ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces rational choice and game theory by analyzing how couples co-ordinated their decisions. It looks at examples of interviewees describing the problems of co-ordination as they arise in their lives and how they “solve” them. The chapter shows that their versions of decisions refer to “bargaining” and “pay-offs” in terms that sound like those of the theory, but that these are considerably modified by other discourses, which do much to transform the apparent adoption of the model. Game theory seems to be offering us an elegant and persuasive way of formulating the kinds of decisions being described in the interviews with these couples.
