On socially influenced preferences — Chris Dillow

So much for rational agency based on autonomous preferences as viable assumption for a realistic economics. The world in which we live is socially constructed, which is hardly surprising since humans are social animals (homo socialis) more than economic animals (homo economicus). Most are crowd-followers behaving endogenously within the social system they inhabit rather than exogenous agents acting independently of the social system.

Stumbling and Mumbling
On socially influenced preferences
Chris Dillow, Investors Chronicle

See also

Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science
The fallacy of the excluded rationality
Andrew Gelman | Professor of Statistics and Political Science and Director of the Applied Statistics Center, Columbia University

ABC News (AU)
Could the science of kindness make the world a better place?

David Sloan Wilson | SUNY Distinguished Professor of Biology and Anthropology at Binghamton University and Arne Næss Chair in Global Justice and the Environment at the University of Oslo