Individual decision making and the evolutionary roots of institutions (2008)
Authors
Abstract
(From the chapter) In this chapter, we report on our discussions that attempted to sketch the mechanisms that connect individuals to large-scale institutions. We begin with a discussion of current thought on the design of individual decision making. If institutions regulate behavior, then presumably the mechanisms that have evolved to produce individual behavior will be relevant to the broader enterprise of integrating these two scales of explanation. Then we explore ways in which institutions may have evolved, both as a result of individual decision making and as a result of processes distinct from those that govern individual behavior. We approach this topic from two perspectives. Seen one way, unconscious psychological forces constrain the design of institutions, sometimes powerfully. Seen another way, unconscious population-level processes create functional institutional design that few social architects could conceive of with their individual deliberate faculties. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved)
Bibliographic entry
McElreath, R., Boyd, R., Gigerenzer, G., Glöckner, A., Hammerstein, P., Kurzban, R., Magen, S., Richerson, P. J., Robson, A., Stevens, J. R. (2008). Individual decision making and the evolutionary roots of institutions. In C. Engel & W. Singer (Eds.), Better than conscious? Decision making, the human mind, and implications for institutions (pp. 325-342). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. (Full text)
Miscellaneous
| Publication year | 2008 | |
|---|---|---|
| Document type: | In book | |
| Publication status: | Published | |
| External URL: | http://library.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/ft/gg/GG_Individual_2008.pdf View | |
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