Robert H. Frank (1987), 'If Homo Economicus Could Choose His Own Utility Function, Would He Want One with a Conscience?', The American Economic Review, 77, pp. 593-604.

The rational choice model takes tastes as given,l and assumes that people pursue seHinterest. The model performs weIl much of the time, yet apparent contradictions abound. Travelers on interstate highways leave tips for waitresses they will never see again. Participants in bloody family feuds seek revenge even at ruinous cost to themselves. PeopIe walk away from profitable transactions whose terms they believe to be "unfair." The British spend vast sums to defend the desolate Falklands, even though they have little empire left against which to deter future aggression. In these and countless other ways, people do not seem to be maximizing utility functions of the usual sort.