From Rational Choice to Perspective

Paradigm Shift: From Rational Choice toPerspective

KRISTEN RENWICK MONROE

ABSTRACT. Rational choice theory can be replaced as the leadingparadigm in political science by the theory of perspective, which arguesthat how we see ourselves in relation to others sets and delineates therange of options actors find available, not just morally but empirically.The author begins by discussing the basic assumptions underlying thetheory of rational choice or rational action, discusses the main criticismsof the theory, and argues that these criticisms, when taken in conjunctionwith rational choice theorists’ response to them, provide us with a classicKuhnian example of a paradigm in stress. The author then argues thatthe debate over rational choice has become unnecessarily acrimoniousbecause of the lack of a viable alternative theoretical structure. Politicalpsychology can provide such an alternative in a theory of perspective onself in relation to others, and she suggests several ways in which thistheory will need to be developed as it grows and expands in the mannerdescribed by Kuhn. She concludes that rational choice works well forcertain kinds of political phenomena, but does not work in allcircumstances. The discipline’s attention should now focus on trying tounderstand and to specify the conditions under which rational choicetheory will apply, and on distinguishing them from situations andconditions under which perspective may provide a more valuabletheoretical framework.

Keywords: Paradigms • Perspective theory • Political psychology • Rational choice theory

My central thesis can be stated succinctly: rational choice is a paradigm understress, one whose dominion continues because no satisfactory alternative theoryhas been offered. In this article I present such an alternative, one drawn frompolitical psychology and focusing on identity. I call this a theory of perspective.The theory suggests our perceptions of ourselves in relation to others effectivelydelineates and sets the domain of options we find available. I argue that rationalchoice can effectively be treated as a subset of a theory of perspective.

International Political Science Review (2001), Vol 22, No. 2, 151–172

0192-5121 (2001/02) 22:2, 151–172; 016355 © 2001 International Political Science AssociationSAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)

http:\\www.sagepub.co.uk

The article is organized in three sections. In the first section, I define what Imean by rational choice theory or rational actor theory—I shall use the termsinterchangeably—and summarize the theory’s main assumptions. In the secondsection, I discuss the main criticisms of the theory and argue that these criticisms,when taken in conjunction with rational choice theorists’ response to them,provide us with a classic Kuhnian example of a paradigm in stress. In the finalsection, I argue that the discussion over rational choice has become unnecessarilyacrimonious because of the lack of a viable alternative theoretical structure.Political psychology can provide such an alternative, however, and I present oneexample of an alternative theory, the theory of perspective on self in relation toothers. I conclude by suggesting ways in which this theory will need to bedeveloped as it grows and expands in the manner described by Kuhn.

Origins and Central Assumptions

Intellectual Origins in Economic TheoryRational actor theory originated in the classical microeconomics of Adam Smith.1

In its purest form, it refers to behavior by an individual actor—a person, a firm, ora political entity—designed to further the actor’s perceived self-interest, subject toinformation and opportunity costs. The genius of Smith’s invention—the marketmechanism, regulated by an invisible hand—solved a problem that had troubledphilosophers since Hobbes made his famous argument that there was one basichuman nature and that this nature was self-centered: how can a society of selfishcitizens produce collective welfare without authoritarian government?2 Smith’sanswer provided a venue through which the pursuit of individual welfare couldresult in collective well being.

Smith did not intend to describe political behavior. Indeed, he found clear andimportant reasons why his economic approach would not explain political action.As Smith’s work was revised, however, especially during the marginalist revolutionin economics, the broader philosophical context of his political economic thoughtbecame less salient and economists introduced other, often more technical,meanings into their basic conceptualizations of rational action (Whitehead, 1991).

Twentieth-century DevelopmentsDistinguishing a separate specialty of rational choice within the general field ofrational actor theory is difficult because the term “rational choice theory” is sofrequently used interchangeably with “rational actor theory.” Rational choicetheory might most aptly be applied to Simon’s reformulation of rational actortheory since it refers more properly to a decision-making process rather than toactions themselves. But many analysts working in the field do not make thisdistinction and use the two terms simply as verbal alternatives.

During the middle part of the twentieth century, rational actor theoryblossomed into the sub-disciplines of rational choice, public choice, and socialchoice theory. Public choice theory emphasizes the way in which decisions are made through non-market mechanisms.3 Social choice theory originated in the attempts by welfare economists and mathematicians to develop a formal, axiomatic, and deductive method for analyzing the problems of socialdecision-making. It focuses on the rules by which individual preferences are

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aggregated. Typical problems concern the intransitivity of preferences and theconstruction of formal models of political phenomena, such as voting systems andjustice. Its concern with social welfare gives it a strong normative content.4

As rational actor theory gave birth to the above-mentioned subspecialties, it alsoexpanded its range of topical purview. There was widespread dissatisfaction withbehavioralism’s treatment of the mind as the mysterious “little black box” intowhich inputs disappeared and outputs emerged, and social scientists yearned for atheory that described the psychological process by which decisions were made andinputs processed, (see Almond, 1991; Easton, 1997.) By the 1970s, rational actortheory had developed into one of the dominant paradigms of social science,precisely because it offered insightful, rigorous and parsimonious explanations ofthis process. Analysts used the theory to explicate socio-political phenomena asdiverse as voting (Downs, 1957), coalition formation (Riker and Ordeshook,1973), peasant revolts (Popkin, 1979), group formation and interactions (Olson1965, 1982), law (Posner, 1973), and discrimination and marriage (Becker, 1976).In the last thirty years, rational actor theorists have expanded their originalpolitical concerns from arenas such as voting, where it could easily be argued thatindividual preferences could be aggregated to express the common good, andturned to political puzzles where the economic approach might not appear soimmediately relevant. The role of institutions (Fiorina, 1989; Shepsle, 1979; andWeingast, 1979), and norms and culture (Axelrod, 1984, 1986), were introducedinto rational models and analysts have moved from applications withinpostindustrial democracies to broader forms of comparative analysis (Bates, 1988;Levi and Cook, 1990; North, 1990).

