An Outline of the

Social System
Talcott Parsons (1951)
HS 310: CONCEPTS AND IDEOLOGIES IN
SOCIAL LIFE

Talcott Parsons

Born December 13, 1902 in

Colorado Springs,
his father was a Congregational
minister and active in the social
reform movement known as the
Social Gospel movement.
Relatively little information about
him before he went to Amherst
Graduated from Amherst College
with a major in biology, leisure and
tourism, and philosophy.
Went to London School of
Economics (LSE). Reputation for
intellectual excellence and a
radical political stance on the part
of many of its staff grounding in
sociology
Met wife Helen Walker married to
for whole life

continue Parsons

WWII important lag time for Parsons --- the deaths of his
elder brother and of both parents between 1940 and
1943 seem to have played a part in what he thought of
as a 'major failure' of his career-the inability to complete
a 'major monographic study of medical practice' at that
time, based on his empirical work University of
Heidelberg with Ph.D. in sociology and economics
Most works influences by time spent with the Program in
Social Relations (1946)
1949 elected president of the American Sociological
Association
Very prominent American Sociologist teaching at
Harvard
In 1953/4 Parsons traveled to England - visiting chair of
social theory at Cambridge.
He was asked to give the annual Marshall Lectures that
academic year, with the theme of 'the relations between
economic and sociological theory'
Died May 8, 1979

Like Durkheim, Parsons begins with the question

of how social order is possible.

He observes that Social life is characterized by

mutual advantage and peaceful co-operation
rather than mutual hostility and destruction.

He took the views from Thomas Hobbes who

observed that man is directed by passion and
reason. His passions are the Primary driving force
reason being employed to devise ways and means
of providing, for their satisfaction.

If mans passions were allowed free reign, he

would use any means at his disposal, including
force and fraud, to satisfy them. The net result
would be the war of all against all.

 Guided by the desire for self-preservation, man

agrees to control his passions, give up his liberty
and enter into a social contract with his fellows.
He submits to the authority of a ruler or governing
body in return for protection against the
aggression, force and fraud of others.
Hobbes views man as rational self-interested and
calculating man while Durkheim viewed man acting
in response to moral commitments and obeying
social rules because he believes that only a
commitments and obeying social rules because he
believes that only a commitment to common
values provides a basis for order in society, value
consensus forms the fundamental integrating
principle in society.

If members of society are committed to the

same values, they will tend to share a common
identity which provides a basis for unity and cooperation.

Persons mostly talked about norms, values,

common goals and roles. He gave Central
importance to concepts of social action and
system.

For many years he had consistently emphasized

the necessity of developing a systematic
general theory of human behaviour.

Structural Functionalism and Ideas

Main focus Structural Functionalism

Social Systems/Institutions

Pattern Variables

subsystems, roles, the normative order, and the

interpretation of situations by social actors
Gratification/discipline actors emotional involvement
Private/collective needs to individual or wider
population
Universalism/particularism action to particular person
Achievement/ascription interaction and achievements
Specificity/diffuseness range of roles an actor has

Society Breakdown

Cultural system symbols for expressions

Personality system unique identity
Social system modes of interactions between actors

Sociocultural
Evolutionism

The change in cultures and societies over time

Provides models for understanding relationship

between technologies, social structure, the values
of society, and how/why changes occur over time.

Mechanisms of variation and social change

Then how does a society maintain

itself?

Units of voluntaristic action

Situational conditions
Norms, values, and other ideas

Actor

Means 1

Means 2

Means 3

Means 4

Goal

Thus, Voluntaristic Action involves

Actors who, at this points are individual persons

Actors are viewed as goal seeking

Actors are also in possession of alternative means to

achieve the goals

Actors are confronted with a variety of situational

conditions, such as their own biological makeup and
heredity as well as various external ecological
constraints, that influenced the selection of goals
and means

Cont.

Actors are seen to be governed by values, norms, and

other ideas influence what is considered a goal and
what means are selected to achieve it

Action involves actors making subjective decisions

about the means to achieve goals, all of which are
constrained by ideas and situational condition

Parsons began to ask: how are unit acts connected to

each other, and how can this connectedness be
conceptually represented?

