'WHAT ARE THE MAIN STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF THE RATIONAL CHOICE APPROACH TO RELIGIOUS
BEHAVIOUR?'
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1) G. Becker, 1986, 'The economic approach to human behaviour', pp. 108-22 in J. Elster
(ed.), Rational Choice. Oxford: Blackwell.
2) L. Iannaccone, 1990, 'Religious practice: a human capital approach', Journal for the
Scientific Study of Religion, 29: 297-314.
3) S. Bruce, 'Religion and rational choice: a critique of economic explanations of
religious behaviour', Sociology of Religion, 54: 193-205.
4) H. Bredemeier, 1978, 'Exchange theory', pp. 420-56 in T. Bottomore and R. Nisbet
(eds), A History of Sociological Thought. New York: Basic Books.
5) Lecture Notes.
6) J. Sloman, 1996, Economics. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
One of the pioneers of the rational choice theory has been Gary Becker. He states that
this approach can be applied to all human behaviour, including religion. This approach
has three assumptions. It assumes that people engage in maximising behaviour. When
applying this approach to religion we are not concerned with money. We are concerned
with the maximisation of personal benefits. When we make a decision we weigh up the
costs and benefits and choose the option which offers the most benefit. Secondly, there
are 'markets that with varying degrees of efficiency allow the actions of different
participants to function together efficiently.' Thirdly, prices and other market
functions can affect demand and supply, controlling desires and affecting the actions of
consumers. Becker explains that price is not described in money terms but as a shadow
price. For example, muslims cannot drink alcohol.
This approach involves four theorems. Firstly, a rise in price reduces the quantity
demanded. The example he gives is if people have to put more time and effort into having
children then less people will do so. Secondly, a rise in price increases the quantity
supplied, the example given is women in the labour market. Thirdly, competitive markets
are more efficient then monopolistic markets and lead to the diversity of a product.
Fourthly, a tax on the output of a market reduces that output eg the punishment of
criminals is a tax on crime.
Finke and Iannaccone have applied this theory to religious behaviour and understand that
the high degree of religion in America is attributed to the existence of a free market
and therefore competition and diversification in religion. Finke argues that in a free
market start up costs are low and this leads to new ideas and more diversity and
therefore more chance of everyone finding a religion they like. Also in a competitive
free market earning a living acts as an incentive to clergy to work harder and try to
tailor their religion to suit the demands of the consumer. He also suggests that state
monopolies are less efficient in the absence of competition and believes that state
churches would therefore allow high costs.
Bruce highlights some weaknesses of this theory. He states that the early Christian
church had very high startup costs eg persecution and this did not prevent the
recruitment of new followers. On the other hand, according to the maximisation theory,
the benefits must have outweighed the cost of the threat of persecution or no-one would
have joined. Bruce criticises the theorem that inefficiency exists in the absence of
competition by pointing out that the Roman Catholic Church is a state supported monopoly
in many countries and a hegemony in others yet it has been very efficient. Also, Roman
Catholic success is not a result of a free market as it has done well in Poland and the
Republic of Ireland where there is almost no competition. Bruce also states that as
people moved away from the national church and competition increased in the middle ages,
people became more invloved in religion. This suggests that competition does lead to
religion but the free market model does not explain the decline in involvement in
religion from the start of the century. Maybe this decline can be best described by the
sociological theory of secularisation. Perhaps people feel that the costs of religion
and the restrictions it imposes on their lifestyles outweigh the benefits or that
religion would not benefit them at all.
Iannaccone believes that economics can explain known facts about individual decision
making with regards to religious behaviour. He believes economics can explain facts
about denominational mobility, typical age of converts, typical patterns of
inter-religious marriage and participation levels found in different marriages.
The majority of Americans remain in the churches they were raised in and return to them
if they drift away. If they do move it is likely to be to a similar church. Iannaccone
explains these facts with reference to investment ie people have already spent a great
deal of time and effort in their religion and to move to a new religion requires new
investment and initial investment is wasted. Bruce suggests an alternative explanation
would be that beliefs 'sediment', effecting our response to alternatives. He explains
that beliefs which seem more plausible to us are beliefs which accord with residues of
earlier stages of belief.