Key AssumptionsThroughout this process, distinctions over the definition of the basic conceptblurred.5 In addition to its original meaning, rational action came to refer to thecrude pursuit of material self-interest,6 to utility maximization,7 to purposivebehavior,8 and to goal-directed behavior.9 Even allowing for this difference inusage, however, it is possible to identify seven key assumptions that tend tounderpin the theory. (1) Actors pursue goals; (2) these goals reflect the actors’perceived self-interest; (3) behavior results from a process that actually involves(or functions as if it entails) conscious choice; (4) the individual is the basic actorin society; (5) actors have preference orderings that are consistent and stable; (6)if given options, actors choose the alternative with the highest expected utility;and (7) actors possess extensive information on both the available alternatives andthe likely consequences of their choices. The traditional rational actor is thus anindividual whose behavior springs from individual self-interest and consciouschoice. He or she is credited with extensive and clear knowledge of theenvironment, a well-organized and stable system of preferences, and compu-tational skills that allow the actor to calculate the best choice (given individualpreferences) of the alternatives available.

Critiques, and a Paradigm under Stress

Bounded RationalityThe first criticisms of this approach focused on the extent to which rational actor

MONROE: From Rational Choice to Perspective 153

theory contains “no discussion about the nature of actors’ particular preferences.It assumes little about the way in which actors make probability estimates ofuncertain events. It assumes that actors choose the alternative with the highestexpected utility, defined as the average of the utilities of all alternatives, eachweighted by the probability that the outcome will ensue if the alternative inquestion is chosen” (Simon, 1984: 296). Because of these concerns, Simondeveloped what he called bounded or procedural rationality, a concept so quickly incorporated by most rational actor theorists that it might also be classified as a different variant of the basic theory.10 Like traditional rationality,bounded rationality posits that behavior results from individual actors consciouslychoosing to pursue their perceived self-interest. Its inception in cognitivepsychology, however, and that subfield’s reaction against behaviorism, results inbounded rationality placing greater emphasis on culture, history, and context, andless on the external situation surrounding an actor. Bounded rationality’semphasis on mental representations or schemata makes rational choice as amethod only as effective as the actors’ decision-making and problem-solvingmeans permit.

To judge whether an act is rational according to bounded rationality, we needto know the chooser’s goals, conceptualization of the situation, and abilities todraw inferences from the available information. Bounded rationality’s emphasison process—not outcome—makes it analogous to the legal concept of proceduraldue process, which asks whether the procedure that led to the result was fair,rather than whether the outcome itself is fair. This emphasis stands in contrast tothe traditional economic concept of rationality, which stresses rational outcomes,that is, outcomes occurring not necessarily from a rational process but as if theyhad resulted from that process (Friedman, 1953).

While it retained the four foundation assumptions (individual action, pursuit ofgoals, conscious choice, and self-interest), bounded rationality differs from thetraditional economic concept of rationality at several critical junctures. (1) Simonassumed actors possess limited computational abilities. For bounded rationalitytheorists, rational behavior is adaptive within the constraints imposed both by theexternal situation and by the capacities of the decision-maker; (2) it assumeduncertain and limited information, and that actors search for alternatives,consequences, and information selectively and incompletely; (3) Simon’s conceptof satisficing suggests decisions are reached once a satisfactory alternative is found;this alternative need not be the optimal one, merely one that satisfies someminimum requirement of the actor; (4) predicting behavior requires extensivesupplemental knowledge of the actor, particularly the actor’s goals and conceptualorientation to the world. This requirement stresses the cognitive component ofdecision-making; (5) process, not outcome, is stressed.11

Simon’s bounded rationality is but the best-known illustration of work utilizingfindings from cognitive and motivational psychology to explain political choicesand decision-making. Such research consistently shows that people do notrespond as specified in the traditional theory of rational choice when they formtheir preferences, process information, or select memories relevant to thedecision-making process underlying political choice. Ironically, political psychol-ogy’s very success in depicting the rich diversity of this human decision-makingprocess has contributed to the lack of any one alternative model emerging as thecounterpoint to the parsimonious model posited by rational choice, whichassumes preferences as given and following a single decision-rule.


General CritiquesAs rational actor theory became the leading paradigm in social science, critiquesinevitably emanated from a wide variety of disciplines.12 Some criticisms were quitetechnical, focusing on explicitly stated postulates about human decision-making.13

Other criticisms were more general, attacking what were seen as implied anderroneous claims about a static human nature, particularly one so exclusivelyself-interested and bound to the individual as its basic explanatory tool.14 Ingeneral, criticisms fall into three clusters, in addition to the technical modifica-tions at the intersection of economics and cognitive psychology, illustrated bybounded rationality and discussed above.15

One, cultural theorists (Almond, 1991; Barber, 1984; Eckstein, 1991;Mansbridge, 1980) argue that the theory ignores limitations on free choiceimposed by culture in the form of tradition, institutions, habit, or societallyimposed norms.16 They further maintain that the difficulties involved in cross-cultural analysis limit the theory’s claim to scientific objectivity and mask aWestern, individualistic bias; two, empirical challenges from experimentalpsychology on the existence of preferences, the process by which preferences arepursued, and the evaluation of information in the basic decision-making processsuggested that none of these is nearly as consistent or efficient as the rational actortheory posits (Kahneman, Slovic, and Tversky, 1982; Nisbett and Ross, 1980); andfinally, three, political scientists pointed out the theory’s failures when applied tocollective political behavior and altruism (Green and Shapiro, 1994; Monroe,1996).

Response by Rational Actor TheoristsRational actor theorists who were themselves increasingly critical of specificswithin the approach but who sought revision within the general paradigm foundthemselves with the dual challenge of defending their general approach whileseeking to modify its specifics. Notable examples here are economists such asAmartya Sen (1973) and Thomas Schelling (1984), and political scientists such asRobert Bates (1988), Jon Elster (1979, 1986b,c), Russell Hardin (1982, 1995), andElinor Ostrom (1998). The excitement of all this intellectual ferment carries therichness of conceptual variety; it also entails some conceptual confusion, asrational actor theory now ranges from highly technical axiomatic formalizations toattempts to integrate Marxist and interpretivist theories of culture into the basicrational model.

Kuhn’s ParadigmThere are interesting parallels between the intellectual history of rational actortheory and Kuhn’s arguments of the progress of science.17 Kuhn contrasts atextbook view of science—scientific advancement from gradual piecemealaccumulation of knowledge—with scientific progress characterized by competingparadigms in thought. Kuhn argues that because one paradigm ultimately fails toadequately account for all of the observed phenomena, we find upheaval in thediscipline concerned and a revolutionary conceptualization of the phenomenonbeing studied.

