Sociality, Rationality, and the Ecology of Choice

This paper discusses the influence of human sociality on choice behavior, through association with social networks and the influence of these networks on constraints, perceptions, preferences, and decision-making processes. The paper discusses ways to incorporate these factors into choice models, while retaining the aspects of the theory of individual rationality that are predictive. Finally, the paper outlines an econometric method for solving the "reflection problem'' of determining whether social affiliations follow preferences, or preferences follow social affiliations, by distinguishing opportunity-based and preference-based motivations for association with social networks.