More or Less
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One tension in much of the reading we have done is how to amend the over-simplified rational actor model without creating models that are too complex and unworkable.
Kahan, for example, modeled the “variability of preferences across individuals” by presenting five collective action dispositions – dedicated free-riders, intolerant reciprocators, neutral reciprocators, tolerant reciprocators, dedicated cooperators.
Bowles and Gintis, on the other hand, present only three dispositions: reciprocators, cooperators, and selfish actors. But their model of preferences is more complex along a different dimension – punishment. The dispositions do not only reflect preferences for cooperation but also the likelihood that they will punish others. This additional factor, lacking in Kahan’s model, does a lot of work. But of course Bowles and Gintis’s model present less variability of preferences another way because they present only three dispositions.
Which model of preferences is better for rule and system design? Would a model with five or more dispositions that accounted for the degree of free-riding and the degree of punishing behavior be too complicated?
