Rational Choice

[Page 687]The rational choice approach, of which classical game theory is a variant, has been until recently the dominant approach for conceptualizing human action in the social sciences. Rational choice is concerned, generally speaking, in finding the best means to given ends; more specifically, in the face of a decision-making situation, an actor considers a finite set of alternatives, ascribes consequences to them, orders these consequences according to their importance and value, and makes an optimal choice among available alternatives. The actor is assumed to know all available alternatives and to choose the best action or means to achieve her ends on the basis of expectations about future consequences or outcomes of her choices.

Rational choice theory (RCT) has had a wide range of applications in ...