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28 J. Conflict Resol. 3 (1984)

handle is hein.journals/jcfltr28 and id is 1 raw text is: Beyond Economic Man ALTRUISM, EGALITARIANISM, AND DIFFERENCE MAXIMIZING NORMAN FROHLICH Department of Public Policy University of Manitoba JOE OPPENHEIMER Department of Government and Politics University of Maryland with PAT BOND IRVIN BOSCHMAN The existence and prevalence of behavior inconsistent with economists' definition of self-interest is measured in an experimental context. Experimental situations involving choices with monetary payoffs are designed to induce preferences. The subjects'behaviors are used to measure the existence and intensity of various forms of motivation based on interactive preference functions. Explicitly, we test for altruistic, egalitarian, and difference maximizing behaviors. Attempts to explain the nonself-interested choices by psychological and ideological constructs are not successful but statistical relationships between these choices and partisan political preferences are found. Economic man is rational and self-interested. From at least the time of Adam Smith and his Wealth of Nations, these two fundamental behavioral assumptions have formed the twin pillars upon which modern microeconomic analysis has been built. Indeed the assumptions are so entrenched in the minds of economists that they are often implicitly assumed to be a single assumption. Of course they are not. 1. The designation man is generic here: it is worth noting that economics has a long history of attributing rationalit\ to both sexes. AUTHORS' NOTE: We thank John Atwell, Gary Miller, Cheryl Eavy, and Ellie Tragakis who were instrumental in early discussions on the structure of the experiment. We are also grateful for Morris Fiorina's, Dennis M ueller's. and Fred Thompson's helpful criticisms of drafts of this article. Leigh Quesnel and Melanie Chan helped in the data JOUsRNAI- OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION. Vol. 28 No i, March 1984 3-24 0 1984 Sage Publi1con.. Inc. from the SAGE Social Science Collections. All Rights Reserved.

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