Some years ago, my colleague and cycling friend Dr. Edward Morey and I had many stimulating conversations about various aspects of animal behavior including decision-making, and whether or not nonhuman animals (animals) usually made the best decisions for their own well-being. I remember saying that I thought so, and there was no reason to think they didn't, at least most of the time. Edward explained to me that he had been interested in questions like this for many years and was writing a book about this and other aspects of decision-making in humans and other animals. Every now and again, some of the questions about which we spoke resurfaced for me, and now that his extremely interesting and important book Deconstructing Behavior, Choice, and Well-Being: Neoclassical Choice Theory and Welfare Economics has been published, I'm pleased Edward could take the time to answer a few questions about it.1
MB: Why did you write Deconstructing Behavior, Choice, and Well-Being?
Edward Morey: Anxiety, fear, and a lifelong interest in modeling behavior. I've spent 40 years modeling it: teaching and researching choice. My niche included applied choice theory, welfare economics, and valuing things not directly bought or sold, for example, environmental improvements and degradations.
The adventure included litigation: estimating monetary damages from environmental injuries caused by corporations. This required an ability to defend, in court, my behavioral assumptions. Because I am anxious and hyper-vigilant, I allocated thousands of hours—a mistake?—to keep that wolf at bay: agonizing about defending my assumptions against assaults from opposing economists and lawyers.
The ordeal led me—I was hesitant—on a second adventure: investigating research on behavior and choice in philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, animal behavior, and behavioral economics. This book is what I have learned and concluded about behavior and how economists model it.
MB: How does your book relate to your background and general areas of interest?
EM: I was trained in and applied neoclassical choice theory: behavior is predicted by assuming the individual is always choosing their best available path forward—you do what is best for you, given your constraints. A model with a long history, a model that non-economists dismiss. The theory is being assaulted by psychologists and behavioral economists. Behavioral economics did not exist when I was a kid, and few psychologists were interested in economic models of behavior—many still aren't—but should be?
MB: Who do you hope to reach in your interesting and important book?
EM: Economists and students of economics interested in behavior who want to deconstruct their behavioral assumptions by comparing them to those in other fields. Another group is other students of choice and behavior (psychologists, neuroscientists, and philosophers) who want to better understand how other fields, including economics, model behavior. I also would like to reach welfare economists, who want to understand why most others reject this ethic, and ethicists who want to better understand welfare economics (policies and actions should be judged right or wrong based solely on their effect on aggregate well-being). I contrast welfare economics with virtue ethics, Kantian ethics, Mill's Liberalism, and Buddhism.
MB: What are some of the major topics you consider students of psychology and animal behavior would find of interest.
EM: Unlike most economists, I view humans as animals and all of us as products of evolution; human behavior is a type of animal behavior. We are more similar in cognition and emotions than many would like to think. For example, animals can be more patient than small children. How patient is an octopus?
Well-being, or WB, and its determinants are discussed, including the limited role of income. I distinguish between emotional WB, life-satisfaction WB, and pleasure. Happiness is a type of emotional WB. Particular attention is paid to relative-position effects (relative income, social status, and comparison of skills and abilities).
Marc, we both are fascinated by emotions, human and animal. For me, to explain behavior (e.g., emotional-specific preferences) and how emotions influence WB—is WB simply a mix of certain emotions?
The difference between "wants/desires" and "likes" (what increases your WB) is critical. The research in psychology and neurology is evaluated. The issue is to what degree you will like what you desire and desire what you will like. The neurologist Kent Berridge's lab has made fundamental advances.
While I am not a psychologist or behavioral economist, I critique the research on behavioral quirks (endowment effects, duration bias, emotional empathy gaps). Many psychologists and behavioral economists consider these nails in the coffin of economic models of choice, but it is not that simple. Can neoclassical choice theory wiggle its way out of the coffin?
The effects of cues on behavior: While they have a long history in psychology, their consideration in economics is recent. [There are controversies regarding research methods.]
Also critical is the distinction between behaviors and chosen behaviors (choices). Economists call their models of behavior "choice models," choices being chosen behaviors. Psychologists and animal behaviorists stick more with the adjective "behavior", raising the question of what is a choice and who makes choices—if anyone.
Choice requires free will, and there is a continuum of free-will definitions. I suggest that humans have free will in a weak sense, no more than worms. Human choice is not more or less than animal choice. Psychologists distinguish between conscious choice and unconscious choice. Economists don't sweat this distinction. Should they? I critique psychological and neurological literature on the extent to which behaviors are consciously chosen.
MB: How does your book differ from others that are concerned with some of the same general topics?
EM: While there are books and reviews on specific topics, for better or worse, few fools have dared to be as comprehensive.
MB: Are you hopeful that as people learn more about decision-making, they will pay more attention to what it means for their everyday/ behavior?
EM: Moderately. Hopefully, the advances in behavioral modeling and the science of WB will help people increase their WB and the WB of others. For example, knowing that I suffer from emotional-dependent preferences and duration bias (WB shifts don't last as long as you think they will) has increased my WB. While mine is not a self-help book, the research has increased my WB, and I'm upbeat about it helping others. A concern is relative-position effects (your WB depends on you being better than me). We all can't be higher up the ladder.
References
In conversation with Dr. Edward Morey, Professor Emeritus at the University of Colorado, Boulder. His research has centered on modeling and estimating individual behavior.
1) Part of the book's description reads: Neoclassical economists assume that people act to maximize their well-being: they choose based on their desires and only desire what they will like. Neuroscientists and psychologists disagree. Their research demonstrates that cues and evolutionary quirks cause people to act against their best interests, even choosing alternatives they will not like. In this book, Edward R. Morey contrasts neoclassical choice theory with behavioral models and findings in psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and animal behavior. The book addresses the fundamental idea within economics that behaviors are chosen, and it explains why other disciplines disagree. The chapters touch on modeling behavior, judging behavior, and policies.
Deconstructing Behavior, Choice, and Well-being: Neoclassical Choice Theory and Welfare Economics.
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