Rational choice theory

This article is about a theory of economics. For rational vestigate the origins, nature, or validity of the vast array
choice theory as applied to criminology, see Rational of human motivations of human desire.
choice theory (criminology).
Although models used in rational choice theory are diverse, everyone assumes that individuals choose the best
Rational choice theory, also known as choice theory or action according to personal identicative functions, and
rational action theory, is a framework for understand- constraint facing them. Most idealistic models have ading and often formally modeling social and economic ditional assumptions. The proponents of rational choice
behavior.[1] Rationality, interpreted as wanting more models associated with the Chicago school of economics
rather than less of a good, is widely used as an assump- do not claim that a models assumptions are a full description of the behavior of individuals in microeconomic tion of reality, only that good or bad models can aid reamodels and analysis and appears in almost all eco- soning and provide help in formulating falsiable hypothnomics textbook treatments of human decision-making. esis, whether intuitive or not. In this view, the only way to
It is also central to some of modern political science,[2] judge the success of a hypothesis is empirical tests.[5] To
sociology,[3] and philosophy. It attaches wanting more use an example from Milton Friedman, if a theory that
to instrumental rationality, which involves seeking the says that the behavior of the leaves of a tree is explained
most cost-eective means to achieve a specic goal with- by their rationality passes the empirical test, it is seen as
out reecting on the worthiness of that goal. Gary Becker successful. Personal rationality is not seen as an egotiswas an early proponent of applying rational actor models tical good, but rather a utilitarianistic one under certain
more widely.[4] He won the 1992 Nobel Memorial Prize circumstances.
in Economic Sciences for his studies of discrimination,
crime, and human capital.

Denition and scope

The rationality described by rational choice theory is

dierent from the colloquial and most philosophical use
of the word. Typically, rationality means sane or in
a thoughtful clear-headed manner,. Rational choice theory uses a specic and narrower denition of rationality simply to mean that an individual acts as if balancing
costs against benets to arrive at action that maximizes
personal advantage.[5] In rational choice theory, all decisions, crazy or sane, are postulated as mimicking such a
rational process. Thus rationality is seen as a property
of patterns of choices, rather than of individual choices:
there is nothing irrational in preferring sh to meat the
rst time, but there is something irrational in preferring
sh to meat and preferring meat to sh, regularly.
Early neoclassical economists writing about rational
choice, including William Stanley Jevons, assumed that
agents make consumption choices as to maximize their
happiness. Twentieth century renements of rational
choice theory have eliminated such presumptions. In
essence, the rationality assumed under modern rational
choice theory is considerably narrower than its name
might suggestit mandates just a consistent ranking of
choice alternatives.[6]:501 Contemporary work done under
the rational choice theory paradigm typically does not in-

Daniel Kahneman

However, it may not be possible to empirically test or falsify the rationality assumption, so that the theory leans
heavily toward being a tautology (true by denition) since
there is no eort to explain individual goals. Nonetheless, empirical tests can be conducted on some of the results derived from the models. In recent years the the1

2 ACTIONS, ASSUMPTIONS, AND INDIVIDUAL PREFERENCES

oretical vision of rational choice theory has been subject to more and more doubt by the experimental results of behavioral economics. This criticism has encouraged many social scientists to utilize concepts of
bounded rationality to replace the absolute rationality
of rational choice theory: this points to the diculties
of data-processing and decision-making associated with
many choices in economics, political science, and sociology. More economists these days are learning from other
elds, such as psychology, in order to get a more accurate
view of human decision-making than oered by rational
choice theory. For example, the behavioral economist
and experimental psychologist Daniel Kahneman won the
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2002 for
his work in this eld.

Rational decision making entails choosing a rational action given ones preferences, the actions one could take,
and expectations about the outcomes of those actions.
Actions are often expressed as a set, for example a set
of j exhaustive and exclusive actions:

Because of the relative success of economics at understanding markets, rational choice theory has also become increasingly employed in social sciences other than
economics, such as sociology and political science in recent decades.[7] It has had far-reaching impacts on the
study of political science, especially in elds like the study
of interest groups, elections, behaviour in legislatures,
coalitions, and bureaucracy.[8] Models that rely on rational choice theory often adopt methodological individualism, the assumption that social situations or collective
behaviors are the result of individual actions alone, with
no role for larger institutions.[9] The poor t between this
and a sociological conception of social situations partially
explains the theorys limited use in sociology. Among
other things, sociologys emphasis on the determination
of individual tastes and perspectives by social institutions
often conicts with rational choice theorys methodological assumption that tastes and perspectives are given and
static.

