Rationality and Society

The rescue of Jews in WWII and electoral participation both constitute prominent puzzles for rational choice theories of human behavior and have given rise to lengthy debates about norms and rationality. To explain both phenomena, we apply the Model of Frame Selection. This theory of action provides an integrated account of norms and rationality, where cost-benefit calculus is replaced by unconditional norm conformity if actors hold strongly activated normative convictions. In support of this hypothesis, our empirical analyses show that strong feelings of social responsibility led actors to disregard the risks of helping. Likewise, intense norms of civic duty can make electoral participation independent of the incentive to express political preferences and the expectation to influence the election outcome. At the same time, the real strength of calculated incentives is revealed by identifying the actors who indeed seem to engage in a reflecting—calculating mode of decision-making.

We study the behavioral consequences of interpersonal communication prior to experimental Trust games. We manipulated the richness of the communication medium and the size of the communicating group. Communication richness failed to produce significant differences in first-mover investments, but the size of the communicating group did: The amounts sent were significantly higher in the dyadic communication conditions than in the group communication and no-communication conditions. We also found that first-movers’ expectations of secondmovers’ reciprocation strongly predicted their levels of investment.

The relationship between the Supreme Court and the legislature has been studied from various angles. This paper develops a dynamic model using the Theory of Moves. The model is then applied to a path-dependence analysis of the relations between the Supreme Court and the parliament in Israel between 1970 and 2007. While at the beginning of this period the Supreme Court limited the ability of citizens to appeal in matters concerning decisions of the parliament and the government, by the end of the period it had expanded this ability significantly, thus implementing an informal policy of procedural judicial activism. More specifically, the empirical analysis traces three turning points in the path-dependence analysis, which can also be explained and understood as temporary equilibria in the dynamic interaction ultimately leading to a stable equilibrium.

Our experiment challenges the standard, social preference, interpretation of choices in the double blind dictator game played in the lab without any context. We present treatments formulated to minimize the social preference reasons to give and, despite this, the allocations are identical to our replication of the standard double blind game, implying that altruism might be the wrong interpretation of giving. Instead, we hypothesize that giving might be driven by participants coming to the lab ready ‘to play’. The fact that there are strong correlations between participant responses to an attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder questionnaire and both the rate and level of giving provides direct support for the hypothesis that lab participants impulsively give money away. However, we also show that having players earn their endowments attenuates the bias.

This paper studies the concept of ‘mutual aid’ developed by Kropotkin, which implies cooperation as a strategic choice. We study this concept in a sequential prisoner’s dilemma in a non-cooperative framework and in an indirect evolution framework (with complete and incomplete information). We systematically compare this game with one that models Kant’s moral. In the non-cooperative framework both moral concepts yield different equilibria according to the parameters. In the indirect evolution framework with complete information Kropotkin’s moral concept leads to generalized cooperation, while Kant’s rules lead towards general defection. In the indirect evolution framework with incomplete information both moral approaches favor selfishness. However, if some agents have an imperfect detection technology cooperative behavior will not disappear in Kropotkin’s case, while it will vanish with Kant’s morality.