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The 60 pages that link to Rational choice model, each with the reason it gives.

• Social normCompared with: It offers an alternative emphasis on calculated outcomes rather than shared obligation.

• Collective actionCompared with: It highlights individual incentives that can obstruct group efforts unless institutions or incentives intervene.

• Behavioral economicsCompared with: Behavioral models often identify where actual choices depart from its assumptions.

• SociologyCompared with: It contrasts with accounts that give social structures or shared meanings greater explanatory weight.

• DeterrenceNarrower topic: The basic deterrence model assumes actors compare the expected costs and benefits of action.

• Collective action problemRelated: The puzzle begins when individually sensible choices undermine shared goals.

• Structural functionalismCompared with: It begins with individual decisions, unlike functionalism's emphasis on structures and system-level consequences.

• Prospect theoryCompared with: Its standard assumptions contrast with prospect theory's empirically observed framing and loss effects.

• Neoclassical economicsNarrower topic: Neoclassical economics applies this broader framework to economic decisions.

• DemocratizationRelated: Transition theories use strategic bargains to explain why elites accept uncertainty.

• Methodological individualismRelated: It supplies one influential account of how individual choices generate collective results.

• Utility functionNarrower topic: Utility maximization is a standard formal model of consumer choice.

• Bounded rationalityCompared with: Bounded rationality modifies rational-choice models by accounting for limits on calculation and knowledge.

• Crowd psychologyCompared with: It contrasts with accounts that treat crowd participation chiefly as emotional or suggestible.

• Deterrence theoryNarrower topic: Deterrence models often assume adversaries compare expected costs and benefits.

• Preference relationNarrower topic: It uses preference relations to formalize the aims behind individual choices.

• Social exchange theoryRelated: It shares cost-benefit reasoning but does not focus specifically on social relationships.

• Elite theoryCompared with: It explains political outcomes through strategic decisions rather than a cohesive ruling group.

• Cognitive biasCompared with: Its idealized predictions provide a benchmark for identifying systematic deviations.

• Revealed preferenceNarrower topic: Revealed preference is a behavioral route to testing this broader account of choice.

• Chicago school of economicsRelated: Its broad use of rational choice helped apply economic reasoning beyond conventional markets.

• Ordinal utilityNarrower topic: Ordinal utility is a standard way to represent preferences within this framework.

• Behavioral financeCompared with: Behavioral finance studies systematic departures from this idealized account of financial choice.

• Framing effectCompared with: Framing effects challenge the assumption that equivalent descriptions leave preferences unchanged.

• Nudge theoryCompared with: Nudge theory emphasizes systematic departures from the framework's idealized assumptions.

• Public choiceRelated: Its assumptions provide a common starting point for analyzing political incentives.

• Vilfredo ParetoCompared with: Pareto’s emphasis on nonlogical action challenges rationalist accounts of social behavior.

• Analytical MarxismRelated: Some analytical Marxists used it to derive collective outcomes from individual decisions.

• InterpretivismCompared with: Its formal account of choice contrasts with interpretivism’s attention to culturally formed meanings.

• Thorstein VeblenCompared with: Veblen emphasized habits, social imitation, and institutional pressures beyond calculated individual choice.

• Social dilemmaRelated: The dilemma arises when rational individual choices fail to maximize collective welfare.

• Thomas SchellingCompared with: Schelling’s examples expose outcomes that can frustrate individual aims despite apparently deliberate choices.

• Herbert A. SimonCompared with: Simon’s bounded rationality challenged versions assuming complete information and unrestricted calculation.

• Political sociologyCompared with: Its individual-choice emphasis contrasts with explanations centered on social structure and group relations.

• VerstehenCompared with: Its formal assumptions about choice differ from Verstehen’s context-sensitive interpretation of motives.

• Agency (sociology)Compared with: It models agency as calculation, while sociological accounts also emphasize norms and dispositions.

• CriminologyRelated: It models how opportunity and perceived risk can influence offending decisions.

• Experimental economicsRelated: Experiments developed partly as a way to test its predictions against observed choices.

• Gary BeckerRelated: Becker used constrained choice to analyze decisions often treated as non-economic.

• Human behavioral ecologyCompared with: It models constrained choice without necessarily grounding preferences or outcomes in evolutionary fitness.

• Search theoryNarrower topic: Search models typically derive stopping rules from agents optimizing choices over time.

• Charles TillyCompared with: Tilly’s historical and relational explanations resist reducing collective action to individual calculations alone.

• Marxist sociologyCompared with: It offers an individual-level account that differs from Marxist structural explanations.

• David GraeberCompared with: Graeber disputed its assumption that self-interested calculation explains economic life across cultures.

• Gustave Le BonCompared with: It contrasts with Le Bon’s emphasis on unconscious forces and diminished rationality in crowds.

• Marshall SahlinsCompared with: Sahlins rejected accounts that make self-interest the universal basis of social action.

• Robert AumannNarrower topic: Aumann’s formal models examine the consequences of rational strategic behavior.

• Decoy effectCompared with: The effect challenges models in which irrelevant dominated options cannot alter preference rankings.

• Social theoryRelated: It derives social outcomes from individual decisions and strategic interaction.

• Sociological theoryRelated: It models how individual decisions can generate wider social patterns.