Cognition and Extended Rational Choice

Howard Margolis is a Professor in the Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies and the College. He has taught at the University of California-Irvine, and has held research positions at the Institute for Advanced Study, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Margolis’ major research interest is in social theory, particularly the underpinnings of individual choice and judgment, which shape aggregate social outcomes. The principal results of this work have been five books: Selfishness, Altruism & Rationality (Cambridge University Press, 1982, University of Chicago Press, 1984); Patterns, Thinking & Cognition (University of Chicago Press, 1987), Paradigms and Barriers (University of Chicago Press, 1993), Dealing with Risk: Why the Public and the Experts Disagree on Environmental Issues (University of Chicago Press, 1996) and It Started with Copernicus: How Turning the World Inside Out Led to the Scientific Revolution (McGraw-Hill 2002).