Abstract not found

In this paper, I first compare Beatrice and Benedick in William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing with Richard and Harrison in Richard Wright’s Black Boy. I use this comparison to introduce the reader to game theory, an important part of rational choice theory, and also to address some common criticisms, for example that rational choice theory assumes selfish and market-oriented individuals. I then look at some trickster folktales from the African-American tradition, such as the well-known Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby tale, and argue that these folktales can be understood as early primers in game-theoretic reasoning, long before game theory took mathematical shape in the 1950s. A particularly sophisticated story is Flossie & the Fox (McKissack 1986), which I analyze in detail. Much discussion about rational choice theory is hampered by overly broad claims of its aims and abilities, claims which are made by people who see rational choice theory as a unified force sweeping academia and are in unabashed favor or opposition. Some of these discussions end up stuck in hoary dichotomies such as thinking versus feeling, “cold ” rationality versus “warm” emotion, and so forth. It is better to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of rational choice theory in very specific applications or contexts, which is why I focus on specific examples as much as possible in this paper. Still, I discuss rational choice in general, in the hope of anticipating misunderstandings, and speculate briefly on how rational choice theory and the humanities might usefully interact.

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This paper discusses several issues concerning an empirical analysis of the endogenous formation of preferences, as well as cognitive and psychological traits. In particular we show by means of examples how, with existing data, it is possible to i) identify empirically the distinct inßuence of family and society at large in the determination of cultural traits, and ii) disentangle genetic heritability from cultural and environmental factors determining cognitive and psychological traits. Keywords: Socialization, cultural transmission, religion, IQ. JEL: I2, Z1, D9

Cooperation, psychological game

According to standard rational choice theory, as commonly used in political science and economics, an agent’s fundamental preferences are exogenously …xed, and any preference change over decision options is due to Bayesian information learning. Although elegant and parsimonious, such a model fails to account for preference change driven by experiences or psychological changes distinct from information learning. We develop a model of non-informational preference change. Alternatives are modelled as points in some multidimensional space, only some of whose dimensions play a role in shaping the agent’s preferences. Any change in these ‘motivationally salient ’ dimensions can change the agent’s preferences. How it does so is described by a new representation theorem. Our model not only captures a wide range of frequently observed phenomena, but also generalizes some standard representations of preferences in political science and economics.

This paper discusses several issues concerning an empirical analysis of the endogenous formation of preferences, as well as cognitive and psychological traits. In particular we show by means of examples how, with existing data, it is possible to i) identify empirically the distinct inßuence of family and society at large in the determination of cultural traits, and ii) disentangle genetic heritability from cultural and environmental factors determining cognitive and psychological traits. Keywords: Socialization, cultural transmission, religion, IQ. JEL: I2, Z1, D9

Voter turnout in post-communist countries has exhibited wildly fluctuating patterns against a backdrop of economic and political volatility. In this article, we consider three explanations for this variation: a ‘‘depressing disenchantment’ ’ hypothesis that predicts voters are less likely to vote in elections when political and economic conditions are worse; a ‘‘motivating disenchantment’ ’ hypothesis that predicts voters are more likely to vote in elections when conditions are worse; and a ‘‘stakes’ ’ based hypothesis that predicts voters are more likely to vote in more important elections. Using an original aggregate-level cross-national time-series data set of 137 presidential and parliamentary elections in 19 post-communist countries, we find much stronger empirical support for the stakes-based approach to explaining variation in voter turnout than we do for either of the disenchantment-based approaches. Our findings offer a theoretically integrated picture of voter participation in the post-communist world, and, more broadly, contribute new insights to the general literature on turnout. In the first decade and a half of after the collapse of communism, observers noted with concern the apparent dramatic decline of voter turnout in post-communist countries. From initial rates of 80% and higher in the first wave of open and competitive

Abstract not found