Original scientific paper
What after economic imperialism? Sociocultural Strategies of Rational Choice
Aleksandar Štulhofer
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The paper examines the influence of neoclassical economics on sociological approach to individual and collective behavior. The first part discusses the limitations of the Beckerian "hardcore" rationality model (homo economicus) - leading to a dead-end street crowded with blinded economists and misled sociologists as well as the virtues of the Simonesque "softcore" (or "contextual") rationality model, embracing the necessary sociocultural extensions. The second part of the paper paper confronts the "contextual", rational choice model with the "homo socioeconomicus" model of "embedded" rationality. Rejecting the "exogenous" (cynical) treatment of various effects of social interaction, displayed through the notion of refraction of rationality, the latter approach offers a more complex view of human motives partially molded by evolutionary (institutional) imperatives.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
110543
URI
Publication date:
1.12.1994.
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