The history of rational actor theory follows the pattern described by Kuhn to aremarkable degree. We can understand the advent of rational choice theory as a


response to behavioralism’s failure to deal adequately with the human decision-making process, thereby reducing much of the interesting aspects of politicalchoice to the infamous little black box (Easton, 1997). Much of the emotionalintensity surrounding the growth of rational choice theory also can be seen as anormal part of science, rather than something peculiar to rational choice theory.Rational choice theorists were for years cut out of the Academy; they had to beparticularly aggressive, metaphorically banging at the doors to gain entry. Oncethey established a bulkhead, they raised their flag triumphantly. But, again quitenaturally if we adopt the Kuhnian view of scientific advance, rational choicetheorists had not answered all the questions, had not worked out all the parts oftheir theory. Once critics raised objections or pointed out important issues leftundiscussed or unaccounted for, rational choice theorists hurried to deal withthese problems. Their response was not some kind of nefarious backpedaling, ascritics have often seemed to imply, but rather the normal practice of any scientificparadigm attempting to deal with the challenges presented to it once it becomes aleading intellectual power.

What happened, however, as the evidence against the theory continued tomount? Kuhn suggests that theories and their supporting paradigms are notabandoned when contradictory observations are made. Instead, analysts workingwithin the paradigm attempt to redefine the theory, to render precise the specificconditions that account for the anomalous phenomena. Paradigms often survivesuch contradictory evidence and reworking of relevant theories. As evidence thatthe rationality paradigm as an approach to understanding man is at this stage,consider just three important developments in rational actor theory.

One, Simon’s satisficing model was accepted as an important modification inresponse to the evidence that actors do not always seek to maximize theirpreferences; two, the growth of the new institutionalism or rational choice’sexcursions into comparative politics was a recognition that institutions and cultureshape the reality within which political choices are made. Bringing in institutionalfactors as “rules of the game” that set the stage for strategic actors to pursue theirdesired ends allowed rational actor theorists to apply the paradigm in diversecontexts. But it also highlighted the fact that the rational choice paradigm, to theextent that it leaves preferences determined exogenously to the model, cannotanalyze the ways in which institutional change shapes actors’ preferences andidentities themselves;18 and finally, three, rational actor theory’s intellectual shiftstoward goal-directed behavior and away from self-interest as the heart of thetheory should be seen not as an intellectual sleight of hand but rather as anattempt to respond to the overwhelming evidence that collective and altruisticbehavior flourishes (Margolis 1982, 1991). As I have argued elsewhere (Monroe,1991, 1996), however, this move may have weakened the theory irreparably insofaras it reduces the heart of the theory to a tautology (Myers, 1983).

All this is classic Kuhn, who argues that advances in scientific understandingoccur when the anomalies become so overwhelming that it becomes obvious thatthe paradigm is deficient in certain areas. Repeatedly in the history of science agroup of researchers will zero in on the anomalies and make these their center ofstudy. This is precisely what has occurred in the three illustrations mentionedabove. Such behavior, taken as a whole, characterizes a paradigm in stress.

Given the emotional intensity that has too often permeated the debate overrational actor theory, I want to be very clear on one point. I am not arguing thatthe rationality paradigm should be discarded entirely. But we should now


recognize the theory’s limitations and focus our efforts on seeking to define thoseconditions under which the rationality paradigm will work and to distinguish themfrom conditions in which rational actor theory will have more limited value. Just asEinstein’s theory of relativity is inclusive of Newtonian physics, we should expectany alternative paradigm for the study of human beings to include thespecification of a set of circumstances under which behavior is primarily utility-maximizing in the sense described by the rational actor theory.19

Perspective: A Viable Alternative Paradigm?

Perspective and Political Psychology Offer Alternative ParadigmsWhat is political psychology and why should we look to it for a new paradigm?Political psychology studies the “patterns of political thinking, feeling, andidentity, the interaction of these patterns, and their impact on political choice andother forms of political behavior. All political psychologists…share the assumptionthat human cognition and emotion mediate the impact of the environment onpolitical action” (Stein, forthcoming: 2). It is the obvious discipline to provide analternative paradigm since rational choice theory was designed initially to describethe human psyche.20 We find glimpses of what I call the theory of perspective inmany works of political psychology—including my own—even though it has neverbefore been offered as an alternative paradigm. Let me try to capture the essenceof perspective as succinctly as rational theory has been stated. In doing so, I focuson explaining political behavior, although I believe the theory also can be usefullyapplied to other domains of action within social science.

Essentially, the theory I propose argues that our perceptions of ourselves inrelation to others sets and delineates the range of options we find available, notjust morally but empirically. This effectively makes choice a function of identityand, more particularly, our self-perceptions. This theory of perspective reducesrational choice theory to a sub-theory, best utilized for certain kind of choice-theoretic situations, specific kind of conceptualizations of the self, and certainresearch methodologies.21

Both psychology and economics were conceived in the rich intellectual fermentat the seventeenth-century dawn of the Age of Science, as scholars like Hobbes,Locke and Smith began their attempts to construct a science of politics andpolitical economy and to study, in a more scientific manner, how the human mindworks and affects behavior. Rational choice theory itself was born in the fertileperiod of social scientific advances of the post-World War II period, whenanalogous strides in social science occurred.

In contrast, perspective draws heavily on twentieth-century advances inpsychological research that provides us with more scientifically verifiableinformation about the human psyche, information that in turn provides moreempirically-grounded answers to questions about the psyche that have occupiedphilosophers since Plato. Psychoanalytic theories alerted us to the importance ofthe unconscious and pre-conscious forces that drive behavior (Freud, 1938).Developmental psychology has taught us more about the acquisition of politicalbeliefs and the importance of both genetics and early childhood experiences inshaping our sense of who we are and how we see the world (Winnicott, 1986).Cognitive psychology focuses on our mental processes, including how we first


interpret the myriad bits of information that bombard us and then weave thesestrands together into a narrative that allows us to make sense of reality (Fiske andTaylor, 1991). It points us in the direction of how we form beliefs and attitudes andhow these perceptions and interpretations about people and events feed back intoour interpretation of others’ actions (Aronson, 1998; Stein, forthcoming). Thisinterpretation in turn affects our acts. Work on cognitive maps suggests thatrepresentations of objects, acts, events, or other actors relate to each other,forming an organizing framework of causes and effects, with positive and negativeimplications for decision-making, much as a road map gives us an organizingframework for our geographic movements (Axelrod, 1976). Social psychologygreatly increased our understanding of how the social environment, especially thebehavior of others, influences our behavior, often through perceptions (Taylor,Sears, and Peplau, 1997). Recent work on social perceptions and social cognitionunderlines the importance of social influences on our behavior (Fiske and Taylor,1991). The importance of constructs and construals of reality, as cognitiverepresentations and processes basic to all our human responses, cannot beignored as we seek to understand political actions. Learning theory has increasedour understanding of how our present behavior is influenced by prior learning.This cognitive process works through classic forms of political socialization as wellas through the kind of Bayesian processes that economists posit.

