at the minimalist end of the spectrum. The second result applies to theories that place epistemic demands on the judgment of citizens.

Divergent Perspectives in Global Health Governance

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Prah Ruger
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Health Policy ◽  
Global Health ◽  
Global Public Good ◽  
Global Health Governance ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
Health Governance ◽  
Rational Actor ◽  
Global Health Policy ◽  
Self Interest

The global health governance (GHG) literature frames health variously as a matter of security and foreign policy, human rights, or global public good. Divergence among these perspectives has forestalled the development of a consensus vision for global health. Global health policy will differ according to the frame applied. Fundamentally, GHG today operates on a rational actor model, encompassing a continuum from the purely self-interest-maximizing position at one extreme to a more nuanced approach that takes others’ interests into account when making one’s own calculations. Even where humanitarian concerns are clearly and admirably at play, however, the problem of motivations remains. Often narrow self-interest is also at work, and actors obfuscate this behind altruistic motives.

Transgovernmental Interaction in the International Monetary System, 1960–1972

1973 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 431-464 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert W. Russell
Keyword(s):  
International Monetary System ◽  
Policy Formation ◽  
Economic Policies ◽  
Interaction Patterns ◽  
Industrialized Countries ◽  
Actor Model ◽  
Main Hypothesis ◽  
Monetary System ◽  
Rational Actor ◽  
The Impact

The main hypothesis of this article is that transgovernmental interaction among central banks and finance ministries of industrialized countries was as significant in economic policy formation as intergovernmental interaction. Elite interview data indicate, however, that the international consultative process among deputy central bank governors and deputy finance ministers conformed more closely to the intergovernmental image of international politics than had been expected. Both interaction patterns within the deputies’ consultative group and the impact of international consultations upon national economic policies could be explained moderately well in terms of a unified rational actor model. Examination of the transgovernmental interaction does suggest ways to systematically modify and improve interpretations based upon the rational actor model. In addition, the degree of politicization of issues may prove to be a reliable guide when deciding whether the transgovernmental dimension of an issue requires detailed study.

Practice-Based Evidence

2017 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 389-405 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Eppley ◽  
Patrick Shannon
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Education Policy ◽  
Evidence Based Practice ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Reading Education ◽  
Academic Literacies ◽  
Equitable Distribution ◽  
Half Century

We have two goals for this article: to question the efficacy of evidence-based practice as the foundation of reading education policy and to propose practice-based evidence as a viable, more socially just alternative. In order to reach these goals, we describe the limits of reading policies of the last half century and argue for the possibilities of policies aimed at more equitable distribution of academic literacies among all social groups, recognition of subaltern groups’ literacies, and representation of the local in regional and global decision making.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document