Rationality and Society

We analyze the effects of risk preferences on cooperative behavior in a repeated Prisoner's Dilemma. We show that, counterintuitively, risk aversion favors cooperative behavior. Hence, if people are risk averse for gains and risk seeking for losses, conditions for cooperation are less restrictive when outcomes represent gains than if outcomes represent losses. In an experimental test of this prediction, we find that risk aversion indeed favors cooperation. After controlling for the effect of risk preferences, we do not find any empirical evidence for a difference between cooperation in social dilemmas in which outcomes represent gains and dilemmas where outcomes represent losses. The relevance of this result with respect to theories of collective action, in particular Coleman's account of theories of revolution, is outlined.

This paper discusses both `parametric trust situations' and `strategic trust situations' with expectation-based strategies and (limited) forecasting ability of the trustor, which is a way of modeling some basic ideas of `bounded rationality' from a rational-choice perspective. The analysis concentrates on one-shot, `non-embedded' situations. This is not to deny the importance of iteration and embeddedness. However, both for theoretical and practical reasons this `limiting' case deserves special attention. The analysis demonstrates how actors with less than perfect forecasting ability may be able to overcome the inherent dilemma of a trust relation. In the short run, an actor may decide to raise his forecasting ability by increased but costly attention, but in the medium run it can only be improved by learning processes.

Despite their diversity, political ideologies divide along a limited number of fault lines, including individualism versus collectivism, and authoritarianism versus democracy. Drawing on contemporary theories of collective action and game theory, this paper proposes a theoretic account of ideology that is based on the hypothesis that ideologies serve primarily to reconcile potential conflicts between individual and collective interests that arise in the course of collective action and other forms of social cooperation. The analysis concludes that five types of ideology are fundamental, each of which corresponds to a distinct form of social dilemma.

This paper reconsiders James S. Coleman's concept of social capital. The concept has gained wide use and acceptance in sociology since its first publication, but, Coleman's own writings on the subject remain to date its most extensive analytic treatment. We make two contributions to social capital theory. First, we recast social capital theory to focus on benefits rather than forms. We identify three benefits that forms of social capital may confer: information, influence and control, and social solidarity. In the context of a focus on benefits, we consider how a specific form of social capital may vary in the degree to which its benefits generalize to different kinds of goals, and how forms that are valuable for some purposes may be a liability for other purposes. Second, we emphasize social capital's origin in aspects of social structure that actors may appropriate to use in their interests. We suggest how changes in the social structure of which social capital is an aspect may affect the emergence and persistence of forms of social capital and may condition the value of given forms.