Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference FalsificationPreference falsification, according to the economist Timur Kuran, is the act of misrepresenting one's wants under perceived social pressures. It happens frequently in everyday life, such as when we tell the host of a dinner party that we are enjoying the food when we actually find it bland. In Private Truths, Public Lies Kuran argues convincingly that the phenomenon not only is ubiquitous but has huge social and political consequences. Drawing on diverse intellectual traditions, including those rooted in economics, psychology, sociology, and political science, Kuran provides a unified theory of how preference falsification shapes collective decisions, orients structural change, sustains social stability, distorts human knowledge, and conceals political possibilities. |
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... individual's influence on social outcomes , because preference falsifi- cation is an individual act . The mechanisms by which the social effects of preference falsification shape individuals will become easier to un- derstand once the ...
... individual's suscep- tibility to social pressure and the satisfaction he derives from truth- fulness . To treat a variable as given is not to assume , of course , that it cannot differ from individual to individual . People may bring to ...
... individual choices less important than the constraints within which choices are made . People's important decisions ... individual decisions to say " enough . " By the same token , individual choice does not have abso- lute priority ...
Contents
Collective Conservatism | 105 |
The Obstinacy of Communism | 118 |
The Ominous Perseverance of the Caste System | 128 |
Copyright | |
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