Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- PART I BREAKDOWNS OF WILL: THE PUZZLE OF AKRASIA
- Part II A BREAKDOWN OF THE WILL: THE COMPONENTS OF INTERTEMPORAL BARGAINING
- 5 The Elementary Interaction of Interests
- 6 Sophisticated Bargaining among Internal Interests
- 7 The Subjective Experience of Intertemporal Bargaining
- 8 Getting Evidence about a Nonlinear Motivational System
- PART III THE ULTIMATE BREAKDOWN OF WILL: NOTHING FAILS LIKE SUCCESS
- Notes
- References
- Name Index
- Subject Index
8 - Getting Evidence about a Nonlinear Motivational System
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- PART I BREAKDOWNS OF WILL: THE PUZZLE OF AKRASIA
- Part II A BREAKDOWN OF THE WILL: THE COMPONENTS OF INTERTEMPORAL BARGAINING
- 5 The Elementary Interaction of Interests
- 6 Sophisticated Bargaining among Internal Interests
- 7 The Subjective Experience of Intertemporal Bargaining
- 8 Getting Evidence about a Nonlinear Motivational System
- PART III THE ULTIMATE BREAKDOWN OF WILL: NOTHING FAILS LIKE SUCCESS
- Notes
- References
- Name Index
- Subject Index
Summary
Motivational theory hasn't paid much attention to recursive decision making, possibly because it's hard to study by controlled methods. If a phenomenon is determined by the interaction of A and B, then studying the influence of each while the other is held constant won't reveal the outcome. People who demand to know the causes of behavior will be unhappy with a recursive theory, one that says that the sum of individual causes explains little – that outcomes aren't proportional to any input or mixture of inputs, but to the volatile results of their interaction.
However, analysis of recursive decision making should greatly broaden the field that can be studied. That's what happened in economics when analysts moved beyond behaviors that were continuous functions of other variables and began studying decisions as the outcomes of bargaining games. However difficult it is to study nonlinear systems, such systems probably determine the most important features of choice. As one chaos theorist remarked, “nonlinear systems” may be about as extensive as “non-elephant biology.”
The best way to study recursive systems is to compare what is known about their behavior with models built of specified mechanisms. Direct experimentation may help, but only in verifying the operation of particular mechanisms. In the case of the will, as with the economy, parts that can be controlled are inseparable from a larger whole that's too complex and weighty to be controlled.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Breakdown of Will , pp. 117 - 140Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001