The human capital model predicts religious switching will occur early in the life cycle
as people search for the best match between their skills and the context in which they
produce religious commodities. Over time diminishing marginal utility will occur ie
gains from further switching will dimiinish as the potential for improvement decreases
and the years left during which they can capitalise on that improvement decrease. Bruce
suggests that socialisation with like-minded believers and how much of a satisfactory
explanation of the world and our place in it is given is likey to increase plausibility
over time and that there is no need for reference to economics.
Iannaccone states that households peactice their beliefs more efficiently when husband
and wife belong to the same religion. He believes they benefit from economies of scale
as they can take the same car to church and avoid disputes over whcih religion the
children are to practice etc. He states this is why tend to marry within the same
denomination. Bruce suggests that an alternative explanation would be that the church is
a place where people with similar backgrounds and beliefs come together. He also argues
that the strength of a persons belief is reinforced by social interaction. Therefore a
husband and wife reinforce each others beliefs and encourage church attendance. Also
Iannaccone shows a correlation between couples sharing the same faith and being more than
averagelt involved in their religion but his data does not show which causes which. It
also seems likely that people who are highly committed to their religion will want to
marry someone of the same faith.
Bruce argues that there is a degree of indeterminacy in the economc approach and gives
the example of the low start-up costs controversy explained above. He states that there
can not be any way of proving the utility maximisation theory false because utility is a
matter of social construction which is interpreted in different ways by different people.
What is a cost to one person could be a benefit to another. The only way to identify
what are costs and what are benefits is to look at the choices themselves. It is these
choices that we wish to explain so we seem to be going round in circles.
Another weakness highlighted by Bruce is that economising requires the ability to choose
between items that are comparable. he argues if religion is not comparable on some scale
then how can we decide which choices will maximise our utility? He argues that religions
cannot be alternatives to each other in the sense that material goods are as religions
demand and mostly achieve the complete faith of their followers. With the exception of
Buddhism and modern liberal protestantism the great religions claim unique salvational
truth. Other religions cannot be regarded as alternatives. On the other hand you have
to choose the religion in the first place.
A second requirement of economising is pricing. This is a neautral way of comparing
costs, this is absent from the application of the economic approach to religious
behaviour. Costs differ between people. On the other hand Iannoccone does not talk of
price in money terms but in shadow price. Bruce argues that time for exampple cannot be
used as a shadow price as the cost of the time spent on one persons religion does not
equal another persons.
There are cultural constraints on supply ie norms. Demand can have an effect on supply
such that popularity can influence the recruitment of candidates for the ministry.
However there are cultural constraints on what churches can do to become more popular.
They cannot change there religion to meet popularity. Religious failures can attribute
their failings as the 'price' of ideological purity. On the other hand, churches can
tailor their religion to meet demand in other ways eg the introduction of the nine
o'clock service.
There are also cultural constraints on consumers, that is there exist a number of norms
that constrain religious choice. For example, in a racially divided society the
introduction of new black churches does not effect the choice of white people as a result
of the social 'norm' of racial segregation. But can this not be interpreted by the
weighing up of the costs and benefits of breaking norms? Here the costs certainly
outweigh the benefits.
Elster (1986:17) believes rational choice theory fails because it cannot tell us what
rationality requires. He believes rational choice theory depends on us knowing what the
rational choice is. In this way the economic model is not a good model for making
predictions concerning overall religious behaviour but it still provides a good
explanation of religious behaviour. I believe the word in itself tells us what
rationality requires. Rationality is an act of reasoning and this is a very personal
thing. When making decisions we reason as to what would be the best course of action for
us ie the choice which maximises our satisfaction. People tailor their religions to meet
the demands of their unique lifestyles. This points to the obvious fact that there can
be no one simple explanation for an individuals choice of religion as we are all so very
diffeerent.
Bruce argues that we cannot talk of religion as we do commodities. He states that
people in the modern world are not consumerist and those who do change their religion
hope for and normally form an enduring attachment closer to tradition than rationality.
He argues that only in a thoroughly secular society would religion be a commodity
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