Individuals can also have similar sets of possible outcomes.

Actions, assumptions, and individual preferences

A = {a1 , . . . , ai , . . . , aj }
For example, if a person is to vote for either Roger or
Sara or to abstain, their set of possible voting actions is:

A = {Roger, Sara, abstain}

Rational choice theory makes three assumptions about individuals preferences for actions:
Completeness all actions can be ranked in a complete partial ordering of preference (indierence
between two or more is possible).
Transitivity if action a1 is preferred to a2 , and
action a2 is preferred to a3 , then a1 is preferred to
a3 . In other words, all actions can be compared with
other actions.
Independence of irrelevant alternatives If A is
preferred to B out of the choice set {A,B}, then introducing a third alternative X, thus expanding the
choice set to {A,B,X}, must not make B preferable
to A.
Taken together, these assumptions imply that given a set
of exhaustive and exclusive actions to choose from, an individual can rank the elements of this set in terms of his
preferences, this preference structure is internally consistent, and the set has at least one maximal element.

The basic idea of rational choice theory is that patterns of An individuals preferences can also take forms:
behavior in societies reect the choices made by individuals as they try to maximize their benets and minimize
Strict preference occurs when an individual prefers
their costs. In other words, people make decisions about
a1 to a2 , but not a2 to a1 .
how they should act by comparing the costs and benets
of dierent courses of action. As a result, patterns of
In some models, a weak preference can be held in
behavior will develop within the society that result from
which an individual has a preference for at least aj,
those choices.
similar to the mathematical operator .
The idea of rational choice, where people compare the
Indierence occurs when an individual does not
costs and benets of certain actions, is easy to see in ecoprefer a1 to a2 , or a2 to a1 .
nomic theory. Since people want to get the most useful
products at the lowest price, they will judge the benets
of a certain object (for example, how useful is it or how In more complex models, other assumptions are often inattractive is it) compared to similar objects. Then they corporated, such as the assumption of independence axwill compare prices (or costs). In general, people will iom. Also, with dynamic models that include decisionchoose the object that provides the greatest reward at the making over time, time inconsistency may aect an individuals preferences.
lowest cost.

3
Research that took o in the 1980s sought to develop
models which drop these assumptions and argue that such
behaviour could still be rational, Anand (1993). This u (Sara) > u (Roger) > u (abstain)
work, often conducted by economic theorists and analytical philosophers, suggests ultimately that the assumptions
or axioms above are not completely general and might at 4 Criticism
best be regarded as approximations.

2.1

Other assumptions

At the same time, is often claimed from behavioural or

social disciplines that rational choice theory makes some
descriptively unrealistic assumptions in order to generate
tractable and testable predictions. These can include:

Both the assumptions and the behavioral predictions of

rational choice theory have sparked criticism from various camps. As mentioned above, some economists have
developed models of bounded rationality, which hope
to be more psychologically plausible without completely
abandoning the idea that reason underlies decisionmaking processes. 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. Fernandez-Huerga, 2008).

