Collective Rebellious Behavior: An Expected Utility Approach of Behavioral Motivations

Abstract

The structural theories of collective rebellious behavior can explain only why people rebel in the face of structural imbalance, whereas the rational choice theories are able to explain only why they may choose not to. In order to explain both these motivations, an expected utility model is developed. In contrast with the previous work, the notions of competing uses of time and group utility are introduced to explain some of the existing anomalies. Individual and aggregate behavioral profiles are derived and the theoretical connection between the proposed microbehavioral theory and the aggregate structural theories is established.