Benedict XVI in Caritas in Veritate calls for integral human development; integral meaning that of the whole person. There has developed a field of experimental economics within the discipline of economics that has been vigorously and rigorously testing the postulates of a narrowly defined homo economicus and challenging economics from within. Vernon Smiths pioneering work on experimental economics and his insight on two types of rationality, constructivist and ecological, can be synthesized into integral human rationality that pursues not only material wellbeing but also nonmaterial, for example, social, emotional, and moral. This article introduces experimental methodology in economics and briefly reviews selected well-established and replicated results in two-person anonymous personal exchange and impersonal market experiments that demonstrate integral human rationality. The methodology and regularities established through experimental economics can be used to further our understanding of integral human rationality and inform us as to which paths or policies are more likely to lead to integral human development.
Angelina N. Christie, "From Experimental Economics toward Integral Human Rationality", Journal of Markets and Morality 16, no. 1 (Spring 2013): 37-51