DYNAMICS IN ACTION: INTENTIONAL BEHAVIOR AS A COMPLEX SYSTEM

This book falls into the category of action theory. Action theory is a branch of philosophy that has relevance for anyone interested in human behavior (including buyer behavior) since its subject matter is the analysis of the whole process by which human action originates and how it is explained, whether in the social sciences or in folk psychology. Some of the issues of interest are (1) marking the boundary between action and the rest of behavior, (2) the role of reasons as causes and explanations of action, and (3) the question of free will and individual responsibility. The book offers the reader an opportunity to question much that we take for granted in researching buyer behavior. Juarrero starts her book by drawing on the frequently cited contrast (the “wink” versus the “blink”) used to distinguish action, which, like the wink is voluntary, intentional behavior, from involuntary behavior like the blink. Action is voluntary, purposive behavior, relevant in the context and, as such, chosen as a result of deliberation. This “chosen as a result of deliberation” rules out choices not based on deliberation such as impulse buys or when we fall back on the likability heuris tic when buying purely on the basis of immediate, “gut” lik ing. There can, in fact, be “choosing without deciding” and “choice without decision” (O’Shaughnessy 1986). All are intentional and so would be actions for most philosophers. Juarrero claims that the most intractable problems in action theory arise from a flawed understanding of cause and explanation as they relate to human action. She argues that action theorists and the psychological sciences have implic itly followed David Hume (1711-76), the Scottish philoso pher, who argued that causation added up to nothing more than the psychological anticipation of a previously experi enced constant conjunction. Hume pointed out that sense impressions do not reveal any forceful, necessitating connec tion between cause and effect. Observation tells us only that some things regularly follow other things and that