Additional Thoughts on Political Psychology and Rational Choice

Abstract

Let me extend only one of the interesting remarks made by the commentators: the contrast between political psychology and rational choice. In doing so, I will place more emphasis on the strengths of the former than I did in my original piece. Of course, neither approach is or seeks to be a united entity. Nevertheless, a few broad contrasts between them can be drawn. I should stress that this is done not in the spirit of claiming that political psychology is in all ways and for all problems more appropriate than rational choice. In fact, I think that both approaches can be useful and indeed have engaged in what might be called soft rational choice myself (Jervis, 1970, reprinted ed., 1989a; 1972; 1989b, ch. 1). Furthermore, the two are not entirely incompatible. Political psychology may be necessary to provide the beliefs and perceptions that are used in rational choice models. Most kinds of political psychology see people as quite heterogeneous. Although I noted in my article that this strand of thought has been weakened in some formulations, many perspectives from political psychology sensitize us to the fact that different individuals will behave differently in different situations. Linked to this are cultural differenceswe should not expect people in other societies to react the same way we do or to form the same institutions and patterns that characterize American society. Although a rational choice perspective can accommodate individual and cultural differences at the cost of some parsimony -the current tendency is not to do so. It is analytically convenient to regard all people and all cultures as very similiar to one another. Indeed, this is consistent with the once-popular view that implicitly or explicitly America is the model for the rest of the world. But it