An individual has full or perfect information about

exactly what will occur due to any choice made.
More complex models rely on probability to describe outcomes.
Martin Hollis and Edward J. Nell's 1975 book oers both
a philosophical critique of neo-classical economics and
An individual has the cognitive ability and time to
an innovation in the eld of economic methodology. Furweigh every choice against every other choice. Studther they outlined an alternative vision to neo-classicism
ies about the limitations of this assumption are inbased on a rationalist theory of knowledge. Within neocluded in theories of bounded rationality.
classicism, the authors addressed consumer behaviour (in
the form of indierence curves and simple versions of
Alternative theories of human action include such com- revealed preference theory) and marginalist producer beponents as Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman's haviour in both product and factor markets. Both are
prospect theory, which reects the empirical nding as based on rational optimizing behaviour. They consider
that, contrary to standard preferences assumed under imperfect as well as perfect markets since neo-classical
neoclassical economics, individuals attach extra value thinking embraces many market varieties and disposes of
to items that they already own compared to similar a whole system for their classication. However, the auitems owned by others. Under standard preferences, the thors believe that the issues arising from basic maximizamount that an individual is willing to pay for an item ing models have extensive implications for econometric
(such as a drinking mug) is assumed to equal the amount methodology (Hollis and Nell, 1975, p. 2). In particular
he or she is willing to be paid in order to part with it. In it is this class of models rational behavior as maximizing
experiments, the latter price is sometimes signicantly behaviour which provide support for specication and
higher than the former (but see Plott and Zeiler 2005,[10] identication. And this, they argue, is where the aw is to
Plott and Zeiler 2007 [11] and Klass and Zeiler, 2013 [12] ). be found. Hollis and Nell (1975) argued that positivism
Tversky and Kahneman [13] do not characterize loss aver- (broadly conceived) has provided neo-classicism with imsion as irrational. Behavioral economics includes a large portant support, which they then show to be unfounded.
number of other amendments to its picture of human be- They base their critique of neo-classicism not only on
havior that go against neoclassical assumptions.
their critique of positivism but also on the alternative they
propose, rationalism.[14] Indeed, they argue that rationality is central to neo-classical economics as rational
choice and that this conception of rationality is misused.
3 Utility maximization
Demands are made of it that it cannot fulll.[15]
Often preferences are described by their utility function In their 1994 work, Pathologies of Rational Choice Theor payo function. This is an ordinal number an individ- ory, Donald P. Green and Ian Shapiro argue that the emual assigns over the available actions, such as:
pirical outputs of rational choice theory have been limited. 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
u (ai ) > u (aj )
outcomes no longer hold. When taken in this perspecThe individuals preferences are then expressed as the re- tive, rational choice theory has provided very little to the
lation between these ordinal assignments. For example, if overall understanding of political interaction - and is an
an individual prefers the candidate Sara over Roger over amount certainly disproportionately weak relative to its
abstaining, their preferences would have the relation:
appearance in the literature. Yet, they concede that cut-

4 CRITICISM

ting edge research, by scholars well-versed in the general scholarship of their elds (such as work on the U.S.
Congress by Keith Krehbiel, Gary Cox, and Mat McCubbins) has generated valuable scientic progress.[16]
Duncan K. Foley (2003, p. 1) has also provided an important criticism of the concept of rationality and its role
in economics. He argued that
Rationality has played a central role in
shaping and establishing the hegemony of contemporary mainstream economics. As the specic claims of robust neoclassicism fade into
the history of economic thought, an orientation toward situating explanations of economic phenomena in relation to rationality
has increasingly become the touchstone by
which mainstream economists identify themselves and recognize each other. This is not so
much a question of adherence to any particular conception of rationality, but of taking rationality of individual behavior as the unquestioned starting point of economic analysis.
Foley (2003, p. 9) went on to argue that
The 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
conicts over scarce resources would rationally
impose on themselves the institutional structures of modern capitalist society, or something approximating them. But this way of
looking at matters systematically neglects the
ways in which modern capitalist society and its
social relations in fact constitute the rational,
calculating individual. The well-known limitations of rational-actor theory, its static quality,
its logical antinomies, its vulnerability to arguments of innite regress, its failure to develop a
progressive concrete research program, can all
be traced to this starting-point.
Schram and Caterino (2006) contains a fundamental
methodological criticism of rational choice theory for
promoting the view that the natural science model is the
only appropriate methodology in social science and that
political science should follow this model, with its emphasis on quantication and mathematization. Schram
and Caterino argue instead for methodological pluralism.
The same argument is made by William E. Connolly, who
in his work Neuropolitics shows that advances in neuroscience further illuminate some of the problematic practices of rational choice theory.

The DNA of neoclassical economics is defective. Neither the induction problem nor the
problems of methodological individualism can
be solved within the framework of neoclassical assumptions. The neoclassical approach
is to call on rational economic man to solve
both. Economic relationships that reect rational choice should be projectible. But that
attributes a deductive power to rational that
it cannot have consistently with positivist (or
even pragmatist) assumptions (which require
deductions to be simply analytic). To make rational calculations projectible, the agents may
be assumed to have idealized abilities, especially foresight; but then the induction problem is out of reach because the agents of the
world do not resemble those of the model. The
agents of the model can be abstract, but they
cannot be endowed with powers actual agents
could not have. This also undermines methodological individualism; if behaviour cannot be
reliably predicted on the basis of the rational
choices of agents, a social order cannot reliably
follow from the choices of agents.
Furthermore, Pierre Bourdieu ercely opposed rational
choice theory as grounded in a misunderstanding of how
social agents operate. Bourdieu argued that social agents
do not continuously calculate according to explicit rational and economic criteria. According to Bourdieu, social
agents operate according to an implicit practical logic
a practical senseand bodily dispositions. Social agents
act according to their feel for the game (the feel being, roughly, habitus, and the game being the eld).[17]
Other social scientists, inspired in part by Bourdieus
thinking have expressed concern about the inappropriate
use of economic metaphors in other contexts, suggesting that this may have political implications. The argument they make is that by treating everything as a kind
of economy they make a particular vision of the way
an economy works seem more natural. Thus, they suggest, rational choice is as much ideological as it is scientic, which does not in and of itself negate its scientic
utility.[18]

