Political Science 3366E Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Morton Deutsch, Resource Curse, Ethnocentrism

• School: Western University
• Department: Political Science
• Course: Political Science 3366E
• Professor: nigamendranarain

Document Summary

Most human behaviour is rational. i. e. conduct guided by reason, the capacity to use logic to think, understand and make decisions. Conflict behaviour may be rational as well, which means that it is chosen by people in order to achiever particular objectives. The rational choice approach emphasizes the options and the decisions of people in conflict. The central tenet of rational choice theory is that people set personal goals that reflect their preferences. Sometimes people make decisions on the basis of something other than utilitarian interests (ex. out of emotion) hence they would be non-rational or irrational. In economics, the level of benefits is known as utility, or interest. People also use cost-benefit analysis to make decisions basically, people evaluate the positive and negative results of a course of action. The greater the benefits, the more utility the decision has.