Work in all of the above fields has helped political psychology understand theimportance of perception for the complex interrelationships among politicalchoice, political action, and thinking and feeling about politics. The importanceof perceptions also is evident through a phenomenon that may not beimmediately obvious: political science’s recent flirtation with postmodernism.22

While postmodernism may be a natural response to the knowledge that reality isperceived differentially, it also carries serious negatives, and does not, in the longrun, offer a fruitful solution for social scientists concerned with this legitimateproblem of differential interpretation of a shared reality. Political psychologyoffers a more productive response, one grounded in a commitment to scientificprocess (Suedfeld, forthcoming).

Consider one illustration of how political psychology can reveal the extent towhich there are systematic processes by which reality is perceived differentially.Social representations theory (Moscovici, 1988) suggests that a person’s uniqueexperiences lead to a set of individual representations of the world and that theserepresentations, in turn, influence the perception, interpretation and evaluationof incoming information. This theory suggests behavior is highly dependent onthe perception of the situation and is influenced by affect and motivation (Bar-Tal,forthcoming; Jervis, 1976; George, 1969). But it allows for this behavior in a waythat analysts can hope to eventually discern and understand. It can provide cluesabout how cultural factors, for example, may shape social representations inconsistent and predictable ways for certain groups of people, or perhaps tell us ifthere are certain ways in which all people perceive reality.23 It is this kind ofconsideration that I have tried to incorporate into my initial formulation of thetheory of perspective, and on which I hope others will build as the theory is testedand refined.

Let me now suggest ways in which perspective incorporates rational choicetheory into a broader framework. This claim can be made best by contrasting thetwo theories in terms of differences in assumptions and methodologies. Twocaveats are in order here: the first, although I conclude that rational actor theory


can be treated as a limiting case of perspective because perspective allows for amore fully variegated sense of self, both theories have certain weaknesses thatmust be recognized by the analyst. What is critical for future analysts, I suspect, willbe delineating the domain of action for which each theory is best suited and I will,throughout my discussion, suggest questions I believe will facilitate thisdelineation. Second, since I am effectively arguing that we need to move beyondself-interest in constructing our most basic theories, I concentrate much of mydiscussion on the different views of the self offered by perspective and rationalchoice theory. I nonetheless believe the other ways in which perspective differsfrom rational choice theory may be just as important, even though they are butmentioned briefly here.

Contrasts with Rational Actor TheoryConceptualization of the Self. Self-interest clearly explains much of human behavior.We should not discard this construct as part of our theory of perspective. But weneed to recognize that rational theory’s limits are exceeded when it is applied tosituations in which individual self-interest is not the dominant force behindbehavior and that many significant political acts, in particular, fall into thisdomain. While self-interest can remain a basic part of our political theories, itshould be balanced by human needs for sociability, defined as a feeling ofbelonging to a group or collectivity.24

To understand when and why we pursue self-interested behavior and when weexhibit more public-spirited behavior—surely a question of some concern topolitical scientists—we must understand the complex linkages between the actor’sattempts to further his or her self-interest and an actor’s perception of himself orherself in relation to others. Why is individual self-interest sometimes pursued andgroup interest pursued at other times? The answer may depend on which of theactor’s identities is made most salient by external conditions. One way to solve thisproblem is through an emphasis on framing and social contexts. Such anaccentuation responds positively to both the cultural and the cognitive critiques ofrational actor theory.

Another more basic response, however, is simply to focus on the self as thecentral pillar of a theory of political behavior. For this reason, I pass over otherpsychological theories that might profitably be applied to politics and focus onidentity theory, particularly the literature on the self in relation to others. I do sobecause I believe the assumption of self-interest is the heart of economic man(Myers, 1983; Hirschman, 1977). Attempts to shift the emphasis of the theory togoal-directed behavior reduce the theory to a tautology in which behavioremanates from preferences that are, in turn, revealed through behavior.25

The theory of perspective is based on the complexity of the personality and the external factors that draw one particular part of this complex identity intopolitical salience. Perspective assumes that the self is highly complex andvariegated, far more so than the simple actor assumed in rational choice theory.Perspective assumes that actors have multiple identities, whose importance variesin response to cultural and situational contexts.26 The key to understandingpolitical behavior would then lie in delineating the actor’s constant shift betweenthese identities and the manner in which the actor’s perception of his or her identity in relation to others defines the domain of relevant options. Todetermine when an actor pursues strategies to further individual self-interest


and when an agent will act to further interests as a member of a group, we mustunderstand how the perception of a critical identity will affect action. Traditionalpolitical economists concerned with collective action have argued that individualsjoin groups because the group mediates resources for that individual or providesside benefits (Olson, 1965). But other forces also determine group memberships(e.g., parental-offspring bonds or socialization). The logic of social and political(as well as economic) competition is often mediated by a group; and the group towhich you give allegiance at a particular moment may be determined by theproblems you confront at the time and the way you view yourself in relation toothers in the group.

The marital relationship offers an instructive example. Husband and wife are acouple, a single unit to deal with mutual problems. But during a fight, eachconceives of him or herself as an individual with conflicting interests. Politicalnegotiation may resolve many marital arguments, but just as many may be resolvedby each actor simply deciding whether to remain a part of the marital group.While an economic calculus may explain part of this group behavior,understanding why the group forms and exists is certainly more complex. Tounderstand group formation, we must focus on how groups mediate interests andthen act to replicate successful strategies. In this process, the perception of one’scentral identity, and the way actors shift between their individual and their groupidentities, are crucial.27

Parsing out the relevant part of the process by which actors shift fromindividual to group identity necessarily involves our understanding the cognitiveframeworks of different actors. This process allows for both internal stability andfor changing conditions. It again allows for cultural variations, especially in thatmost critical variable: the actor’s view of the relationship between the individualand society.28 A viable successor to rational actor theory should allow for thecomplex ties among individuals, groups, and society in general.29 There is no onemagical methodological solution to this problem, but the focus on identityperception seems the right route to pursue, not the least because it will reduce theindividualistic bias of rational actor theory, and will allow us to focus on thepolity’s role in shaping both public and private identities.

