Rational choices: an ecological approach
We address the oft-repeated criticism that the demands which the rational choice approach makes on the knowledge and cognition of a decision-maker (DM) are way beyond the capabilities of typical human intelligence. Our key finding is that it may be possible to arrive at this ideal of rationality by...
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| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article (Journal) |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
25 February 2019
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| In: |
Theory and decision
Year: 2019, Volume: 86, Issue: 3-4, Pages: 401-420 |
| ISSN: | 1573-7187 |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s11238-019-09689-5 |
| Online Access: | Verlag, Volltext: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11238-019-09689-5
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| Author Notes: | Abhinash Borah, Christopher Kops |
| Summary: | We address the oft-repeated criticism that the demands which the rational choice approach makes on the knowledge and cognition of a decision-maker (DM) are way beyond the capabilities of typical human intelligence. Our key finding is that it may be possible to arrive at this ideal of rationality by means of cognitively less demanding, heuristic-based ecological reasoning that draws on information about others’ choices in the DM’s environment. Formally, we propose a choice procedure under which, in any choice problem, the DM, first, uses this information to shortlist a set of alternatives. The DM does this shortlisting by a mental process of categorization, whereby she draws similarities with certain societal members—the ingroup—and distinctions from others—the outgroup—and considers those alternatives that are similar (dissimilar) to ingroup (outgroup) members’ choices. Then, she chooses from this shortlisted set by applying her preferences, which may be incomplete owing to limitations of knowledge. We show that, if a certain homophily condition connecting the DM’s preferences with her ingroup-outgroup categorization holds, then the procedure never leads the DM to making bad choices. If, in addition, a certain shortlisting consistency condition holds vis-a-vis non-comparable alternatives under the DM’s preferences, then the procedure results in rational choices. |
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| Item Description: | Gesehen am 03.09.2019 |
| Physical Description: | Online Resource |
| ISSN: | 1573-7187 |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s11238-019-09689-5 |