Choosing an identity : a general model of preference and belief formation / Sun-Ki Chai.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Chai, Sun-Ki.

Contributor:

Michigan Publishing (University of Michigan), publisher.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Group identity.

Identity (Psychology).

Rational choice theory.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (viii, 344 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, c2001.

System Details:

text file

Summary:

Social science research is fragmented by the widely differing and seemingly contradictory approaches used by the different disciplines of the social sciences to explain human action. Attempts at integrating different social science approaches to explain action have often been frustrated by the difficulty of incorporating cultural assumptions into rational choice theories without robbing them of their generality or making them too vague for predictions. Another problem has been the major disagreements among cultural theorists regarding the ways in which culture affects preferences and beliefs.

Sun-Ki Chai provides a general model of preference and belief formation, addressing the largest unresolved issue in rational choice theories of action. With Choosing an Identity, Chai plays a bridging role between these approaches by augmenting and modifying the main ideas of the rational choice model to make it more compatible with empirical findings in other fields. The resulting model is used to analyze three major unresolved issues in the developing world: the sources of a government's economic ideology, the origins of ethnic group boundaries, and the relationship between modernization and violence.

Contents:

1. The Success and Failure of Rational Choice 1

The Assumptions of the Rational Choice Approach 5

The Strengths of Conventional Rational Choice 9

The Weaknesses of Conventional Rational Choice 13

The Chapter Structure of This Book 20

2. Alternatives to Conventional Rational Choice: A Survey 24

Structural Assumptions and Models 25

Assumptions about Decision Making 31

Preference and Belief Assumptions 59

3. A General Model of Preference and Belief Formation 81

An Identity Coherence Model of Preference and Belief Formation 82

Assumptions of the Model 83

Basic Implications of the Model 98

Preference and Belief Change 100

Rewards and Preference and Belief Change 105

Implications for Dynamic Choice 111

Implications for Collective Choice 116

Plan for the Following Chapters 124

Proofs of Theorems 125

4. Ideology Formation and Policy Choice in Ex-Colonies 129

Theories of Policy Formation 131

The Conventional Model of the State 133

Variations on the Conventional Model of the State 138

An Identity Formation Theory of Oppositional Ideology Formation and Policy 148

A Statistical Analysis of Economic Intervention 164

5. The Origins of Ethnic Identity and Collective Action 174

Rationalist Theories of Ethnic Collective Action 175

A Coherence-Rational Choice Theory of Ethnic Group Formation 190

6. Structural Change, Cultural Change, and Civic Violence 213

Theories of Tradition and Modernity 215

An Coherence Rational Choice Theory of Structural Change, Altruism, and Collective Action 229

Modifying the Assumptions of the Model 242

Justifications for the Coherence Model 246.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 257-320) and index.

Description based on information from the publisher.

ISBN:

0472107011

9780472107018

Publisher Number:

10.3998/mpub.13434

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.