Rational choice model
sociological theory
Rational choice modeling refers to the use of decision theory (the theory of rational choice) as a set of guidelines to help understand economic and social behavior. The theory tries to approximate, predict, or mathematically model human behavior by analyzing the behavior of a rational actor facing the same costs and benefits.
Rational choice models are most closely associated with economics, where mathematical analysis of behavior is standard. However, they are widely used throughout the social sciences, and are commonly applied to cognitive science, criminology, political science, and sociology.
Overview
The basic premise of rational choice theory is that the decisions made by individual actors will collectively produce aggregate social behaviour. The theory also assumes that individuals have preferences out of available choices. These preferences are assumed to be complete and transitive. Completeness refers to the individual being able to say which of the options they prefer (i.e. individual prefers A over B, B over A or are indifferent to both). Transitivity is where the individual weakly prefers option A over B and weakly prefers option B over C, leading to the conclusion that the individual weakly prefers A over C. The rational agent will then perform their own cost–benefit analysis using a variety of criteria to perform their self-determined best choice of action.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rational choice model” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.