Rational Choice Theory and Religion

Lawrence A.Young is Associate Professor of Sociology at Brigham Young University. He is the co-author of FullPews and Empty Altars (1993) and co-editor ContemporaryMormonism (1994) .

"History without large-scale explanatory models is just one damn thing after another. This collection of essay provides a very useful intoduction to one such model that deserves our attention." -- The Journal of Religion Vol78, No 2 "This book both serves as an excellent introduction to rational choice theory and helps to fram future research agendas fro scholars already working in the field." -- Anthony GillJournal of the Scientific Study of Religion"This collection of essays offers to those new to the social scientific study of religion a solid and fair depiction of rational choice theory. Valuable not only as an introduction to rational choice theory, this book also offers applications and assessments of the limitations of the theory through discussions of religious choice, preference, and behavior. Graduate students new to this theoretical framework would find this book highly beneficial, as would any reader interested in the study of methods and theory." -- Religious Studies Review"This slim volume brings together several sogent articles arguing for and against the approach. It is both a one-stop overview of the subdiscipline's purported new paradigm and a source of its cogent critique. As such, I recommend it highly... All of these articles are well chosen, concise, and stimulating... for a brief summary and assessment of the rational-choice approach to the sociology of religion by some of its best practitioners and critics, this book has no peer." -- ContemporarySociology"This book is tremendously important for the sociology of religion and as a harbinger of rational-choice theory's wider sociological prospects." -- American Journal of Sociology

• Introduction, Lawrence A. Young; Part I Summary; Chapter 1 Bringing Theory Back In, Rodney Stark; Chapter 2 Rational Choice, Laurence R. Iannaccone; Chapter 3 The Consequences of Religious Competition, Roger Finke; Chapter 4 Embedding Religious Choices, Darren E. Sherkat; Chapter 5 Convergence Toward the new Paradigm, R. Stephen Warner; Part II Assessment; Chapter 6 Economic Man and the Sociology of Religion, Mary Jo Neitz, Peter R. Mueser; Chapter 7 Religious Choice and Religious Vitality, Nancy T. Ammerman; Chapter 8 Phenomenological Images of Religion and Rational Choice Theory, Lawrence A. Young; Chapter 9 Religion and Rational Choice Theory, Michael Hechter; Chapter 10 Stark and Bainbridge, Durkheim and Weber, Randall Collins;