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Over the las t decades, Rational Choice Theory (RCT) has radically influenced social and political sciences, as well as psychology, social psychology, and criminology. The theory is rooted in and closely linked to the key concepts of individuality, rationality, methodological individualism, choice, and exchange. Initially, RCT was applied to economics, management and marketing, where the questions of preferences, economic habits, consumers’ choices, and market behavior are issues of paramount importance.

The basic assumption of RCT is that every social act is fundamentally “rational,” namely, it is based on a more or less well-calculated understanding of means and aims for the making of specific decisions of economic or social nature. This idea is related to modern readings of Adam Smith’s economic theory. By illustrating utilitarian modes of behavior, RCT assumes such individual decision-making to explain larger economic patterns and outcomes.

According to RCT, a system of rational calculations of likely costs and benefits of a given individual action, as well as the evaluation of possible profits or other positive and negative consequences, are the elements that frame behavior. Sociological approaches like Talcott Parsons’s functionalism-influenced by Max Weber’s rationalization theory-underline aspects of rationality, functionality and utility maximization in the examination of social structuring and of social institutions.

The works of Peter Michael Blau and James Coleman are among the most significant in RCT. Blau attempted to examine choices of individuals, assuming them to be made rationally and for reasons of utility, in order to understand social interaction through social exchange. Coleman, who also saw choices and individual action made on a basis of utility, focused on the social background, norms and relationships behind these choices, as well as the meaning that individuals give to their action.

Apart from economics, RCT has been influential in political science-for instance, through the examination of voting behavior and political beliefsand in sociology through the exploring of changing social norms-for instance, in the fields of family, migration, and social mobility. Elsewhere RCT has influenced organizational psychology through the behavioral research of individual decision-making and work attitudes and in the field of criminology, where traditional sociological explanations of crime (addressing society, economy, and context), have been replaced with explanations that suggest offenders act rationally for the maximization of utility and profit after a rational investigation of a given opportunity to commit crime.

In environmental theory and research, RCT has been most influential in the development of environmental economics, where willingness to pay for environmental goods and services is seen as the key vehicle for environmental protection. It also provides the crucial logical underpinnings of the Prisoner’s Dilemma and the Tragedy of the Commons, in which actors rationally pursue their own ends to the expense of the collective good. As such, RCT is fundamental to the emergence of Common Property Theory, an influential approach for the management of fisheries, water, and other resources.

Critics of RCT approaches emphasize that the distinction between rational and nonrational actions and motives is theoretically and empirically problematic and conceals the social pressures imposed on individuals and their actions by society, political power, and social norms. In other words, the concept of rational choice establishes an apolitical category of action that neglects a series of broader mechanisms of power, violence, and coercion that also define social needs and actions.

Other critics have argued that not all human actions can be explained by models of rationality, since several forms of action are structured by emotional criteria, affect, or nonrational factors. One more critical argument is that acting rationally for the maximization of utility implies that individuals are well aware of the rules of the social situation in which they enter and are also informed about the benefits and costs of their actions. Such an assumption is not, however-as critics have underlinedempirically tested. Finally, although RCT attempts to examine the social contexts in which individual choices are made and meaning is produced, still, as critics underline, RCT remains a highly individualistic approach which neglects important aspects of social structuring, stratification, and social control.

Bibliography:

Peter Michael Blau, Exchange and Power in Social Life (John Wiley, 1964);
James Coleman, Foundations of Social Theory (Belknap Press, 1990);
David Garland, The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Disorder in Contemporary Society (Oxford University Press, 2001);
John Scott, “Rational Choice Theory,” in Browning, A. Halcli, and F. Webster, eds., Understanding Contemporary Society: Theories of the Present (SAGE, 2000);
Mary Zey, Rational Choice and Organizational Theory: A Critique (SAGE, 1998).