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

Richard Wilkinson: How economic inequality harms societies (TED)

Richard Wilkinson: How economic inequality harms societies

(h/t Dan Lynch in the comments)

Wild! The US is off the charts — in the wrong way.

"If Americans want to live the American dream, they should go to Denmark."

"General social dysfunction is related proportionately to inequality." 

The data is rather shocking. But the causality involved, which Wilkinson elaborares at the end, is encouraging. Inequality is not only correlated with social and psychological dysfunction, it is found to be a cause of it.

Decreasing inequality within a group improves social and psychological functioning. This provides a strong argument for adopting progressive social, political and economic principles for achieving the good society.