We thus need to allow for a conceptualization of the self that allows not only forthe times when the actor will respond as a self-interested individual but also forthose times when the actor conceives of himself or herself as part of a collective oreven as an altruist. Doing so will focus us on the individual, rather than onpreferences, and will encourage analysts to seek to understand how externalstimuli shift our perceptions of ourselves in relation to others. For example, incertain situations Bert may see himself as in conflict with Ernie, and thuspresumably will act as the simple self-interested actor. At other times, Bert may seethat he and Ernie have collective interests. At others, Bert may even actaltruistically toward Ernie. Why? What external conditions alter Bert’s basic view ofhimself in relation to Ernie? And how does that view in turn influence Bert’sbehavior toward Ernie? Such a conceptualization allows us to draw on the richnessof personality psychology, which might in this example help us understand whyBert has an average position along a continuum running from self-interested toaltruistic behavior. But this conceptualization also allows us to benefit from workin social psychology, which suggests how environmental factors help shift Bertalong different points on this continuum, as one aspect of Bert’s identity isselected as more salient than others.30


The Importance of Others. Perspective posits the self as a central conceptual pillar butnot as the only pillar supporting the theory. Perspective does not assume the loneactor of social contract theory, an actor that dominates rational choice theorybecause of its origin in classical economics.31 Perspective conceptualizes theindividual as the basic actor, but conceptualizes this actor as an individual existingin a social world populated by others whose behavior has direct and profoundconsequences on the actor’s behavior, including the actor’s sense of self. Thisbroader conceptualization allows us to introduce both psychoanalytical andsociological influences, including culture. It draws on social psychological workthat seeks to emphasize the affective aspect of the cognitive processes ofindividuals.

It also suggests the important interactive effect of human behavior. Scholarscritical of rational actor theory32 have noted this omission, and rational actortheorists have responded by trying—mostly unsuccessfully—to incorporate theseinteractive effects into the basic theory.33 Such effects clearly exist, and need to beallowed for in a myriad of ways. Jervis has demonstrated one response to this needin his work on signaling at the international level. He argues persuasively thatactors need to pay attention to the cognitive predispositions of the people towhom they are sending signals. If the United States wants to know whether one ofits acts will be interpreted as hostile by Russia, it needs to know how it is viewed byRussia. Does Russia have an image of the United States as a country that meanswell? Or does Russia view the US as a hostile actor? Jervis argues that “whether apromise or a threat will be viewed as credible, it is crucial to understand theperceiver’s theories and beliefs about the actor. This shows the psychologicalnaiveté of economics-based signaling theories which, although acknowledging theimportance of pre-existing beliefs, argue that new information is combined withold as specified by Bayesian updating of prior beliefs on the basis of newinformation” (Jervis, forthcoming: 28–29). Jervis points out that we all do this. Weperceive events in light of how we perceive the sender of the signal. “Even whatmight seem to be the clearest signals will make no impression if the perceiver’smind is made up or his focus is elsewhere” (ibid.: 30).

This phenomenon occurs at the most intimate level of personal relationships—such as the trust we place in others because of their past behavior—as well as inpolitics at both the domestic and the international level.34 We need to ask moreabout how the behavior of others affects us. Such interactive effects are criticalparts of our own perceptions of our self in relation to others. They affect both howwe interpret others’ behavior, and how we construct our own responses towardothers.

There is yet a further important aspect of the intermingled relationship of selfto others. How do our acts, designed to influence others, affect us in turn, even ifthese acts originally are designed only to deceive or manipulate others, and thuscan be said to be “false” to our sense of who we truly are? Our attempts toinfluence the behavior of others may end by changing us, as Kurt Vonnegutsuggests in Mother Night, or as is depicted in the movie Johnny Brassco. In both these fictional instances, the main character pretends to be something he is not. Vonnegut’s Howard W. Campbell, Jr. is an American spy, posing as a radio propagandist for the Nazis while secretly sending coded messages to theAllies. Johnny Brassco is an FBI agent working undercover with mobsters. In both instances, however, the character ends by becoming what he has pretendedto be. Campbell becomes the Nazi’s most valued propagandist and Brassco ends


by committing the horrendous deeds of the mobsters he has been sent toinfiltrate.

A concept of the self should be the cornerstone of our theory of perspective.But it is important to emphasize the self in relation to others, for all the reasonsmentioned above; this is immediately evident when we consider one of the mostfamous set of experiments in psychology, the Milgram (1974) experiments onauthority. Inspired by the belief that Nazism could be explained through Germanauthoritarianism, the experiments ended by revealing the alarming extent towhich situational factors can influence most people to obey authority, even whendoing so flies in the face of human decency. The Milgram experiments suggestthat when we underestimate the power of social influence, it gives us a feeling offalse security. (For example, if the Germans were more authoritarian than othernationalities, then Americans would not ever have to worry about committinggenocide. But if Milgram’s studies were correct, then we must fall back on someother protection against such evils.) Furthermore, by failing to fully appreciate the power of the situational factors, we tend to oversimplify complex situations.Oversimplification decreases our understanding of the causes of a great deal of human behavior. And among other things, this oversimplification can lead us to blame the victim in situations where the individual was overpowered by social forces too difficult for most of us to resist. By emphasizing the individual set firmly within a social context, and by attempting to understand how thatcontext shapes the individual and his or her action, perspective hopes to avoidsuch errors.

Construals and Perception. Rational choice theorists would argue that we need onlyspecify the objective properties of the situation, such as how rewarding a particularchoice is to the people concerned, and then document the behaviors that followfrom these objective properties.35 They thus avoid dealing with issues likecognition and feeling, concepts that are vague, mentalistic, and certainly notsufficiently anchored to observable behavior. But years of work in psychologyreminds us that cognition and feeling are, indeed, critical to the human socialexperience; we thus must allow for them in our theories and models, no matterhow challenging their detection turns out to be empirically.36

Doing so responds to the trenchant criticisms of the rational choice approachby scholars such as Kahneman, Slovic, and Tversky, whose criticisms suggest theimportance of heuristics and shortcuts in the basic decision-making process(Kahneman, Slovic, and Tversky, 1982). Other scholars (Ross and Nisbett, 1991)argue that we need to look at the situation from the viewpoint of the people in it,to understand how they construe the world around them. This emphasis on whatsocial psychologists call construals has its roots in Gestalt psychology (Aronson,Wilson, and Akert, 1974). This school originally stressed the importance ofstudying the subjective way in which an object appears in people’s minds, ratherthan the objective, physical attributes of the object.37 Lewin (1943) applied Gestaltprinciples beyond the perception of objects, to social perception, to ask howpeople perceive other people and their motives, intentions, and behaviors. Lewinwas the first scientist to advocate detecting the perspective of the people in anysocial situation to understand how they construe—that is, perceive, interpret, anddistort—their social environment. Social psychologists now routinely focus on theimportance of considering subjective situations, that is, how they are construed bypeople. Indeed, social psychology is less concerned with social situations in any


objective sense than with how people are influenced by their interpretation orconstrual of their social environment.

