Explaining Social Behavior
E1046555
Explaining Social Behavior is a book by social scientist Jon Elster that offers a comprehensive, analytically rigorous account of how rational-choice theory and psychological mechanisms can be used to understand human actions and social phenomena.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Explaining Social Behavior canonical | 2 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T13535024 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Explaining Social Behavior Context triple: [Jon Elster, notableWork, Explaining Social Behavior]
-
A.
Social Behaviour in Animals
Social Behaviour in Animals is a classic ethology book by Niko Tinbergen that explores the evolutionary and ecological foundations of social interactions in animal species.
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B.
The Organization of Behavior
The Organization of Behavior is a landmark 1949 book by psychologist Donald Hebb that introduced the influential theory of Hebbian learning to explain how neural networks underlie learning and behavior.
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C.
The Psychology of Social Norms
The Psychology of Social Norms is a foundational work in social psychology that analyzes how group norms emerge and shape individual perceptions, attitudes, and behavior.
-
D.
The Genetical Evolution of Social Behaviour
The Genetical Evolution of Social Behaviour is William D. Hamilton’s landmark 1964 paper that founded modern kin selection theory and transformed the study of social evolution in biology.
-
E.
Of Three Kinds of Social Intercourse
"Of Three Kinds of Social Intercourse" is a philosophical essay by Francis Bacon that reflects on different modes of human relationships and conversation within society.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Explaining Social Behavior Target entity description: Explaining Social Behavior is a book by social scientist Jon Elster that offers a comprehensive, analytically rigorous account of how rational-choice theory and psychological mechanisms can be used to understand human actions and social phenomena.
-
A.
Social Behaviour in Animals
Social Behaviour in Animals is a classic ethology book by Niko Tinbergen that explores the evolutionary and ecological foundations of social interactions in animal species.
-
B.
The Organization of Behavior
The Organization of Behavior is a landmark 1949 book by psychologist Donald Hebb that introduced the influential theory of Hebbian learning to explain how neural networks underlie learning and behavior.
-
C.
The Psychology of Social Norms
The Psychology of Social Norms is a foundational work in social psychology that analyzes how group norms emerge and shape individual perceptions, attitudes, and behavior.
-
D.
The Genetical Evolution of Social Behaviour
The Genetical Evolution of Social Behaviour is William D. Hamilton’s landmark 1964 paper that founded modern kin selection theory and transformed the study of social evolution in biology.
-
E.
Of Three Kinds of Social Intercourse
"Of Three Kinds of Social Intercourse" is a philosophical essay by Francis Bacon that reflects on different modes of human relationships and conversation within society.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
book
ⓘ
non-fiction book ⓘ social science book ⓘ |
| aimsTo |
explain human actions
ⓘ
explain social outcomes ⓘ integrate rational-choice theory and psychology ⓘ |
| author | Jon Elster ⓘ |
| critiques |
functional explanation in social science
ⓘ
holistic explanation in social science ⓘ overly formal rational-choice models ⓘ |
| fieldOfWork |
economics
ⓘ
philosophy of social science ⓘ political science ⓘ social science ⓘ sociology ⓘ |
| focusesOn |
beliefs
ⓘ
desires ⓘ emotions ⓘ norms ⓘ preferences ⓘ rationality ⓘ social mechanisms ⓘ |
| genre | academic literature ⓘ |
| hasContribution |
integration of rational-choice theory with psychological mechanisms
ⓘ
systematic account of mechanism-based explanation in social science ⓘ |
| hasPerspective |
analytical sociology
ⓘ
methodological individualism ⓘ |
| influencedBy |
behavioral economics
ⓘ
cognitive psychology ⓘ game theory ⓘ philosophy of science ⓘ rational choice theory ⓘ |
| intendedAudience |
advanced students in social science
ⓘ
philosophers of social science ⓘ social scientists ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mainSubject |
human action
ⓘ
methodological individualism ⓘ psychological mechanisms ⓘ rational choice theory ⓘ social behavior ⓘ social explanation ⓘ social phenomena ⓘ |
| usesMethod |
analytical explanation
ⓘ
mechanism-based explanation ⓘ |
| usesTheory |
decision theory
ⓘ
rational-choice theory ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Explaining Social Behavior Description of subject: Explaining Social Behavior is a book by social scientist Jon Elster that offers a comprehensive, analytically rigorous account of how rational-choice theory and psychological mechanisms can be used to understand human actions and social phenomena.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
subject linked to:
Elster