LESSON 5: RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY
Activity 1: TRUE OR FALSE
Instruction: Read each statement carefully and determine if it’s true or false. Write T if the statement is true and F if the statement is false.

_______ 1. Rational choice theory when applied to economics means that people estimate the probable costs and benefits of any action before deciding what to do.
_______ 2. Rational choice theory when used as a political theory is built on the two-fold initial beliefs that states that individual behavior is the key to understanding the functioning of political institutions.
_______ 3. The beginnings of the foundations of rational choice can be traced during the Renaissance.
_______ 4. Thomas Hobbes, in his writing Leviathan (1651) tried to explain the basic functioning of political institutions through collective choices which came from universally held likes and dislikes.
_______ 5. Adam Smith introduced the idea of self-interest in having rational choice by asserting that “it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from the regard to their own interest.”
_______ 6. George Homans was credited for establishing the rational choice on Political Science.
_______7. Utility maximization as one of the key concepts in Rational Choice Theory states that patterns of behavior in societies is characterized by minimization of benefits and maximization of costs.
______ 8. Structure of preferences refers to the idea that people are motivated by their personal desires and aspirations, but since it is not possible for them to attain all the things that they want, they must make choices related to their goals and means of attaining those goals.
______ 9. Decision making under condition of uncertainty means that individual takes full advantage of the likely worth of his own pay off.
______10. Centrality of individuals in the explanation of group outcomes means that it is by reference to the maximizing of group actions that individual outcomes must be explained.
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