CulTURE & RATIONALITY: COMPLEMENTARY, nOT CONTRADICTORY
"Just as humans need culture to make sense of the world, rational choice needs culture in order to make sense of human behavior." (Chai and Wildavsky 1994: 173)
Oftentimes, cultural and rational-choice explanations are perceived as contradictory in the social science literature: While the latter explanations assume all humans to be identical in their material self-interest, capability for rational action and inference from beliefs of the surrounding environment, the former cultural explanations stress the uniqueness of social situations, describing human behavior as determined by cultural factors - such as norms and beliefs - that vary across contexts. We believe that choosing between these two options is neither necessary nor advantageous, instead the strengths of both approaches should be acknowledged and integrated: cultural theories giving substance to preferences and beliefs and explaining cultural change, with rational actor models providing general applicability to a variety of social contexts.
To do this, we combine the coherence model to explain formation and change of preferences and beliefs, grid-group cultural theory to classify the substance of these and game-theoretical models of cooperation, conflict and coalition formation to predict collective outcomes of individual decisions based on these preferences and beliefs (see text and visual below).
The coherence model
The model is built on the assumption that individuals aim at reaching coherence, a state where they don't regret their past actions because they are in accordance with current preferences and beliefs. To reach this state, individuals adjust their preferences for out-comes and beliefs about the world retrospectively: they adopt those ideologies present in their culture and not in contradiction with prior experiences that allow them to justify their past actions and construct them as a consistent development over time. Mathematically specified, this model integrates findings from social psychology and allows to situate agents in a larger cultural environment, that, in combination with their past experiences, shapes
their preference and belief formation.
Grid/group cultural theory
Stemming originally from the work of cultural anthropologist Mary Douglas, this theory provides a typology to map different sets of preferences and beliefs along two cultural dimensions: Group, which captures the identification with a larger social unit, and Grid, describing the preference for adherence to social norms. Both dimensions allow the formulation of behavioral predictions - for example on the degree of altruism towards members of the in- vs. outgroup or on reciprocating of trust - that are tested in our experiments and used as components in our simulation.
Game-theoretical models
To explain how strategic behavior of individuals dependent on one another in their choices results in collective outcomes, we use game-theoretical models. Our experimental group observes how participants behave in game-theoretic situations, eliciting their social preferences, rooted in cultural characteristics, that contrast with the predictions of a solely materially self-interested maximizer. In our simulation, integrating data on altruism based on cultural attributes, we then make predictions using game-theoretical coalition and conflict models that translate the individual preferences and capabilities into collective outcomes, such as ethnic political violence.
Applications in our project:
- Experiments: Determining the impact of various cultural constructs on social preferences and behavior in experimental games.
- Simulation: Combining a coherence-model of preference and belief formation with a model of rational action to predict formation of ethnic boundaries and ethnicity-based collective action.
- Secondary data analysis: Analyzing how cultural variables influence levels of collective political violence.
Background readings
Chai, S.K. (2009). Theories of Culture and Action. In: I. Jarvie & J. Zamora-Bonilla (Eds.). The Sage Handbook of the Philosophy of Social Science. London: Sage
Chai, S. K. (2001). Choosing an Identity: A General Model of Preference and Belief Formation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Chai, S.K. (1997). Rational Choice and Culture: Clashing Perspectives or Complementary Modes of Analysis? In: Richard Ellis and Michael Thompson (Eds.), Culture Matters Boulder: Westview Press
Chai, S. K., & Wildavsky, A. (1994). Culture, Rationality and Violence. In D. J. Coyle, & R. J. Ellis (Eds.), Politics, Policy & Culture (pp. 159—74). Boulder: Westview Press.