SUBJECTIVE RATIONALITY OF INITIATORS AND OF THRESHOLD-THEORETICAL BEHAVIOR OF FOLLOWERS IN COLLECTIVE ACTION

Abstract

This article brings a rational-choice perspective to bear on (1) some utility characteristics of people who initiate collective action and (2) reasons why such initiators' actions induce followers who appear to act according to the threshold theory described by Granovetter. This article also identifies certain personality/psychological factors and their interactions with individual costs/benefits of alternative choices that determine (1) the relative utility of taking Action versus Non-action and (2) individual thresholds of choosing Action. Among personality/psychological factors, this article examines the effect of uncertainty preference, susceptibility to rumor or prophecy, and personal efficacy. Certain parametric non-expected utility models and a binary choice model are used to accommodate those factors into a rational-choice framework. Three examples, including two situations of collective action, are discussed. One is a case of Mertonian self-fulfilling prophecy where the initially groundless rumor of a bank's insolvency causes bankruptcy. The second is a case of participation in a risky social/political movement. As a third example, the famous Allais paradox is revisited to show how the parametric non-expected utility models employed provide a rational explanation for this empirically observed paradox.