An evolutionary psychology perspective is that many of

the seeming contradictions and biases regarding rational
choice can be explained as being rational in the context
of maximizing biological tness in the ancestral environment but not necessarily in the current one. 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. It may
also explain dierences between groups such as males being less risk-averse than females since males have more
variable reproductive success than females. While unsucMore recently Edward J. Nell and Karim Errouaki (2011, cessful risk-seeking may limit reproductive success for
Ch. 1) argued that:
both sexes, males may potentially increase their repro-

5
ductive success much more than females from successful
risk-seeking.[19]

Benets

[4] Gary S. Becker (1976). The Economic Approach to

Human Behavior. Chicago. Description and scroll to
chapter-preview links.
[5] Milton Friedman (1953), Essays in Positive Economics,
pp. 15, 22, 31.
[6] Grne-Yano, Till (2012).

Paradoxes of Rational

Describing the decisions made by individuals as rational

Choice Theory. In Sabine Roeser, Rafaela Hillerbrand,
and utility maximizing may seem to be a tautological exPer Sandin, Martin Peterson. Handbook of Risk Theplanation of their behavior that provides very little new
ory. pp. 499516. doi:10.1007/978-94-007-1433information. While there may be many reasons for a ra5_19. ISBN 978-94-007-1432-8.
tional choice theory approach, two are important for the
social sciences. First, assuming humans make decisions [7] Scott, John. Rational Choice Theory. Retrieved 200807-30.
in a rational rather than a stochastic manner implies that
their behavior can be modeled and thus predictions can
[8] Dunleavy, Patrick (1991). Democracy, Bureaucracy and
be made about future actions. Second, the mathematical
Public Choice: Economic Models in Political Science. Lonformality of rational choice theory allows social scientists
don: Pearson.
to derive results from their models that may have otherwise not been seen, and to submit these theoretical results [9] Elster, Jon (1989). Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences.
Cambridge University Press.
for empirical verication. Despite these benets, there
is nothing about rational choice theory that tells scholars that they should reject other methods of investigating [10] Charles R. Plott and Kathryn Zeiler. 2005. The Willingness to Pay--Willingness to Accept Gap, the Endowquestions about the economy and society, such as the soment Eect, Subject Misconceptions, and Experimenciological determination of individual tastes.
tal Procedures for Eliciting Valuations. American Economic Review 95(3):530.

See also
Ecological rationality
Bounded rationality
Decision theory
Homo economicus
Game theory
Neoclassical economics
Positive political theory
Rational expectations
Social choice theory

Notes

[1] Lawrence E. Blume and David Easley (2008). rationality, The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics , 2nd
Edition. Abstract. by Abstract] & pre-publication copy.
Amartya Sen (2008). rational behaviour, The New
Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition. Abstract.
[2] Susanne Lohmann (2008). rational choice and political
science,The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd
Edition.Abstract.
[3] Peter Hedstrm and Charlotta Stern (2008). rational
choice and sociology, The New Palgrave Dictionary of
Economics, 2nd Edition. Abstract.

