Choice

Richard Harper, Dave Randall, Wes Sharrock (University of Manchester)

$36.95

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Polity Press
20 November 2015

Sociology; Psychology; Human-computer interaction

We make decisions every day. Yet we are sometimes perplexed by these decisions and the decisions of others. To complicate things further, we live in an age where there are more things to choose from than ever before the Internet is transforming our choices and making us more accountable for them: what we choose is recorded, modelled and used to predict our future behaviour.

So are we in a position to make better choices today than we were a decade ago? Certainly there are some who believe so. Psychologists claim we are subject to hidden mental processes that lead us to one thing rather than another; economists offer predictions about what people will buy; and some philosophers claim that our choices echo our evolutionary past.

Are these claims merited? Do they reflect the beginnings of a new science of choice? This book offers a critical overview of these and other claims, showing where they are justified and where they are exaggerated. It will be an essential reference for anyone interested in whether science can help us to understand both the ways people make choices in their everyday lives and how these may be changing.

By: Richard Harper, Dave Randall, Wes Sharrock (University of Manchester)
Imprint: Polity Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 150mm, Spine: 23mm
Weight: 454g
ISBN: 9780745683874
ISBN 10: 0745683878
Pages: 229
Publication Date: 20 November 2015
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Acknowledgements Chapter 1 Choice: a twenty-first century science? Chapter 2 The origins: choice in economics Chapter 3 An experimental choice Chapter 4 Choice in context Chapter 5 Evolutionary Choice Chapter 6 Modelling Choice Chapter 7 A new place of choice: the Internet Chapter 8 Reasons in action Bibliography Index

Richard Harper is Principal Scientist at Social Shaping Research Cambridge Dave Randall is Senior Professor, University of Siegen, Germany Wes Sharrock is Professor at Manchester University

Reviews for Choice

In this excellent new book, Harper, Randall, and Sharrock offer a compelling criticism of scientific theories of human choice across a number of disciplines, from economics to socio-biology. The authors make a strong case for the view that human beings are considerably more rational than such accounts would have us think. In so doing, they give proponents of rational choice, nudge, and game theories much to worry about. This timely book is a must-read for anybody seeking a way through the conceptual entanglements we find ourselves in when attempting to explain human behaviour. Constantine Sandis, Oxford Brookes University