ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that in terms of the path forward when thinking about what might make rational choice scholarship in the social sciences more productive, and what rational choice scholars might contribute to those who are engaged in trying to understand the social world. It is concerned with a systematic lack of attention to alternative hypotheses and a general tendency to search for confirming illustrations of the theory rather than any systematic attempt to test it. The chapter explains scholars should indeed think of strategic maximization in combination with other variables when accounting for the variation of outcomes, rather than trying to get rational choice theory to explain all of the variance. It shows that scholars should think about the conditions under which rational choice explanations are likely to do better or worse in the empirical world.