Advocate of "grand theory," an attempt to

integrate all the social sciences into an
overarching theoretical framework
Most influential works:
The Structure of Social Action (1937)
The Social System (1951)
Early work The Structure of Social Action (1937)
inspired by work from Max Weber, Vilfredo Pareto,
and Emile Durkheim
Main goal: action theory human action is
voluntary, intentional, and symbolic
Pattern variables

An Outline of the Social System (1961)

Functional differentiation

Structured units acquire specialized significance in the

functioning of the system
Social interaction is bound to the physical task
performance of individuals in a physical environment;
it is bound to spatial location in the physical sense

spatial location is the community aspect of social structure,

which can be broken down into four complexes
residential location and the social structure around it
functional task-performance through occupation, and its
locational problems
jurisdictional application of normative order through the
specification of categories and persons, and the relevance
of this to the spatial location of their interests and activities
physical demands of communication and of the movements
of persons and commodities

The Social System

Parsons views actors as oriented to situations in terms

of motives (needs and readiness to mobilize energy) and
values (conceptions about what is appropriate)

Types of motives:
1) Cognitive (need for information);
2) Cathectic (need for emotional attachment), and
3) evaluative (need for assessment).
Three corresponding types of values:
1) cognitive (evaluation in terms of objective standards),
2) appreciation (evaluation in terms of aesthetic
standards), and

3) moral (evaluation in terms of absolute rightness and

wrongness)

Modes of Orientation
1. Instrumental action oriented to realize
explicit
goals efficiently
2. Expressive action directed at realizing
emotional satisfactions, and
3) Moral action concerned with realizing
standards of right and wrong
Depending upon which modes of motivational
and value orientation are strongest, an actor will
act in one of these basic ways
Thus unit acts involve motivational and value
orientations and have a general directions

Cont.
Oriented

actors (in terms of their

configuration of motivational and value
orientations) interact, they come to develop
agreements and sustain patterns of
interaction, which become institutionalized.

Such

institutionalized patterns can be, in

parsons view, conceptualized as a social
system.

Methodological Prerequisites of the

Formulation of a Social System
1. Analysis of the action frame of reference

Actor vs. Situation

Analysis of the situation must be fully integrated with the

analysis of the action itself

2. The functional prerequisites of the social system

System of social action involving a plurality of interacting

individuals

Two primary foci:

Coordinating activities so that they do not negatively affect

each other and contribute into the system

Adequacy of motivation

3. The bases of structure in social systems

Stable patterns between actors or roles and social relationships

Important aspects: Institutionalization, Differentiation

Importance of
Institutions

Structural differentiation and

integration patterns

Dynamic interrelationships of
institutions and culture

Motivation of institutional behavior

Motivation of deviant behavior/social

control concerns

Dynamic theory of institutional change

Process of Institutionalization
1.

Actors who are variously oriented enter into situations

where they must interact.

2.

The way actors are oriented is a reflection of their need

structure and how this need structure has been altered
by the internalization of cultural patterns.

3.

Through specific interaction processeswhich are not

clearly indicated, but which by implication include role
taking, role bargaining, and exchangenorms emerge
while actors adjust their orientations to each other.

4.

Such norms emerge as a way of adjusting the

orientations to each actors to each other, but at the
same time, they are circumscribed by general cultural
patterns.

5.

In turn, these norms regulate subsequent interaction,

giving it stability.

Then
Institutionalization

is the process through

which social structure is built up and
maintained

Stabilized

patterns of interactioncomprise a
social system.

When

the given social system is large and is

composed of many interrelated institutions,
these institutions are typically viewed as
subsytems.

total society is one large system composed

of interrelated institutions.

The Pattern-alternatives of Value-Orientation as

Definition of Relational Role-expectation Patterns
The

analysis of the differentiation of

a social structure must start with
the patterns that enter into its
relational institutions

Social

Structure brings out a limited

number of ranges which, in their
simplest form can be defined as
polar alternatives of possible
orientation-selection

Value Orientations of Culture or

Normative Demands of Status
Roles

Affectivity

vs. Affective Neutrality

The

ultimate interest of any actor is in

the optimization of gratification

Affectivity

No actor can subsist without

gratifications, while at the same time no
action system can be organized or
integrated without the renunciation of
some gratifications which are available in
the given situation

The Private vs. Collective Interest

Dilemma

Self-Orientation vs. Collectivity Orientation

Focuses

on the same intrinsic problem as

Affectivity vs. Affective-Neutrality but, is
approached from the other end, as it were,
namely the permissibility of his pursuing any
interest private to himself as distinguished from
those shared with the other members of the
collectivity in which he plays a role.

role, then, may define certain areas of pursuit of

private interests as legitimate, and in other areas
obligate the actor to pursuit of the common
interest of the collectivity

May be called Collectivity-Orientation

The Choice Between Types of ValueOrientation Standard

Universalism vs. Particularism

Concerns

not subordination to vs.

freedom from certain value standards
whatever their content, but the type
of value-standard which is defined as
relevant to the role-expectation.

