To really understand what is going on in the minds of Muslim women it is pertinent to look at the work of scholars who have already theorised about the notion of choice.
Writers such as Stark and Bainbridge (1987), Iannaccone (1990, 1995), Chaves (1995) Bruce (1993, 1999) and Sherkat (1997) have all applied rational choice theory
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to religion to identify why people make their religious choices. Using their theorising and applying it to the data gathered from this research is it possible to see why
individuals make their religious choices with regards to the wearing or non-wearing of the hijab?
According to Iannaccone (1995, p.77), a professor of economics, rational choice theory is based on the economic theory put forward by ‘Gary Becker (1976:5)’. This economic theory is based on the idea that people make rational choices and that these choices will bring benefits. They will act rationally and when making a choice they will choose the option that will bring them the most benefits. Stark and Bainbridge (1987, p.25) both sociologists, base their ‘Theory of Religion’ on this economic theory to try to establish the answers to questions they pose including: Why do humans develop religion? By basing their religious theory on the economic theory they believe that they can further understand the actions of individuals, regardless of their religious beliefs and affiliations. Data from this research can be examined, drawing on rational choice theory, to examine whether the wearing or not of the hijab is a rational choice.
Stark and Bainbridge (1987, p.26, italics in original), start this process by using four descriptors: axioms (A); propositions (P); definitions, (Def); and elements. They continue to explain that axioms, are ‘inspired by the observation of the world’;
propositions are ‘statements that are derived from these axioms’; definitions ‘are statements that link the axioms and propositions to the empirical world’; and elements are variables, concepts or simply things. According to Stark and Bainbridge (1987, p.27) their first axiom or ‘A1’ is that ‘Human perception and action take place through time, from the past into the future’, with the ‘Def.1’ being that the past is already known and the future not known, but can be influenced. The second axiom or
‘A2’ is that ‘Humans seek what they perceive to be rewards and avoid what they perceive to be costs’, with the ‘Def.3’ being that ‘Rewards are anything humans will incur costs to obtain’ and ‘Costs are whatever humans attempt to avoid’ (Stark and Bainbridge 1987, p.27, italics in original). This then leads them to their proposition
‘P1’ that ‘Rewards and costs are complementary: a lost or forgone reward equals a cost, and an avoided cost equals a reward’. Stark and Bainbridge (1987, p.28) explain that their third axiom or ‘A3’ is that ‘Rewards vary in kind, value and generality’ and
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they reach the proposition ‘P2’ that ‘Sometimes rewards can be obtained at costs less than the cost equivalent to foregoing the reward’. Stark and Bainbridge (1987, p.29) continue with the fourth axiom or ‘A4’ that ‘Human action is directed by a complex but finite information-processing system that functions to identify problems and attempts solutions to them’. This time three propositions are developed by Stark and Bainbridge (1987, p.30): ‘P3 In solving problems, the human mind must seek explanations’; ‘P4 Explanations are rewards of some level of generality’; and ‘P5 Explanations vary in the costs and time they require for the desired reward to be obtained’.
Stark and Bainbridge (1987, p.36) also talk of compensators and come up with the propositions: ‘P15 Compensators are treated by humans as if they were rewards’;
‘P16 For any reward or cluster of rewards, one or more compensators may be
invented’; ‘P17 Compensators vary according to the generality, value, and kind of the rewards for which they substitute’; and Stark and Bainbridge(1987, p.39) ‘P22 The most general compensators can be supported only by supernatural explanations’.
The idea of rewards and compensators put forward by Stark and Bainbridge (1987), has according to Bruce (1999, p.34), a sociologist, been built ‘on the premisses [sic]
that are substantively atheistic’. He comes to this conclusion by first looking at the meaning of the terms rewards and compensators. A reward explains Bruce (1999, p.32) ‘is anything someone is prepared to expend costs to obtain’ whereas a
compensator may not only incur a cost to obtain, but may be a ‘… promise of a future reward and an explanation …’ (Bruce, 1999, p.32, italics in original) of how you can obtain that reward. For Bruce ‘if compensators are also rewards’ the process of accepting a compensator if a reward is not available ‘becomes circular’ and this, Bruce (1999, p.32) claims, ‘undermines any force in the claim that people treat compensators as rewards’. He continues to explain that if people are unable to secure rewards immediately, they will ‘accept explanations’ as to how they can get them in the future providing there are ‘procedures’ that can to be followed in order to obtain them. Bruce (1999, p.33, italics in original) also suggests that if rewards are
‘impossible to secure and the explanation accepted instead;’ people may ‘seek the reward in a new location’. Bruce (1999) therefore sees Stark and Bainbridge’s (1987) ideas of rewards and compensators as problematic. Rewards to Stark and Bainbridge
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(1987) according to Bruce (1999, p.33) need to be ‘tangible, concrete, and immediate’
whereas Bruce believes that rewards such as old age are ‘not sought immediately’ and according to Bruce they have ‘implicitly assumed too simple a model of reward’. He concludes by saying:
For Stark and Bainbridge religion is inherently faulty and can be desired only as compensation for an unavailable something that is better because it is
this-worldly and immediate. (Bruce, 1999, p.34)