[11] Charles R. Plott and Kathryn Zeiler. 2007. Exchange

Asymmetries Incorrectly Interpreted as Evidence of Endowment Eect Theory and Prospect Theory? American
Economic Review 97(4): 1449.
[12] Gregory Klass and Kathryn Zeiler. 2013. Against Endowment Theory: Experimental Economics and Legal
Scholarship. UCLA Law Review 61:2.
[13] Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. 1991. Loss Aversion in Riskless Choice: A Reference-Dependent Model.
Quarterly Journal of Economics 106(4):1039-1061 at
1057-58.
[14] For an in-depth examination of rationality and economic
complexity see Foley (1998). For an account of rationality, methodology and ideology see Foley (1989, 2003).
[15] Somewhat surprisingly and independently, Hollis and Nell
(1975) and Boland (1982) both use a cross sectional approach to the understanding of neo-classical economic
theory and make similar points about the foundations of
neo-classicism. For an account see Nell, E.J. and Errouaki, K (2011)
[16] Donald P. Green and Ian Shapiro (1994). Pathologies of
Rational Choice Theory: A Critique of Applications in Political Science. Yale University Press.
[17] For an account of Bourdieu work see the wikipedia article
on Pierre Bourdieu. See also Pierre Bourdieu (2005) The
Social Structures of the Economy, Polity 2005.
[18] McKinnon, AM. (2013). 'Ideology and the Market
Metaphor in Rational Choice Theory of Religion: A
Rhetorical Critique of Religious Economies'. Critical
Sociology, vol 39, no. 4, pp. 529-543.

[19] Paul H. Rubin and C. Monica Capra. The evolutionary psychology of economics. In Roberts, S. C. (2011).
Roberts, S. Craig, ed. Applied Evolutionary Psychology. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/
9780199586073.001.0001. ISBN 9780199586073.

References
Abella, Alex (2008). Soldiers of Reason: The RAND
Corporation and the Rise of the American Empire.
New York: Harcourt.

EXTERNAL LINKS

Walsh, Vivian (1996). Rationality, Allocation, and

Reproduction, Oxford. Description and scroll to
chapter-preview links.
Martin Hollis and Edward J. Nell (1975) Rational
Economic Man. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Foley, D. K. (1989) Ideology and Methodology. An
unpublished lecture to Berkeley graduate students
in 1989 discussing personal and collective survival
strategies for non-mainstream economists.

Anand, P. (1993)."Foundations of Rational Choice

Under Risk, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Foley, D.K. (1998). Introduction (chapter 1) in

Peter S. Albin, Barriers and Bounds to Rationality:
Essays on Economic Complexity and Dynamics in Interactive Systems. Princeton: Princeton University
Press.

Amadae, S.M.(2003).
Rationalizing Capitalist
Democracy: The Cold War Origins of Rational
Choice Liberalism, Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.

Foley, D. K. (2003) Rationality and Ideology in Economics. lecture in the World Political Economy
course at the Graduate Faculty of New School UM,
New School.

Arrow, Kenneth J. ([1987] 1989). Economic Theory and the Hypothesis of Rationality, in The New
Palgrave: Utility and Probability, pp. 25-39.

Boland, L. (1982) The Foundations of Economic

Method. London: George Allen & Unwin

Allingham, Michael (2002). Choice Theory: A Very

Short Introduction, Oxford, ISBN 978-0192803030.

Bicchieri, Cristina (1993). Rationality and Coordination. Cambridge University Press

Bicchieri, Cristina (2003). Rationality and Game
Theory, in The Handbook of Rationality, The Oxford Reference Library of Philosophy, Oxford University Press.

Edward J. Nell and Errouaki, K. (2011) Rational

Econometric Man. Cheltenham: E. Elgar.
Pierre Bourdieu (2005) The Social Structures of the
Economy, Polity 2005
Calhoun, C. et al. (1992) Pierre Bourdieu: Critical
Perspectives. University of Chicago Press.

Downs, Anthony (1957). An Economic Theory of

Democracy. Harper.

Grenfell, M (2011) Bourdieu, Language and Linguistics London, Continuum.

Coleman, James S. (1990). Foundations of Social

Theory

Grenfell, M. (ed) (2008) Pierre Bourdieu: Key

concepts London, Acumen Press

Dixon, Huw (2001), Surng Economics, Pearson.

Especially chapters 7 and 8
Elster, Jon (1979). Ulysses and the Sirens, Cambridge University Press.
Elster, Jon (1989). Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences, Cambridge University Press.

9 External links
Rational Choice Theory at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Rational Choice Theory - Article by John Scott

Elster, Jon (2007). Explaining Social Behavior more Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences, Cambridge University Press.

The New Nostradamus - on the use by Bruce Bueno

de Mesquita of rational choice theory in political
forecasting

Fernandez-Huerga (2008.) The Economic Behavior of Human Beings: The Institutionalist//PostKeynesian Model Journal of Economic Issues. vol.
42 no. 3, September.

To See The Future, Use The Logic Of Self-Interest

- NPR audio clip

Schram, Sanford F. and Brian Caterino, eds.

(2006). Making Political Science Matter: Debating
Knowledge, Research, and Method. New York and
London: New York University Press.

10
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