It is common to say that people are rational in some contexts and not in others. One might be seemingly rational in choosing between two jobs but not in choosing a spouse. It is even supposed that some whole cultures are less rational than others. James Scott (1976) has argued that the peasants of Southeast Asia, for example, are driven by a “moral economy.” What he means is that they do not maximize their production of rice. Rather than adopting seed grains that would have large average annual yields, they stick with grains that will almost always produce enough to keep them from starving but much less on average than the most productive seeds.

XREF: Connects to risk-aversion theory and behavioral economics' loss aversion; the 'moral economy' framing parallels prospect theory's asymmetric valuation of losses versus gains.

Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, loc. 148