Jon Elster

Explaining Social Behavior (eBook, PDF)

More Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

In this new edition of his critically acclaimed book, Jon Elster examines the nature of social behavior, proposing choice as the central concept of the social sciences. Extensively revised throughout, the book offers an overview of key explanatory mechanisms, drawing on many case studies and experiments to explore the nature of explanation in the social sciences; an analysis of the mental states - beliefs, desires, and emotions - that are precursors to action; a systematic comparison of rational-choice models of behavior with alternative accounts, and a review of mechanisms of social interaction ranging from strategic behavior to collective decision making. A wholly new chapter includes an exploration of classical moralists and Proust in charting mental mechanisms operating 'behind the back' of the agent, and a new conclusion points to the pitfalls and fallacies in current ways of doing social science, proposing guidelines for more modest and more robust procedures.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Cambridge University Press
• Erscheinungstermin: 28. Juli 2015
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781316371565
• Artikelnr.: 43589865

Autorenporträt

Jon Elster is Robert K. Merton Professor of Social Science at Columbia University, New York and Professeur Honoraire at the Collège de France. He is the author or editor of thirty-four books, most recently Agir contre soi: la faiblesse de volonté (2007), Le désintéressement: traité critique de l'homme économique (2009), Alexis de Tocqueville: The First Social Scientist (Cambridge, 2009), L'irrationalité (2010) and Securities against Misrule: Juries, Assemblies, Elections (Cambridge, 2013).

Inhaltsangabe

Preface
Part I. Explanation and Mechanisms: 1. Explanation
2. Mechanisms
3. Interpretation
Part II. The Mind: 4. Motivations
5. Self-interest and altruism
6. Myopia and foresight
7. Beliefs
8. Emotions
9. Transmutations
Part III. Action: 10. Constraints: opportunities and abilities
11. Reinforcement and selection
12. Persons and situations
13. Rational choice
14. Rationality and behavior
15. Responding to irrationality
16. Implications for textual interpretation
Part IV. Interaction: 17. Unintended consequences
18. Strategic interaction
19. Games and behavior
20. Trust
21. Social norms
22. Collective belief formation
23. Collective action
24. Collective decision making
25. Institutions and constitutions
Conclusion: is social science possible?
Index.