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Human Nature in Politics: The Dialogue of Psychology with Political Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 1985

Herbert A. Simon
Herbert A. Simon*
Affiliation:
Carnegie-Mellon University
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Abstract

This article compares two theories of human rationality that have found application in political science: procedural, bounded rationality from contemporary cognitive psychology, and global, substantive rationality from economics. Using examples drawn from the recent literature of political science, it examines the relative roles played by the rationality principle and by auxiliary assumptions (e.g., assumptions about the content of actors' goals) in explaining human behavior in political contexts, and concludes that the model predictions rest primarily on the auxiliary assumptions rather than deriving from the rationality principle.

The analysis implies that the principle of rationality, unless accompanied by extensive empirical research to identify the correct auxiliary assumptions, has little power to make valid predictions about political phenomena.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 79 , Issue 2 , June 1985 , pp. 293 - 304
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1985

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