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Journal
of
Economic Psychology 9 (1988)
125-150
North-Holland
125
NORMATIVE-AFFECTIVE FACTORSTOWARD
A
NEW DECISION-MAKING
MODEL
*
Amitai
ETZIONI
Harvard University, Cambridge,
USA
Received June
4,
1987; accepted November
24,
1987The author
outlines
a radically dfferent decision-making model
form
the one widely
used
in
Economics and
in
Psychology. Accordingly, most choices are made
on
the basis of emotionalinvolvements and value commitments. Information processing is often excluded. In other areas ofchoices, emotions and values allow for some subsets of options to be rationally considered but‘color’ them and/or short cut the deliberations.
In
a still other subset emotion/values
require
rational decision-malung. Emotions and values are not necessarily disruptive; they have positivefunctions. Cognitivists’ objections to the concept
of
emotions are responded to. Problems
of
operationalization are raised. The question, if the concepts of emotions and values can beincorporated into the neoclassical paradigm, is explored.
1.
Normative-affective
persons
Intellectual circles in Europe were preoccupied for more than acentury shadow boxing with the ghost
of
Karl
Marx, trying again andagain to show that history is not dominated by economic or materialis-tic factors, that ideas matter. Similarly, social scientists and attendingintellectuals, on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, have been preoc-cupied
-
and still are
-
with extolling, questioning, and attempting toshore up the notion of Rational Man (or
homoeconomicus).
Indeed,even those who challenge this notion, often define their position in
*
For
a more extensive treatment of this subject, see Etzioni (1988).Professor Etzioni
is
visiting professor at Harvard University.Requests
for
reprints should be sent to A. Etzioni, George Washington University, MelvinGelman Library, Washington,
DC
20052,
USA.
0167-4870/88/$3.50
0
988, Elsevier Science Publishers
B.V.
(North-Holland)
 
126
A.
Etzioni
/
Nonnative-affective actors
terms of various deviations from the rational model. This is evident inthe frequent reference to their concepts as dealing with a residue realm,the
'
nonrational', rather than some category that may itself be posi-tively defined. Moreover, nonrationality is often confused with irration-ality and tends to carry a negative connotation. 'The trouble is thatonce one starts to talk about rationality, it preempts the way weorganize our views of human thought and behavior. We tend to thinkalways in terms of default from a standard..
.
(Abelson 1976: 61).Here an attempt is made to follow those who break out
of
therationalist framework, by positing a different view
of
human nature, aconcept
of
individuals governed by normative commitments and affec-tive involvements, by normative/ affective (N/A) factors. The centralthesis advanced here is that the majority of choices people make,including economic ones, are completely or largely based onnormative-affective considerations not merely with regard
to
selectionof goals but also
of
means, and that the limited zones
in
which other,logical-empirical
(L/E),
considerations are paramount, are themselvesdefined by
N/A
factors that legitimate and otherwise motivate suchdecision-making. Logical-empirical decisions are based on inferencesand facts, a very widely used definition of rational decision-making.For additional discussion, see (Etzioni 1986a). Normative-affectivefactors are subject to logical-empirical research by observers, but thoseactors who make them draw on value-commitments and emotionalinvolvements, not information or reason. Many decisions are based ona combination
of
N/A and
L/E,
but the categories per se are clearlydistinct
.
One of the virtues
of
the neoclassical paradigm is that it provides aclear, concise, and simple conception
of
the human nature it pre-supposes. Many
of
the social scientists who showed that this concept isextremely unrealistic and sought to posit an alternate view, run intodifficulties because the concept they advanced has been complex andfuzzy, because they enriched the basic concept with numerous qualifi-cations and empirical observations. Here an attempt is made to providea parsimonious conception, although admittedly it is not as simple asthe notion of a rational utility-maximizing individual, a notion whoseexcessive simplicity one may well not seektomatch (Hirschman 1984:
11).
The concept of normative-affective actors, whose choices aredominated by values and emotions, is an ideal type, a baseline concept.Once it is introduced, there is room to discuss the conditions under
 
A.
Etzioni
/
Normative-aflective factors
127
which behavior deviates from this basic concept. Neoclassicaleconomists often referred
to
theorems about rational utility maximizersas
akin
to theorems about a frictionless slope (albeit, as a rule, they donot discuss the corrections the friction factor requires). The concept ofnormative-affective actors is our frictionless slope; friction is intro-duced later. Or, to push the point, since actors are viewed here astypically
highly
inefficient from the viewpoint of instrumental rational-ity (defined below), although not as ineffectual persons, the baselineused here might be viewed as
100
percent friction; the corrections to beintroduced later concern those factors that alleviate friction.
N/A
factors thus provide the context within which
L/E
considerations findtheir place.In keeping with the preliminary approach, only the barest outline ofthe conception is provided; findings are cited merely as illustrationswithout
any
attempt to provide one more review
of
the literature.Only immoderate rationalists deny the role
of
normative-affectivefactors in the selection of goals or utilities. The
main
bone of conten-tion is the role of normative-affective factors in the selection
of
means.One cannot argue about tastes, preferences, or values, runs a typicalneoclassical argument (Stigler and Becker
1977:
76). The desire to buydeodorants is not more ‘rational’ (or, irrational) than the desire to buybread (let alone, white bread). The question is, we are told, whether ornot, given two comparable
(‘
homogeneous’) deodorants (or two indis-tinguishable breads), but one less costly than the other, the consumerwill purchase the less costly one? That is, rationality enters when wecome to the choice of means. The position advanced here is that
normative-affective factors shape to a significant extent decision-making,to the extent it takes place, the information gathered, the ways it
is
processed, the inferences that are drawn, the options that are beingconsidered, and those that are final& chosen.
That is, to a significantextent, cognition, inference, and judgment are not logical-empiricalendeavors but governed by normative-affective (noncognitive) factors,reflecting individual, psycho-dynamic and, we shall see, collectiveprocesses. For instance,
N/A
factors determine to a considerableextent on which sources of information people draw (for example,whether or not they read newspapers or watch
TV,
nd what theywatch
-
news, sports, or soap operas), how they interpret what theysee, and what they believe they ought
to
infer from what they believedthey have learned about the situation at hand.
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