> Economic preferences may not be the outcome of pure rationality so much as differing values which in turn are based on different criteria of emotional satisfa

> Economic preferences may not be the outcome of pure rationality so much as differing values which in turn are based on different criteria of emotional satisfaction. The dyadic games paper is interesting, but I think you're perhaps a bit quick to dismiss banal self-interest as a very likely missing causal variable. To what extent are extreme economic ideologies simply post-hoc intellectual justifications camouflaging basically self-interested preferences? There is a correlation between family socioeconomic status and IQ. What if it's merely that advantaged groups: 1. have the resources to provide the early life advantages that give an IQ boost, 2. have the resources to develop and defend coherent ideological systems that justify their allotment (eg, by funding think tanks and so on), and 3. tend to pass those social interests down to the next generation either directly (family-owned businesses/assets) or indirectly via cultural knowledge and connection (eg, doctor/professor/etc. kids are more like to become doctors/professors/etc.). In particular, - what economic beliefs do "non-extreme" people have? Are their beliefs non-extreme, or do they simply have a consistent bucket of (perhaps quite extreme) economic beliefs which don't have a clear name? What if all we're measuring here is that the children of professors have Brookings and an army of intellectuals to give names to things, while the children of business owners have AEI and an army of other intellectuals who also give names to things? - what happens to this result if we control for SES? I ask the first question because most people in my orbit from lower SES describe themselves as centrists on economic issues but actually have a haphazard bucket of deeply held cultural beliefs which are not located at the center of anything in particular.