Signaling Goodness: Social Rules and Public Choice (Economics, Cognition, And Society)

A new approach to analyzing political and charitable behavior posits that morality significantly affects that behavior | Political, intellectual, and academic discourse in the United States has been awash in political correctness, which has itself been berated and defended — yet little understood. As a corrective, Nelson and Greene look at a more general process: adopting political positions to enhance one's reputation for trustworthiness both to others and to oneself. Phillip Nelson and Kenneth Greene are Professors of Economics in the Department of Economics at the State University of New York, Binghamton. As Alternative Explanations Of Public Choice, Neither Narrow Self-interest Nor Altruism Works Because Of The Free-rider Problem Involved In Large Group Decisions. Signaling Goodness Develops An Alternative Explanation - The Theory Of Asymmetric Goodness - That Successfully Predicts Both Political Behavior As Well As The Behavior Of Charity, The Traditional Bastion Of Altruistic Theorizing. The Authors Show, For Example, That The Main Conflicting Motivation Is Also A Reputational Return - Imitating The Behavior Of One's Close Friends And Associates To Signal Trustworthiness To Them. They Find That Those Who Have The Greatest Returns To Imitation Are Those Least Likely To Use Goodness Signaling.--book Jacket. Charity And Evolution -- Charity And Reciprocity -- Political Charity -- Political Positions And Imitative Behavior -- Goodness -- Activism -- A Study Of Political Positions -- The Growth Of Government -- Environmental Policy. Phillip J. Nelson And Kenneth V. Greene. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 241-251) And Index.