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Notes about research methodology

The Rational Actor Model

Many social sciences use a model of “rational actors” that completely think through options and make decisions consistent with their preferences. This model of human decision making is particularly prevalent in the field of economics, where it underlies most of the results and thinking. However, many other social scientists strongly dislike this model of decision making, arguing that it is has unrealistic expectations on humans and is demonstrably false. What follows is some of my thoughts about the utility and usefulness of the rational actor model of human decision making. As a theory of human decision making, the rational actor model is certainly not perfect. It does not explain how decisions are made, and it doesn’t accurately describe all human decisions. However, it is a very useful model of behavior because it provides strong and simple guidance on how to think through decisions in a way that provides reasonable and relatively accurate predictions about complicated human behaviors.

2009 12 21 rwash Comments (0)

Outcomes of Social Media

A lot of my research can be seen as look at the effects of various types of technical interventions on social media systems.   I change something about a social media system, and I look to see how people act differently.  There are many different ways of trying to predict what will happen, but in [...]

2009 11 20 rwash Big Thoughts Comments (0)

Data as Science

Recently there has been speculation that the rise in computation power will put us scientists out of business, or at least seriously change our business.   Chris Anderson has probably the most extreme view with his End of Theory article.  A more reasonable approach is the Risk of the Data Scientist by Nathan Yau.  The [...]

2009 07 13 rwash Big Thoughts Comments (0)