Rational Laziness - When Time Is Limited, Supply Abundant, and Decisions Have to Be Made
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Gunn Elisabeth Birkelund
Abstract
This paper expands the model of rational action by introducing a new concept. rational laziness, to better understand actors’ decision making. In addition to rational information processing, human beings often rely on automatic and lion-cognitive mental capacities, and I use the term mental laziness to account for information processing based on these capacities. When time is limited, supply abundant, and decisions have to be made, mental laziness might be a rational decision device. Actors’ choice of rational-calculating or automatic-spontaneous mental decision devices is contingent on their locations within an opportunity structure. The empirical case studied is employers’ hiring processes, and employers’ activation of these action generating mechanisms are expected to cause discrimination of job applicants categorized as out-groups members.
© 2016 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Contents
- Explaining and Understanding by Answering ‘Why’ and ‘How’ Questions: A Programmatic Introduction to the Special Issue Social Mechanisms
- Part I. Explanatory and Analytical: Understanding the Contexts, Core, and Collective Outcomes of Action
- Social Mechanisms as Special Cases of Explanatory Sociology: Notes toward Systemizing and Expanding Mechanism-based Explanation within Sociology
- Social Mechanisms of Corruption: Analytical Sociology and Its Applicability to Corruption Research
- Neighbourhood Effects: Lost in Transition?
- Part II. Bridging the Gap with Quantitative Survey Research
- Social Mechanisms in Norm-relevant Situations: Explanations for Theft by Finding in High-cost, and Low-cost Situation
- Social Mechanisms and Empirical Research in the Field of Sociology of the Family: The Case of Separation and Divorce
- Contextualizing Cognitive Consonance by a Social Mechanisms Explanation: Moderators of Selective Exposure in Media Usage
- Part III. Experiments, Agent-Based Modeling, and Mixed Methods
- The Use of Field Experiments to Study Mechanisms of Discrimination
- Rational Laziness - When Time Is Limited, Supply Abundant, and Decisions Have to Be Made
- How the Mechanism of Dynamic Representation Affects Policy Change and Stability
- Opening the Black Box. How the Study of Social Mechanisms Can Benefit from the Use of Explanatory Mixed Methods
- A Methodological Outlook on Causal Identification and Empirical Methods for the Analysis of Social Mechanism
- Authors
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Contents
- Explaining and Understanding by Answering ‘Why’ and ‘How’ Questions: A Programmatic Introduction to the Special Issue Social Mechanisms
- Part I. Explanatory and Analytical: Understanding the Contexts, Core, and Collective Outcomes of Action
- Social Mechanisms as Special Cases of Explanatory Sociology: Notes toward Systemizing and Expanding Mechanism-based Explanation within Sociology
- Social Mechanisms of Corruption: Analytical Sociology and Its Applicability to Corruption Research
- Neighbourhood Effects: Lost in Transition?
- Part II. Bridging the Gap with Quantitative Survey Research
- Social Mechanisms in Norm-relevant Situations: Explanations for Theft by Finding in High-cost, and Low-cost Situation
- Social Mechanisms and Empirical Research in the Field of Sociology of the Family: The Case of Separation and Divorce
- Contextualizing Cognitive Consonance by a Social Mechanisms Explanation: Moderators of Selective Exposure in Media Usage
- Part III. Experiments, Agent-Based Modeling, and Mixed Methods
- The Use of Field Experiments to Study Mechanisms of Discrimination
- Rational Laziness - When Time Is Limited, Supply Abundant, and Decisions Have to Be Made
- How the Mechanism of Dynamic Representation Affects Policy Change and Stability
- Opening the Black Box. How the Study of Social Mechanisms Can Benefit from the Use of Explanatory Mixed Methods
- A Methodological Outlook on Causal Identification and Empirical Methods for the Analysis of Social Mechanism
- Authors
