Rational Individual Behavior in Markets and Social Choice Processes: the Discovered Preference Hypothesis

Abstract

[Introduction] The focus on individual behaviour in economics is derived from an interest in the behaviour of groups as they are found in markets, committees, and social choice processes. For the most part, economists have not been interested in what goes on inside the beads of individuals. Thought or thought processes are seldom considered as part of the phenomena to be studied as a part of the science. Economics is primarily a study of choice behaviors and their properties as they become manifest in the context of specific organizational units. By contrast, psychological focus on the individual is derived from a long history of research on the nature of thought and thought processes. In contrast to economics, psychological research does not seem to have been defined by any particular social, institutional, or organizational constraints.