Rational Lives: Norms and Values in Politics and SocietyUniversity of Chicago Press, 2000 - 292 pages Those who study value conflicts have resisted rational choice approaches in the social sciences, contending that political conflict over cultural values is best explained by group loyalties, symbolic motives, and other "nonrational" factors. However, Chong shows that a single model can explain how people make decisions across both social and economic realms. He argues that our preferences result from a combination of psychological dispositions, which are shaped by social influences and developed over the life span. Chong's book yields insights about the circumstances under which preferences, beliefs, values, norms and group identifications are formed. It offers a provocative explanation of how ingrained social norms and values can change over time despite the forces maintaining the status quo. "Going beyond the tired polemics on both sides, [Chong] constructs a new interpretation of human behavior in which culture and individual rationality both matter. The synthesis is a more comprehensive and powerful explanatory framework than either side could have produced, and Chong's creativity should influence subsequent interpretations of our social life in fundamental ways."—Christopher H. Achen, University of Michigan |
Contents
Interests versus Values | 11 |
A Model of Individual Choice | 45 |
Coordination and Conflict | 76 |
Cultural Mobilization | 116 |
Economics Meets Morality in a Texas Community | 153 |
Mass Adjustment to New Norms | 186 |
Culture and Strategy | 212 |
Notes | 233 |
265 | |
283 | |
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Common terms and phrases
adapt adjustment alternative American appeals Apple Apple Computer arguments attitudes behavior beliefs benefits blacks busing Cambridge chapter Chicago choose collective action compliance conflict conform conservative Coolhunt coordination cultural David Hays debate decision depends develop dispositions domestic partners dynamics economic effect Elliot Aronson environment ethnic ethnocentric evaluation example explain factors favor frames of reference goals group identifications group members group norms homosexuality Ibid ideological immigrants incentives individual choice influence institutions interests issue John Zaller Jon Elster Lee Ross mobility moral motivated neighborhood norms and values old norm one's opinion leaders parties people's preferences prejudice principles psychological public opinion racial racial integration rational choice theory reasons reference groups reinforced resistance response role Round Rock segregation self-interest social change social norms social pressure Social Psychology society southern strategy symbolic politics tend tion tive traits underlying University Press vote Williamson County York