Economists use the word rational in a narrow way. To an economist, a rational actor is someone who makes decisions that maximize her (or his) preferences subject to constraints imposed by the environment. So, this actor knows her preferences and knows how to go about optimizing. It is a powerful approach, but it probably is only distantly related to what you mean when you think of yourself as r...

The behavior of rational selfish agents has been classically studied in the framework of strategic games in which each player has a set of possible actions, players choose actions simultaneously and the payoff for each player is determined by the matrix of the game. However, in many applications, players choose actions asynchronously, and simultaneity of this process is not guaranteed: it is po...

background and purpose: rational use of drugs remains a problem in iran. polypharmacy, overuse of antibiotic, misuse and overuse of injections, short consulting time and poor patient compliance are common patterns of irrational use of drugs in eastern azarbydjan - iran. concerning the promotion of rational use of drugs, this study aimed the effect of educational intervention as interactive grou...

Economists have heralded the formulation of the expected utility theorem as a universal method of choice under uncertainty. In their seminal paper, Stigler and Becker (Stigler & Becker, 1977) declared that “human behavior can be explained by a generalized calculus of utility-maximizing behavior” (p.76). The universality of the rational choice theory has been widely criticized by psychologists, ...

The aim of the present study is to analyze empirical researches on the social resources dimension of occupational status attainment process and relate them to the rational choice approach. The analysis suggests that the existing data on the strength of ties aspect of social resources is insufficient and does not allow any implication concerning rational actor’s behavior. However, the results co...

Philosopher: What I would like to understand better is how game theory can help us to understand rational choice, and how this is related to logic. Philosophy has a long-standing interest in rational behavior. The hallmark of rationality is always taken to be the “good reasons for acting” that rational people can give. But game theory seems more concerned with what people actually do than in th...