Political scientists need to follow this lead, and ask how people perceive,comprehend, and interpret the socio-political world since this may be moreimportant than understanding the objective properties of the social world itself(Aronson, Wilson, and Akert, 1974: 7). Perspective suggests that we pay a greatdeal of attention to the origin of people’s interpretations of the social world andtry to discover whether there are certain recurring patterns in construals for allpeople, or if particular patterns exist among certain groups, according toethnicity, religion, gender, and so on.38

Methodology. Because it is not wedded to a cost/benefit calculus, perspective is lesscommitted to quantitative data than is rational choice theory. Because perspectiveseeks to understand how the actor views reality, and because the actor’s conceptualframework may differ significantly from that of the analyst, the obvious question ishow best to discover how different people construe reality? Direct questions posedvia survey questionnaires are probably not the best research methodology sincepeople are not always aware of the origins of their own responses (Nisbett andWilson, 1977) and thus have a limited understanding of their own motives.Instead, the stories people tell that help them organize and make sense of realityand others’ behavior—their narratives—are a better tool for revealing the tacitassumptions underlying people’s behavior, especially when the actors may not befully aware of their motives at a conscious level.39

If perspective wants to bring in the importance of our view of others, how do wedo this? How do we measure the social situation? We can turn here to socialcognition research, which has developed elaborate techniques to suggest howpeople think about themselves, about the social world and, more specifically, howpeople select, interpret, remember, and use social information (Fiske and Taylor,1991; Nisbett and Ross, 1980). Constructing more systematic measurements ofthese phenomena will prove exciting new ground for the inquisitive scholar, and Ilook forward to much innovative methodological research in this area.

Reconceptualization of Choice. Rational actor theory is constrained by its over-emphasis on conscious choice based on a rank ordering of preferences. Futurescholars should broaden the conceptualization of choice, redefining it so that italso includes the following facets as well.

(a) Choice as a reflection of self. This facet makes choice a reflection of ourentire life experience, a natural outgrowth of who we are. Empirical work onaltruism (Oliner and Oliner, 1988; Monroe, 1991, 1996, inter alia) and genocide(Monroe, 1994; Malbon, 2000) found that both genocidalists and rescuers of Jewsduring Nazi-occupied Europe had no choice in their actions because of the kindof people they were. This phenomenon is not restricted to such extraordinarysituations; it occurs at more mundane levels as well. Suppose we are mugged in atown where we know no one to call for assistance. What will most of us do? Eventhough we know that people mug others to get money—since it has just happenedto us—few of us would even consider mugging someone else as an option. Whynot? Because it is not something that “people like us” do. Our sense of who we areconstrains the options we find available.

(b) Normative and positive domain. These situations frequently have normativeovertones. Indeed, this conceptualization builds on the idea in virtue ethics which,


beginning with Aristotle, has argued that to understand moral choice you have tounderstand the entirety of a person’s life.40 We need to ask whether other, moremundane choices reflect our sense of self. Consider the example of an Olympicfigure skater, deciding whether or not to attempt the third twirl of her jump.There is indeed an option concerning the alternative to be followed: whether ornot to attempt the third twirl or stop at only two. The choice is probably reflexive,reflecting the years of practice and the skater’s instinctive sense of how muchmomentum she has and whether or not this momentum will carry her through asuccessful third jump. A sense of self enters this choice (to jump or not to attemptthe jump) although in a manner that differs from the moral choices discussedabove. While I suspect that many of the situations in which sense of self limitschoice will have normative overtones, the skating example suggests they are notlimited to the normative domain.

(c) Conflicts of core values. A discussion of the normative aspect of choicereminds us of the agonistic choice that drives much moral theory, wherein anactor is tortured by the difficulty of choosing between two options. Do I sacrificemy son in a war to protect my country? Or, at a far less dramatic level, how do Ibalance the demands of scholarship with those of family? Such choices are oftenso wrenching precisely because they strike at our most basic sense of self, especiallywhen they reflect unresolved conflicts within our fundamental personalitystructure. Psychoanalysts have long noted the potent force of such conflicts,suggesting the constructive conceptualization out of these conflicts can providethe driving force behind creativity.41

These choices also reflect back onto our sense of self. This conceptualization isarticulated in literature in Frost’s “two roads diverged in the wood, and I took theroad less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” In Styron’s literarydepiction of Sophie’s Choice, a woman forced to choose between her two children,eventually kills herself; the choice strikes so deeply at her central core that shecannot live with having been forced to choose. Empirically, cognitive dissonanttheorists have built such conceptual intricacies into their basic theory. Cognitivedissonance refers to the feelings of discomfort that occur when Bert, for example,holds two or more inconsistent cognitions and/or when Bert’s acts deviate fromhis stated beliefs, especially when Bert’s action is discrepant from his customary,typically positive self-conception (Aronson, Wilson, and Akert, 1974: 91).Originally, theorists thought this dissonance was caused by any two discrepantcognitions (Festinger, 1957; Festinger and Aronson, 1960; Brehm and Cohen,1962; Wicklund and Brehm, 1976). Later work, however, suggests that not allcognitive inconsistencies are equally troubling. Dissonance seems most powerfuland upsetting when people behave in ways that threaten their self-images, becausesuch behavior forces them to confront the discrepancy between who they thinkthey are and how they have acted (Aronson, 1968, 1969, 1992, 1998; Aronson,Wilson, and Akert, 1974; Thibodeau and Aronson, 1992; Harmon-Jones and Mills,1998. See also Festinger, Riecken, and Schachter, 1956; Brehm, 1956; Gilovich,Medvec, and Chen, 1995; Aronson and Mills, 1959; Gerard and Mathewson,1966.).

(d) Choice versus strategy.42 Another option may be to de-emphasize choiceentirely. Explicit choices may well be less important than strategies that lead tosuccessful outcomes. Furthermore, choices need not be conscious. A successfulstrategy can originate in unconscious choices, emotions, or chance. The consciouselement may enter when the success of a strategy is recognized or learned. Even


learning does not require consciousness, however, although in many cases(perhaps even most), consciousness will exist ex post in recognition of the strategy’ssuccessful outcome. While this recognition may be conscious, it need not be; itmust be conscious only insofar as it is reproducible in the future, either by thesame actor or by another. This approach posits a close relationship betweenoutcomes and strategies and emphasizes both of these instead of individualchoice. Such a treatment would allow for non-conscious forces in behavior (suchas emotions and intuition), factors that now have to be introduced exogenously inboth traditional and bounded rational models (Damasio, 1999). And it wouldprovide perspective with a vitality that rational choice lost when it de-emphasizedthe emotionally rich passions in preference for the more sterile, albeitquantifiable, concept of preferences after the Marginalist revolution in economics(Whitehead, 1991).

