Human Motives and Social Cooperation: Towards Integrating Sociological, Economic and (Social) Psychological Perspectives

This review essay discusses the attempts of four books to surpass traditional disciplinary borders and address a basic question across the social sciences: What motivational forces guide human behaviour, and how do these forces affect and how are they affected by, the dynamics of social cooperation and collective action? Even though the books adopt different theoretical and methodological perspectives for examining this question, they all challenge the univalent and de-contextualized economic (self-interested) view of human motivation, supporting interdisciplinarity and a multidimensional and contextualized view of human motivation.