Why are social rules seen as problematic?
Anthropologists, economists (e.g., in game theory or rational choice models), and sociologists pay great attention to social norms and rules, both in terms of what people say and what they do, which are often discrepant (as may be the case as well with legal norms vs. actual behavior). Individual preferences and social “rules,” when put into practice, are subject to real-world constraints, unlike idealized subjective statements of norms. This study questions the validity of a common habit of social science studies: to take the raw frequencies of behavior as the relevant evidence for inferring rules or preferences. Looking at what people do, is it even possible, in principle, to find evidence of rules or preferences? The answer being: yes, insofar as we take constraints into account, behavior that follows rules or preferences can be inferred if (1) it departs from what would be expected from “random” behavior under given similar constraints (in this case not only demographic but also le