If we design a theory of perspective to include learned strategies that furtherparticular outcomes, rather than just focusing on the process of choice, we alsoallow a role for culture in replicating the strategy that led to optimization. Thecritical variables thus would not be the actual decisions and choices taken by anactor but would instead become the outcomes, intended or fortuitous. The criticalcomponent of behavior then would be the process of evolving toward somestationary optimal point, not an actual decision itself. In this process, criticaldistinctions should be made between the long term and the short term. Strategiesneed not be the best (optimal) at any one particular moment, but they must begood enough to allow the individuals following them to survive, or at least survivelong enough to reproduce. Behavior thus need not maximize in the short term,although over the long term it must optimize and do better than all other existingpossibilities in order to survive. Optimal strategies, not individual choices, thuswould be the key. By emphasizing strategies in addition to choices, then,perspective can allow for strategies that lead through adaptation to survival. Suchan approach would incorporate the “muddling through” we all know so well andbrings in some of the evolutionary considerations that scholars such as Axelrod(1984) have introduced into their discussions. This approach resembles Simon’s(1982) satisficing rather than maximizing behavior, but an emphasis on constantmovement and local adaptation would set a theory of perspective apart frombounded rationality’s emphasis on the internal process of choice instead of theoutcome of a process and the forces that induce action.

ConclusionI have argued that we need to move on, beyond self-interest as the critical drivingforce behind our political theories and embrace a richer conceptualization of theself in constructing our political theories. This one move will have profoundrepercussions for social scientific theories of human behavior. As a discipline,political science has wasted too much time debating the merits of rational choicetheory, spinning our intellectual wheels in far too fractious a debate over whetherrational choice provides the universal theory of human behavior claimed by itsmore extreme proponents or is merely the ideologically bounded and method-driven dogma described by certain critics.43 Its opponents should accept thatrational choice provides a valid and useful theoretical framework forunderstanding certain kinds of political phenomena, has produced many valuableinsights, forced us to consider old topics in fresh ways, and has generated the


debate necessary to stimulate research illuminating important aspects of politicallife. Similarly, its defenders should concede that rational choice does not provide auniversal theory of political life and that it suffers from critical limitations. Let usmove beyond a debate grown tiresome to ask what we have learned that may beutilized in the next stage in constructing more realistic theories of political life.

In arguing thus, my goal is ambitious. I wish to effect a paradigm shift withinpolitical science, away from rational choice theory—arguably the leadingapproach since the 1970s—and toward a theory in which we understand politicalactions as a function of how we see ourselves in relation to others. I call this atheory of perspective, and have argued that rational choice is effectively a limitingcase of the broader theory, much as Newtonian physics is a limiting case ofEinstein’s theoretical world. Just as Newtonian physics works well under certainconditions, and as Einstein’s physics allows for and specifies the nature of thoseconditions, so rational choice works well in certain circumstances. But it does notwork under all conditions, and our attention should now focus on understandingand specifying the conditions under which the limiting case will apply anddistinguishing them from situations and conditions under which it will not.

A successor to rational choice has to be a theory about the human psychology ifit wants to accurately predict political behavior. The power of rational actor theorycomes from the accuracy of its understanding of the human psyche, particularlyfrom the psyche’s need to protect and nurture itself. What rational actor theoryhas omitted, however, is the role of others as affirming, nurturing, and validatingthe self, and validating it in a manner that provides ontological security. Thus theconcept of self in relation to others should play a critical part in constructingtheories of human behavior. It is this critical factor—noted by Aristotle when hedefined man as a social being—which reduces rational choice theory to a limitingcase of a broader theory, of the theory of self. Rational choice theory captures onlyone aspect of this self, the aspect in which we see ourselves in a self-interestedmode, and respond accordingly.

In presenting my theory of perspective I have tried to allow for the complexnature of humankind. I suggested that our basic identities are intricate andmultifaceted, and that what is critical for the analyst seeking to understandpolitical action is to understand which aspects of our identities in relation toothers come into play and in response to what outside stimuli. Only byunderstanding how people see themselves in relation to others can we begin tobuild a science of politics that allows for the complex interrelationship betweenthe human needs to protect and nurture our self-interest and the needs for humansociability.

Political science is a discipline looking for a new paradigm, a discipline readyfor a new paradigm. Psychology and identity provide that paradigm through atheory of perspective on self in relation to others.

Notes1. I have discussed the intellectual origins of rational actor theory more extensively in

Monroe, 1991. This book is now out of print and I reproduce the essential argumenthere since I have received so many requests from scholars unable to obtain the volume.Parts of my discussion of the theory of perspective first appeared in Monroe, 1996.

2. See Mansbridge, 1990 or Myers, 1983 on the role of self-interest in social theory.3. In economics, it is associated most closely with the work of James Buchanan and the


Virginia School and in political science with the work of William Riker and theRochester School of public choice.

4. Within economics, it is associated most closely with the work of Kenneth Arrow (1951,1984) and Amartya Sen (1984). Its highly technical place within political science hasbeen ensured by analysts such as Gerald Kramer, Peter McKelvey, and Norman Schofield.

5. I will argue in the next section that this is to be expected in the progress of normalscience where there are a variety of different assumptions, methods and rules usedwithin the general paradigm (Kuhn, 1962: 42–51).

6. Buchanan and Tollison, 1984: 13; Downs, 1957: 28.7. Buchanan and Tullock, 1962: 25–30; Buchanan and Tollison, 1984: 13; Arrow, 1963: 3.8. Riker and Ordeshook, 1973: 10.9. Riker and Ordeshook, 1973.

10. Indeed, Simon won his Nobel Prize in economics for this work.11. Emphasis on the decision-making process of the unit analyzed (e.g., person, firm,

government) means that the process of decision-making itself, rather than the outcomeof that process, is the hallmark of bounded rationality.

12. I focus my discussion on political science since that is the literature with which I ammost familiar.

13. See Herbert Simon’s early work on bounded rationality and satisficing.14. See the democratic theorists who stress the polity’s ability to transform the self through

communal deliberation (Barber, 1984; Taylor, 1987; and Sandal, 1984).15. Simon’s concerns are shared by others (Kavka, 1991) who argue that utility maximi-

zation serves better as a heuristic than as a true representation of the human decision-making process.

