RATIONAL THEORY

By : Claribel A. Barce
Instructress
 RATIONAL

Means people act based on or in

accordance with reason or logic.

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 CHOICE

Refers to an act of selecting or making a

decision when face with two or more
possibilities.

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 A dominant approach
under positivism which
RATIONAL assumes that society is
made up of individuals
THEORY who always make logical
decisions that provide
them the greatest benefit
at the lower cost.
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 RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY
-The idea that when a person is confronted
with a set of choice, that person will
choose the option that will serve his or
her objectives.
- Individuals act on the basis of the
information that they have about the
condition they were acting.
- People will perform an action depending
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on their insight the likelihood of success.
 HISTORICAL
CONTEXT
▪ According to Emeritus Professor in the
Department of Government and Politics at the
University of Maryland Joe Oppenheimer, the
beginnings of the foundations of rational choice
can be traced to the age of reason
( Oppenheimer 2008).

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 HISTORICAL
CONTEXT
▪ Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan (1651)

- He tried to explain the basic functioning of

Political institution through individual choice.

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 HISTORICAL
CONTEXT
▪ Adam Smith
- Empasized the likely social functionality of
hobbes’ simplifying notion of egotism, when he
asserted in his “Wealth of Nations” (1776) that
“it is not from the benevolence of the butcher,
the brewer, or the baker the we expect our
dinner, but from their regard to their own
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interest.”
 HISTORICAL
CONTEXT
▪ George Homans ( 1960’s)
- An American Sociologist was created for
establishing rational choice in sociology when
he formulated a basic framework of exchange
theory which was grounded from assumption
drawn from behaviorist psychology.

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 The
Proponents

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 Gary Becker

-Born in Pottsville, Pennsylvania.

-Earned Bachelor’s degree at Princeton University in
1951.
-Ph. D. at the University of Chicago in 1955.
-He taught in Columbia University from 1957-1968
and returned to University of Chicago.

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 Gary Becker

Achievements :
-He won the John Bates Clark Medal in 1967
-Elected as fellow of the american academy of arts
and sciences in 1972.
-Received the national medal of Science in 2000.
-Died in Chicago, Illinois on May 3, 2014 at the
age of 83.
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 Gary Becker

-His major contribution was perhaps the ability for

having extended the realm of microeconomic
investigation to a broad extent of human behavior
and interaction such as discrimination, crime and
punishment, human capital, families and organ
market, for that, he was warded the Nobel Prize in
1992.`

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 GEORGE HOMANS`
-Pioneer of Rational Choice Theory
-Son of Robert Homans and Abigail Adams, great-
great-great grandson of John Adams (the second
president of the United States).
-In his book The Human Group (1950), he intended to
move away from the study of the social system as it is
epitomized in single groups toward a study of the
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system as it is epitomized in many groups.
 GEORGE HOMANS`
-In his book Social Behavior; Its elementary forms
(1961/1974), he explained the principles of behavioral
psychology and the elementary forms of Social
Behavior psychology and elementary economics.
- His exchange theory posits the belief that individual
beings and behavior are pertinent to comprehending
society, that is, people will perform an action
depending on their insight of the likelihood of success.
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 A picture is worth a thousand

Thank
words

You!
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