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A Human Actor Model for Social Science
Author(s) -
Whitmeyer Joseph M.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
journal for the theory of social behaviour
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.615
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1468-5914
pISSN - 0021-8308
DOI - 10.1111/1468-5914.00082
Subject(s) - perspective (graphical) , variety (cybernetics) , set (abstract data type) , psychology , ideal (ethics) , attribution , social psychology , empirical research , epistemology , sociology , computer science , artificial intelligence , philosophy , programming language
This article presents a model of the production of human behaviour, grounded in a pragmatist perspective. The model has two components: a small set of considered behaviours, and a set of motivators which I group into four subsets: material, reproductive, and two sets of attributional motivators. The model is based on a minimum principle. A person performs that considered behaviour which comes closest to ideal in light of the person's motivators. I show that both declining marginal utility and satisfying follow as deductions from the model. In addition, especially with the inclusion of attributional motivators, the model accounts for a variety of findings in social science. I also show how it can generate theory and testable empirical predictions.