| In this small but ambitious book, his first to appear in English, Moessinger aims at strengthening the foundation of the social sciences with hypotheses about human conduct, drawn from his training as a social psychologist. What he proposes offers a better account of what we know than the rational choice models drawn from economics -- models that are simply taken for granted by those who adopt them. Instead the author stresses in this work the ubiquity of nonrational conduct, showing that the more closely one examines individual conduct, the further it appears to be from the rational choice model. His argument, developed in part through a critical examination of the ideas of the major thinkers who formulated and expounded rational choice models, is that the stability of social structures emerges from nonrational individual conduct. Intimately linked, social order and individual nonrationality together make up a whole. Thus the epistemological underpinnings of social science require a larger role for psychology, which helps to make sense of the elements of disorder -- the interpersonal imbalances, the confusion of minds, the nonrationality of individual conduct -- in the social equilibrium. Dr. Moessinger's critique of rational choice theory and theorists, such as Becker, Hayek, and Popper, will be useful in courses adopting that model and in methods courses in both sociology and social psychology. CONTENTS Preface · Acknowledgments · 1. Rational Choice and Rationality · 2. A Quest for Coherence · 3. Internal Disorder: Subselves and Multiple Personalities · 4. Social Order and Disorder · References · Index | 
