Rational Choice Theory: Do We Make Decisions Logically?
The Rational Choice Theory (TER) is a proposal that arises in the social sciences applied especially to economics, but which has been transferred to the analysis of human behavior. SRT pays attention to how an individual carries out the action of ‘choosing’. That is, it asks about the cognitive and social patterns through which an individual directs his or her actions.
In this article we will see what the Theory of Rational Choice is, how it emerged and where it has been applied, and finally we present some criticisms that have been made recently.
Rational Choice Theory (TER) is a school of thought that is based on the proposal that individual choices are made according to individual personal preferences.
For this reason, TER is also a model for explaining the way we make decisions (especially in the economic and political context, but it is also applied in others where it is important to know how we decide actions and how this affects a large scale). . “Rational” generally refers to the fact that the choices we make are consistent with our personal preferences derived from them logically.
What is a rational choice according to the RET?
A choice is the action of selecting one among several available alternatives and conducting our behavior according to this selection. Sometimes Choices Are Implicit, other times they are explicit. That is, sometimes we take them automatically, especially if they correspond to basic needs or to maintain our integrity or survival.
For their part, explicit choices are those that we make consciously (rationally) in accordance with what we consider to be the most appropriate option for our interests.
The RET proposal, broadly speaking, is that human beings choose in a fundamentally rational way. That is, based on the ability to think and imagine the possible side effects of the alternatives that we have before a decision and from there select the alternatives that are the most appropriate for our benefit at that moment (under a cost-benefit logic).
The latter would also imply that human beings are sufficiently independent, and have sufficient capacity to generate emotional self-control, so that there are no other variables other than reason itself, when making decisions.
Where does it come from?
Rational Choice Theory is often associated with an economic paradigm (precisely because it helped generate the cost-benefit calculation model). However, it is a theory through which many other elements that shape human behavior and societies can be understood.
In the context of social sciences, Rational Choice Theory represented an important theoretical and methodological transformation. It arises mainly in the American intellectual context during the second half of the 20th century and in reaction to welfare economics models.
In the area of political science, TER criticized a large part of the current paradigms within the American academic context, which was later transferred to the analysis of the disciplines of psychology and sociology. In the latter, TER questions the implications of self-interest, self-experience and intentionality in human action and research. That is to say, is interested in methodological individualism.
In very broad terms it is a “Critique of the excess of mathematical narcissism versus the demands of realism that social science must have.” Thus, Rational Choice Theory has been an attempt to guide social disciplines towards rigorous practices and knowledge.
Do we make decisions “rationally”? Some criticisms of the TER
Some problems they have generated are about the use, sometimes intuitive, of the word “rational.” Vidal de la Rosa (2008) states that for TER, human behaviors are merely instrumental and while the cultural context is what determines the alternatives about which we can decide, then Behaviors would also be predetermined by culture.
Likewise, the polysemy of the word “rationality” makes it difficult for it to be used as support for social theory, since it is difficult to homogenize and this makes it difficult for researchers to establish communication with each other, and then put the knowledge into practice in face of it. to society.
In the same sense, “rationality” can be easily confused with “intentionality”, and TER also does not usually address the difference and relationships between implicit and explicit choices. For a few years now the latter has been investigated in laboratory experiments. Some of this research analyzes the different cognitive and environmental variables that can affect a supposedly rational decision.
Finally, methodological individualism has been criticized, that is, it has been questioned If interest is the reason for the behavior and therefore asks if this interest is valid as a way of doing scientific knowledge.
