Indivíduos e comportamento: aspectos cognitivos, institucionais e identidades sociais

Abstract

The study of individuals and behavior is not new in Economics and crosses different schools of thought. Approaches that reinforce the criticisms of Neoclassical traditional conceptions of isolated and cognitively perfect individual bring contributions from other sciences, such as Psychology, Sociology and Philosophy. By analyzing the behavior, you need to consider the elements that make up individuals: cognition - the processes of the human mind - and institutions - the instincts and habits. So, how to build an analytical base that considers individuals and behavior from both cognitive and institutional? Thus, the aim of this study is to propose an analytical base that unifies the cognitive and institutional aspects of the study of individuals and behavior. The specific objectives are developed respectively in three chapters: i) to address the cognitive aspects of individual behavior through the contributions of Simon s bounded rationality, the dual cognitive processes (intuition and deliberation) and heuristics of Kahneman; ii) to present the institutional aspects of the behavior of individuals through Veblenian approach; iii) to indicate the concept of Davis s social identity as a way to unify the cognitive and institutional aspects of the study of individuals and behavior. The proposal to unify the cognitive and institutional dimensions can be represented by the concept of Davis s social identities, since this includes personal and individual identities. Similarly that the social identities maintain the idea of individuals with own personalities, they also consider people as outgoing humans, who have their individual belief inserted in a social environment. That is, through social identities are connected both cognitive and institutional aspects that make up individuals.