ABSTRACT
Rational choice sociologists as well as economists rushed in to show that indeed the rational choice approach was better able to handle the explanation of behavior under changing conditions. In political science, a very similar critique of rational choice models with regard to empirical import has recently been voiced by Green and Shapiro. The consequences of framing could be enormous for rational choice theory because it basically says that certain cost/benefit aspects are more or less screened out of the decision making context. John H. Goldthorpe agreed with a growing number of scholars who have argued that quantitative large-scale data analysis needs a theoretical approach able to deal with multiple constraints and that rational choice sociology is likely to be the most appropriate approach for the purpose. The chapter aims to focuses on two important classes of simplifications: simplification in the number of constraints; simplification in the kind of constraints considered.
