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Getting past “rational man/emotional woman”: comments on research programs in happiness economics and interpersonal relations

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Abstract

Orthodox neoclassical economics portrays reason as far more important than emotion, autonomy as more characteristic of economic life than social connection, and, more generally, things culturally and cognitively associated with masculinity as more central than things associated with femininity. Research from contemporary neuroscience suggests that such biases are related to certain automatic processes in the brain, and feminist scholarship suggests ways of getting beyond them. The “happiness” and “interpersonal relations” economics research programs have made substantial progress in overcoming a number of these biases, bringing into consideration by economists a wide range of phenomena which were previously neglected. Analysis from a feminist economics perspective suggests several fronts on which research could most profitably continue.

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Notes

  1. Linguist George Lakoff and philosopher Mark Johnson (1980) argued in their book Metaphors We Live By that much of our way of understanding and speaking about the world is build on just such basic bodily experiences. Not having twenty-first century neuroscience at hand at the time, Nelson (1992) used Lakoff and Johnson's insights along with those of psychologist Bem (1981) to examine gender biases in economics.

  2. It is never explained, for example, in Bruni and Stanca (2008), whether time spent with one's own spouse or children is included in "time with family." Bruni and Sugden lament that in relationships, "Sadly, dependency is sometimes unavoidable," (2009) but is this really so sad in the case of children? Sacco et al. (2004) write that "Examples of socially provided goods include friendship, social approval, social identification, mates and social status". Relations of care, such as the care given from parents to children, are conspicuously absent. Many authors (e.g. Clark et al. 2008, p. 118; Frey 2008) take as definitive Becker's partial views on the family, which emphasize altruism or reciprocity and specialization, while downplaying issues of power and benefits from diversity in activities. Within the psychology of happiness and relationships, of course, family relationships and especially parent–child relationships play a pivotal role (e.g. Haidt 2006).

  3. This also carries over into professional work: Women in the profession of nursing are sometimes assumed to be interested exclusively in the well-being of their patients and not at all in receiving fair payment for their time. See Folbre and Nelson (2006) for a discussion.

  4. See, for example, the recent discussion of these terms by Nelson (2009), Gui (2009) and Bruni and Sugden(2009) in Economics and Philosophy, as well as Zamagni (2005).

  5. Finding that the results of a formal Max U model may be merely consistent with certain findings in neuroscience does not, in fact, lend much support to our preconceived framework: We can also make many generalizations from an earth-is-flat theory that are consistent with many of our daily observations about the material world.

  6. This methodological point has also been made by Gazier and This Saint-Jean (2005), pp. 248–9.

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  1. Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Boston, MA, 02125, USA

    Julie A. Nelson

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Nelson, J.A. Getting past “rational man/emotional woman”: comments on research programs in happiness economics and interpersonal relations. Int Rev Econ 57, 233–253 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12232-010-0096-3

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