Re-Examining the Debate Over Rational Agency: What Evolutionary Psychology Can Offer Political Scientists

Abstract

It is important to begin by examining not the pathologies that drive political scientists to embrace Rational Choice Theory or the rationality of those voters being polled, but to consider the enterprise of knowledge production. Arguably it is a purposive endeavor and my discussion necessarily begins with an examination of our role as social scientists situated (for most readers) within working democracies. The knowledge we produce has the power to shape opinion, policy, and ultimately outcomes. And for many this ability to have impact is at the heart of what drives our research agendas and informs our work. Bearing this in mind, political scientists pursue the full range of activities from activist agendas to deliberately dispassionate inquiry. Few could or do argue that normative concerns are absent from any research program, even those designed to maximize objectivity and impartiality. The concerns I raise in an effort to problematize the enterprise are not ethical but epistemological ones. Can we be certain that we fully understand our impact on policy outcomes (and thereby make informed decisions with regards to those highly contentious and often personal ethical questions that define our agendas) if our epistemological foundation is faulty? For many political scientists engaged in traditional research programs, the ideas presented herein may seem overly abstract and appear to have little to no relevance to those with interest in producing a product that can influence policy. Nothing could be farther from the truth. If in fact transdisciplinary perspectives prove to unsettle the conceptual framework through which dominant paradigms and methodologies approach questions of concern to a thriving democracy, reevaluation of those concepts would be vital to such research programs. Most discussions of research and the discourse surrounding its development over the past half-century begin with a working definition of opinion. I will also take up this task. But in order to fully expose the epistemological fault-lines embedded in this area of research, we must challenge not only what constitutes public and opinion but also consider the nature of the communication acts of soliciting and offering opinions. Opinions are not tools designed by social scientists to measure internal mental states. They predate our inquiry and have been solicited and offered likely since the dawn of language itself. As such, they are distinct, evolved forms of communication that transmit information through social channels. The challenge I undertake is to expose the social function of the evolved communication acts in an effort to determine if they do more than communicate information concerning the mental state of the holder. If so, can we disentangle the information that reflects the individual’s state from the social facts to relieve confounds? Lastly, does our inquiry and research foci need to concern itself with these entwined, distributed social facts? If such confounds prove to be substantive, what are the implications for political behavior shaped and informed by our research? For many researchers reliant on self-reporting from subjects, careful design to remove such confounds suffices – such as rating pleasantness or pain. Yet politics is a different beast and political behavior is unintelligible outside the social context – unlike pleasantness or pain. Opinions are not clearly grounded in description of the ecological present. Nor are they descriptions of the past. And often they are not descriptions of an intended future. They exist as declarations of social facts that comprise a distributed, social information system entwined with expressions of individual intent. In reviewing the literature and historical development of research, I intend to recast insights from social psychology that have informed design and enlivened debate among political scientists to demonstrate that the many apparently disparate cognitive biases in fact present us with compelling evidence of coherency. This coherency is revealed when each facet of human cognition and its relation to research methods is framed within an evolutionary and informational perspective. Social behavior as it becomes more formalized and institutionalized is increasingly sensitive to the influence of information flows. Political behavior is rivaled only by religious behavior in this regard and as such is not only an appropriate point of departure but likely an exemplar.