Choice and Emotion in Comparison Theory

Guillermina Jasso

Rationality and Society, 1993, vol. 5, issue 2, 231-274

Abstract: This article examines the part played by choice and emotion in comparison processes, processes that lead to such phenomena as happiness, self-esteem, relative deprivation, and distributive justice. It begins with a systematic look at all the points in a comparison process where choice and emotion occur and proceeds to link the concepts and equations of comparison theory to three important choice and emotion phenomena: framing, emotion management, and emotion display. The article presents four illustrations that, among other things, show how the combination of comparison theory and rational action theory predicts the framing effects documented by Tversky and Kahneman and predicts as well interruptions in small groups and a variety of gift and bequest behaviors. The analysis highlights several important features of the operation of choice and emotion in comparison theory. First, except for the mathematical formula that combines the actual holding and the comparison holding of a good or bad to produce the comparison outcome, all aspects of comparison processes are, at least in part, subject to choice. Second, the choices that individuals make, taking account of the production rules for the comparison outcomes, shape not only their own but also others' emotions. Third, the choices made in emotion display and in own/other emotion management serve a variety of goals, altruistic as well as selfish. More broadly, this work suggests that both choice and emotion play important parts in human behavior; scientific accounts that exclude one or the other are incomplete. The task ahead is to identify and isolate choice elements and emotion elements in the operation of basic forces and in the determination of observable phenomena.

Date: 1993
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:5:y:1993:i:2:p:231-274

DOI: 10.1177/1043463193005002006

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