SOCIAL THEORY rational choice

1. http://bit.ly/soc97 Vaughn Tan SOCIAL THEORYrational choice

2. Today • Overview • Problems and exceptions • Modifications to theory • Types of models • Research directions • Classical theory paper

3. overview

4. What different theorists say rational choice is. in other words, what appears to be consistent about the methodologies, assumptions etc of rational choice theorists? • How different theorists think about the conditions that prevent people from acting rationally (market conditions, lack of information about own preferences, lack of information about options, lack of nformationabout outcomes, etc) • In what ways rational choice is useful for understanding society and in what ways it is not).

5. Outcome-oriented, instrumental • Choice of actions with anticipated outcomes • Decisions about actions made based on optimising outcomes

6. Means Ends

7. problems

8. You’re the fireman in charge at Fukushima Daiichi and the reactor core temperature is rising. It will reach meltdown temperature in 10 minutes. You’ve tried to contact your superiors at HQ but phone service and radio contact have been disrupted. You don’t have enough deionised water to cool the reactor to a safe temperature. Do you spray the reactor with cold seawater?

9. Your second-in-command rushes in and shows you a map indicating that a meltdown of one reactor would trigger meltdowns of the others within 20 minutes—a radioactive cloud would probably descend over all of eastern Japan, including Tokyo. In contrast, flushing the reactor with seawater would contaminate a comparatively small area. You just bought an apartment in Tokyo.

10. You prevent a meltdown, just barely. When you make it out to the base, the plant chief engineer runs up and congratulates you for finding the auxiliary deionised water tank. He’s glad you didn’t use seawater because it would have corroded the holding tanks and led to a much more dangerous radioactive leak and probable meltdown.

11. Difficulties • How much information to collect? • Relationship between actions and outcomes • Objective function • Choice of actions • Costliness • Timeliness of action • Cost of gathering information • Cost of acting • Uncertainty (expected utility) • Individuals and groups

15. Modifications and applications

16. Becker • RC as method of analysis • Applying theories of choosing to • Discrimination • Crime • Education • Family

17. Types of models

18. Friedman • Assumptions: specification vs determination • The importance of “as if” • Theories that explain outcomes but not mechanisms producing those outcomes

19. March and Simon • Certainty: the right choice is clear • Risk: choose based on expected utility • Uncertainty: ? • Rationality in the context of particular frames of reference (the objective function/s) • Routine response vs problem-solving • Theories of satisficing

20. March and Simon “Because of the limits of human intellective capacities in comparison with the complexities of the problems that individuals and organizations face, rational behavior calls for simplified models that capture the main features of a problem without capturing all its complexities” (149).

21. Coleman • Models of means-ends vs model of processes (1312) • Theory of purposive action

22. NEW DIRECTIONS

23. MACRO micro

24. Coleman • Configurations • 1: Independence • 2: Hierarchies • 3: Common interests without compulsion • Economic vs sociological analyses

25. Friedman • Assumptions: specification vs determination • The importance of “as if” • Theories that explain outcomes but not mechanisms producing those outcomes

26. MACRO micro 2 3 1

27. Coleman • Type 1: Micro > micro • Type 2: Macro > micro • Type 3: Micro > macro • Relate “individual actions to systemic functioning” (1332

28. CLASSICAL THEORY ESSAY

29. PLEASE PAY CLOSE ATTENTION

30. 30 percent of final grade • 10-12 pages • Due Saturday, April 9, 5pm Your goals for this assignment are to • deepen the connections among theory and social issues • sharpen the contrasts among the classical theoretical approaches. • place the classical theorists in dialogue with one another, and show how your preferred theorist offers a theoretical vantage point superior to those of the other classical theorists we cover.

31. Requirements • apply the ideas of one classical theorist to an important sociological phenomenon, problem, or issue • contrast your theorist of choice to the other classical theorists we have considered in the course so far • present an argument for why your theorist offers the best understanding. Your argument must be supported with evidence from the writings of the theorists you have chosen.

32. Writing • Thesis • Straw man arguments • Universal statements and limited sets of texts • Citations and evidence

33. Thesis and argument • Argument: A statement that is not necessarily true or false (not opinion, not fact), supported by evidence. • A thesis captures your argument, and tells the reader how you will make that argument. • The thesis should be almost the first thing the reader encounters in your paper.

34. Fact and opinion Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe. The fall of communism is the best thing that ever happened in Europe.

35. Thesis Prevailing scholarship (summarisedin Davis 2005) holds that communism’s collapse in Eastern Europe was largely caused by economic pressures. I argue that cultural factors, primarily exposure to capitalist societies through mass media, were as important than economic pressures in creating the conditions necessary for the collapse of communism. I begin by reviewing the existing scholarship about the collapse of communism to show its strong emphasis on material conditions. I contrast this materialist interpretation with recent research on social movements in communist Eastern Europe showing that these movements produced cultural repertoires that were instrumental in the eventual collapse of communism. I then analyse the history, organizational structure, and rhetorics of the main social movements in communist Eastern Europe to show that they emerged because of exposure to Western media and took structural and rhetorical cues from Western social movements to which they were exposed.

36. Critiques Critiques don’t have to be criticisms. You are trying to explain how a theorist is interpreted. Reading different portions of a theorist’s writings gives you different interpretations of the theorist. You can make a critique out of this. Reading PESC alone, you might imagine that Weber is exclusively concerned, like Marx is, with how capitalistic behaviors (the capitalist spirit) emerged and spread. It’s only by reading PESC together with “Bureaucracy” that it becomes clear that Weber is in fact concerned with a general process of rationalisation in society…

37. Universal statements In Weber’s writings we see that he is a non-determinist… Marx believes that the most important thing is species-being… DON’T GO THERE. YOU DIDN’T READ EVERYTHING.

38. Specify instead Being specific helps you limit your claim and makes your argument more convincing and easier to argue. In PESC, Weber illustrates how society is non-deterministic but ultimately probabilistic…” Reading the Philosophical Manuscripts, Marx appears to believe that the most important thing is species-being…

39. Specificity means evidence Evidence must be appropriate. Evidence must be cited. Appropriate evidence: • Assigned readings • Publications • NOT class discussions or personal opinions.

40. Citations • Purpose • Credit originator of idea • Allows reader to verify your data or interpretation • Shows you’ve done your work • Standards • Make citation easy to understand and unambiguous • Make citation unobtrusive • Be internally consistent

41. Resources • Email your plan, or come to see me before you start working seriously on the paper. • Office hours are posted. Please email me early to make an appointment. • Writing resources: http://bit.ly/wrictr • Writing a good thesis: http://bit.ly/i8Kznm