IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/pophec/v3y2004i1p37-57.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Towards the Unity of the Human Behavioral Sciences

Author

Listed:
  • Herbert Gintis

Abstract

Despite their distinct objects of study, the human behavioral sciences all include models of individual human behavior. Unity in the behavioral sciences requires that there be a common underlying model of individual human behavior, specialized and enriched to meet the particular needs of each discipline. Such unity does not exist, and cannot be easily attained, since the various disciplines have incompatible models and disparate research methodologies. Yet recent theoretical and empirical developments have created the conditions for unity in the behavioral sciences, incorporating core principles from all fields, and based upon theoretical tools (game theory and the rational actor model) and data gathering techniques (experimental games in the laboratory and field) that transcend disciplinary boundaries. This article sketches a set of principles aimed at fostering such a unity.

Suggested Citation

  • Herbert Gintis, 2004. "Towards the Unity of the Human Behavioral Sciences," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 3(1), pages 37-57, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:pophec:v:3:y:2004:i:1:p:37-57
    DOI: 10.1177/1470594X04040188
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1470594X04040188
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1470594X04040188?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bruno Frey & Silke Humbert & Friedrich Schneider, 2010. "What is economics? Attitudes and views of German economists," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(3), pages 317-332.
    2. Robert Axtell, 2007. "What economic agents do: How cognition and interaction lead to emergence and complexity," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 20(2), pages 105-122, September.
    3. Serge Blondel & Ngoc-Thao Noet, 2023. "Quels facteurs expliquent la faible coopération en horticulture ?," TEPP Research Report 2023-01, TEPP.
    4. Dennis C. Mueller, 2006. "Democracy, Rationality and Morality," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2006-15, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.
    5. Katrine Soma & Benson Obwanga & Charles Mbauni Kanyuguto, 2021. "A New Rural-Urban Fish Food System Was Established in Kenya–Learning from Best Practices," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-14, June.
    6. Tom R. Burns & Ewa Roszkowska & Nora Machado Des Johansson & Ugo Corte, 2018. "Paradigm Shift in Game Theory: Sociological Re-Conceptualization of Human Agency, Social Structure, and Agents’ Cognitive-Normative Frameworks and Action Determination Modalities," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 7(3), pages 1-40, March.
    7. Tapia, Carlos & Coulton, Jeff & Saydam, Serkan, 2020. "Using entropy to assess dynamic behaviour of long-term copper price," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    8. D.Ross, 2006. "Moral fictionalism, preference moralization and anti-conservatism: why metaethical error theory doesn't imply policy quietism," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2006-16, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.
    9. Georg D. Blind & Raji Steineck, 2021. "The missing piece in E. Cassirer’s theory of symbolic forms: the economy," Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 291-315, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:pophec:v:3:y:2004:i:1:p:37-57. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.