The contribution of rational choice theory to macrosociological research

@article{Friedman1988TheCO,
  title={The contribution of rational choice theory to macrosociological research},
  author={Debra L. Friedman and Michael Hechter},
  journal={Sociological Theory},
  year={1988},
  volume={6},
  pages={201}
}
Because it consists of an entire family of specific theories derived from the same first principles, rational choice offers one approach to generate explanations that provide for micro-macro links, and to attack a wide variety of empirical problems in macrosociology. The aims of this paper are (I) to provide a bare skeleton of all rational choice arguments; (2) to demonstrate their applicability to a range of macrosociological concerns by reviewing a sample of both new and classic works; and (3… 

The Rational Choice Perspective

This essay attempts a theoretical assessment of the rational choice perspective, a central tenet in economics that has received wide application in recent decades in the other behavioral and social

SOCIOLOGICAL RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY

Although rational choice theory has made considerable advances in other social sciences, its progress in sociology has been limited. Some sociologists' reservations about rational choice arise from a

Rational Choice and the Limits of Theoretical Generality

Claims that rational choice analysis represents a general theory of social processes raise questions not only about rational choice but about the very idea of theoretical generality. Logically, a

The Debate on Historical Sociology: Rational Choice Theory and Its Critics1

In the past two decades, many sociologists have denied the use‐fulness of general theories in favor of more particularistic ap‐proaches to historical explanation, which makes it difficult to specify

Rational action theory for sociology

In the first part of the paper, varieties of RAT are distinguished in terms of three criteria according to whether they have strong rather than weak rationality requirements and claim to provide a general rather than a special theory of action.

Revisiting General Theory in Historical Sociology

This article revisits the debate over general theory in historical sociology with the goal of clarifying the use of this kind of theory in empirical research. General theories are defined as

Do rational choice approaches have problems

By analysing examples, this paper makes three points about rational choice approaches within sociology. First, it is maintained that statistical techniques such as path diagrams and log-linear models

Economic and Sociological Theories of Individual Charitable Giving: Complementary or Contradictory?

This article first sets out the principles of neoclassical microeconomic analysis and examines the advances in our understanding of individual giving to charitable organizations achieved within this

On the Need to Make a Better Job of Justifying Rational Choice Theory

Smelser sees the principle attraction of the rational choice approach as its potential to produce “analytically simple” models that generate clear empirical predictions and its fundamental problem as

Should Values Be Written out of the Social Scientist's Lexicon?

Rational choice theory' is often faulted for treating values, preferences, and other internal states as exogenous to its explanations. Calls for an endogenous theory of values have been gaining
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 72 REFERENCES

The Case for a Multiple-Utility Conception

In recent decades, neoclassical economists have made heroic efforts to accommodate within the confines of the concept of rational utility maximization the fact that individual behavior is

Against Parsimony: Three Easy Ways of Complicating some Categories of Economic Discourse

Economics as a science of human behavior has been grounded in a remarkably parsimonious postulate: that of the self-interested, isolated individual who chooses freely and rationally between

The present state of consumer theory

The central message of the first edition is echoed here in the second edition: the evolution of economics as an empirical science hinges importantly on the employment of realistic generative and

Generalized Expected Utility Analysis and the Nature of Observed Violations of the Independence Axiom

First expressed by Allais in the early fifties, dissatisfaction with the expected utility model of individual risk taking behavior has mushroomed in recent years, as the number of papers in this

Social Choice and Individual Values

Originally published in 1951, Social Choice and Individual Values introduced "Arrow's Impossibility Theorem" and founded the field of social choice theory in economics and political science. This new

Rational choice and the framing of decisions

Alternative descriptions of a decision problem often give rise to different preferences, contrary to the principle of invariance that underlines the rational theory of choice. Violations of this

Social Theory, Social Research, and a Theory of Action

  • J. Coleman
  • Psychology
    American Journal of Sociology
  • 1986
After an extraordinarily promising beginning in 1937 with The Structure of Social Action, Talcott Parsons abandoned his attempt to ground social theory in a theory of purposive action. The

Constructing Social Theories

"Constructing Social Theories" presents to the reader a range of strategies for constructing theories, and in a clear, rigorous, and imaginative manner, illustrates how they can be applied. Arthur L.

Rationality of Self and Others in an Economic System

In this paper, I want to disentangle some of the senses in which the hypothesis of rationality is used in economic theory. In particular, I want to stress that rationality is not a property of the

Theory of Games and Economic Behavior.

This is the classic work upon which modern-day game theory is based. What began more than sixty years ago as a modest proposal that a mathematician and an economist write a short paper together
...