16. See Barry, 1970 or Harsanyi, 1969 on the difference between cultural and rationalchoice models.

17. See Michael Struett, 1999.18. See Bates, Johnson, and Lustick, 1997, Tsebelis, 1992 or North, 1990. Other theorists in

the new institutionalists camp, who work largely outside the rational choice paradigm,have recognized that much of politics is conflict about institutional rules precisely becausethese are seen as influencing subsequent behaviors, not just in terms of strategies but byactually changing the ends actors wish to pursue and the ways that actors perceive them-selves (Hall and Taylor, 1996; Thelen and Steinmo, 1992; and Olsen and March, 1989).

19. My interpretation of Kuhn may be overly sanguine, and the scientific enterprise may bemore a choice between competing paradigms than the less confrontational route I havesketched above. Kuhn appears to endorse this latter view: “Let us then assume thatcrises are a necessary precondition for the emergence of novel theories and ask nexthow scientists respond to their existence. Part of the answer, as obvious as it isimportant, can be discovered by noting first what scientists never do when confrontedby even severe and prolonged anomalies. Though they may begin to lose faith and thento consider alternatives, they do not renounce the paradigm that has led them intocrisis. They do not, that is, treat anomalies as counter-instances, though in thevocabulary of philosophy of science that is what they are” (Kuhn, 1962: 77).

20. The existence of a viable alternative theory, even though preliminary, seems necessaryfor scientific advances to occur. “Once it has achieved the status of a paradigm, ascientific theory is declared invalid only if an alternative candidate is available to take itsplace. No process yet disclosed by the historical study of scientific development at allresembles the methodological stereotype of falsification by direct comparison withnature. The decision to reject one paradigm is always simultaneously the decision toaccept another, and the judgment leading to that decision involved the comparison ofboth paradigms with nature and with each other” (Kuhn, 1962: 77).

21. These are discussed later in more detail.22. Since postmodernism includes many different approaches, I should note that what I am

objecting to is that aspect of postmodern thought that rejects the idea of any objectivereality. Political psychology accepts that people interpret this reality differentially but


posits that scholars can nonetheless study these differences in interpretation in carefuland systematic ways.

23. The fundamental attribution error may exemplify this phenomenon.24. This reflects the Aristotelian concept of man as a social being.25. Ironically, Downs himself acknowledges this point in An Economic Theory of Democracy

(1957: 6–7.)26. See Elster, 1986a or the vast literature on the self reviewed in Monroe and Levy, 1999.27. This argument was first advanced in Monroe, 1996.28. Both traditional and bounded concepts of rationality reflect a post-Enlightenment

framework that separates the individual from the collectivity. Interests are not identifiedthis way in many non-Western societies, however; and even in Western society,individuals have conceptualized their relationships with society quite differently inother historical eras. This strict differentiation of the individual from society or criticalgroups may explain why so many Western decision models, based on individualisticassumptions, often fail to predict behavior outside the Western market system.

29. Ostrom’s (1998) work on collective action constitutes an interesting and an importantmove in this direction.

30. See Batson, 1991; Eisenberg, 1986; and Fogelman, 1994 for discussions of howsituational and personality factors influence altruism.

31. This speaks directly to the debate between communitarians and rational choicetheorists. See Sandal, 1984; Hardin, 1995.

32. I would classify Jervis’s (1976) research as work in this mode.33. I would classify Axelrod’s (1984, 1986) work on the evolution of cooperation as work in

this mode.34. We can easily modify Jervis’s work to illustrate this phenomenon at the level of domestic

politics. Consider the Clinton impeachment crisis as an example. Assume that Clintonwanted to encourage other politicians to engage in behavior that was in Clinton’sinterests. Perceptions are also critical in this kind of strategic game. Clinton waseffectively engaged in signaling designed to further his own interests. But what wasrevealed? How would others have interpreted the signals Clinton sent out? How didClinton know that Gore, for example, had interpreted Clinton’s act as Clinton intendedit? Signals can portray a false or a true message or image in electoral politics as at acollege mixer or during tense international negotiations.

35. This is not peculiar to rational choice theorists. Behaviorists followed the same tack. Forexample, John Watson (1930) and B.F. Skinner (1938) suggested all behavior could beunderstood by examining the rewards and punishments in the organism’s environmentand that there was no need to study such subjective states as thinking and feeling.

36. This has been reinforced by work in neurobiology (Damasio, 1999) suggesting a moresignificant role for emotions in the making of consciousness.

37. See work by Kurt Koffka, Wolfgang Kohler, Max Wertheimer, all Gestalt theorists, orwork by Kurt Lewin, the founding father of modern experimental social psychology.

38. For example, when construing their environment, are most people concerned withmaking an interpretation that places them in the most positive light, as the fundamentalattribution error in psychology suggests?

39. See Hirschman, 1977, for a description of how the worldview had to shift beforecapitalism could come into being. See Patterson and Monroe, 1997, on narrative as ageneral research methodology, including its drawbacks and limitations.

40. It is a frequent literary device to have action hang on the protagonist’s character, acharacter that makes him blind to the consequences of certain choices or makes otherchoices less viable. Can we imagine Othello suggesting he and Desdemona go formarriage counseling, for example?

41. See work by Karen Horney (1945) as an example of this approach.42. I use strategy not in the technical game theoretic sense but as evolutionary biologists

utilize the term to refer to routines and procedures.43. Critics include Green and Shapiro, 1994; proponents include Gary Becker, 1976.


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Biographical Note

KRISTEN RENWICK MONROE is Professor of Political Science and associate director ofthe program in political psychology at the University of California at Irvine.Author of the prize-winning The Heart of Altruism (1996), Monroe works at the intersection of political science, political psychology and ethics. Her mostrecently edited volumes are Empirical Political Theory (1997) and the forthcomingPolitical Psychology. She is currently working on two books suggesting how identity constrained choice during the Holocaust. ADDRESS: Department ofPolitical Science, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA. [e-mail:[email protected]]

Acknowledgements. The Earhart Foundation provided generous financial assistance, and DaniBar-Tal, Martha Crenshaw, Robert Jervis, and Janice Stein graciously allowed me to quotefrom their manuscripts in my forthcoming edited volume on political psychology. MichaelStruett provided research assistance, funded through a generous grant from the School ofSocial Science at UCI. Finally, I am grateful to Princeton University Press for allowing me toreproduce the argument that originally appeared in The Heart of Altruism (1996).


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