The Choice Between Modalities

of the Social Object
Achievement

vs. Ascription

Concerns

its application to the

definition of ideal states of
affairs where they differ from a
given initial state

Concerns

characteristics of the
object which may be selected
as the focus of orientation

The Definition of Scope Interest in

the Subject
Specificity

vs. Diffuseness
A particular instrumental or expressive
orientation or interest has a certain
specificity such that is capable of clear
analytical segregation from the other or
from moral orientations
Diffuseness-alternative to specificity, to
treat the object as significant in an
indefinite plurality of specific orientation
contexts.

Discussion Questions:

Looking at social systems today, can you identify some that

have been successful in maintaining themselves? What
about systems that have failed? Why did they fail?

Structural and Functional Modes

of Analysis
Distinction between structural and functional
references for analysis
Structural focuses on elements of the
patterning of the system that are
independent of smaller fluctuations in the
relation of the system to its external situation
Functional

relates to the problem of

mediation between exigencies: those from
the constancy of a structure and those
imposed by the situation a system is in

Parsons Functional Imperativist View of Social

Systems
Systems of action were conceptualized to have four
survival problems, or prerequisites:
1. Adaptation involves the problem of securing from
the environment sufficient facilities and then
distributing these facilities throughout the system.
2. Goal attainment refers to the problem of
establishing priorities among systems goals and
mobilizing system resources for their attainment.
3. Integration denotes the problem of coordinating
and maintaining viable interrelationships among
system units.
4. Latency embraces two related problems; pattern
maintenance and tension management (how to
insure that actors in the social system display the
appropriate characteristics)

AGIL & subsystems of action

A - Adaptation is another consequence of goal plurality.

With providing additional disposable facilities
independent of their relevance to any particular goal.
G - Goal-attainment becomes a problem in so far as
there arises some discrepancy between the inertial
tendencies of the system and its needs resulting from
interchange with the situation.
I - In the control hierarchy, integration stands between
the functions of pattern-maintenance and goalattainment. The system as a whole is concerned most
with the allocation of rights and obligations.
L - The function of pattern maintenance refers to the
imperative of maintaining the stability of patterns of
institutionalized culture defining the structure of the
system.

1. The Function of Pattern-maintenance

The imperative of maintaining the stability of the patterns

of institutionalized culture defining the structure of the
system
Two distinct aspects:
1. character of the normative person
2. state of institutionalization
Focus of pattern-maintenance is in the structural category
of values
Values are subject to change, but there is a great
potential for disruption from them
Motivational commitment of the individual, or tensionmanagement
Problem of mechanisms of socialization of the individual,
strain on commitments
Social systems show a tendency to maintain their structural
patterns
Reference point provided for analysis of problems of
variation
Clear that when we analyze social change we work with
a different kind of theoretical problem

2. The Function of Goal-attainment

Is a problem because discrepancy arouses between

inertial tendencies of the system and its needs
resulting from interchange with the situation
Goals are therefore defined in terms of equilibrium a
directional change
A social system with one goal is inconceivable
situation is usually complex with many goals and
problems
Goals must be arranged in order of relative urgency
(system must be flexible)
Goal-orientation focuses on a social systems relation
as a system to the personalities of the participating
individuals
Therefore it concerns not commitment to societal
values, but motivation to contribute what is
necessary for the system to function

3. The Function of
Adaptation
Must

differentiate between the function of

effective goal-attainment and providing
disposable facilities independent of their
relevance to any one goal
There is a hierarchy of both goals and
facilities as well flexibility must be
maintained to maximize use of facilities to
meet goals
Facilities include control of physical objects,
access to services of humans, and certain
cultural elements
Goal-attainment is more important than
adaptation within any system

4. The Function of Integration

All systems are differentiated and divided into
independent units must be treated as
boundary-maintaining systems within an
environment of other systems
Example: in a highly differentiated society,
legal norms govern the allocation of
rights, obligations, facilities, and rewards
The integrative function is the focus of most
of a systems distinctive properties and
processes
Problems focusing on integration, therefore,
are the central concern of sociological theory

Social Interaction and

Roles
Role is the essential starting point for individual

interaction
In order for interaction to be stable, roles and actions
must have meanings and be governed by understood,
shared rules. Rules define goals and the
consequences of and given move by one player for
the situation in which the other must make his choice.
A stable system of interaction orients its participants
in terms of mutual expectations, which also express
normative evaluations
The Concepts of Role and Collectivity
Since the normal individual participates in many
collectivities, it is commonplace, though a crucial
one, that only in a limiting case does a single role
constitute the entire interactive behavior of a
concrete individual
Roles are sectors of the behavioral system

The Structure of Complex Systems

The Concept of a Society
Societies are relatively self-sufficient collectivities which
cannot be said to be a differentiated subsystem of a
high-order collectivity oriented to most of the functional
exigencies of a social system. The functional exigencies
take shape in three distinct ways: differentiation,
segmentation and specification
The Segmentation of Social Units

Humans as agencies of performance are indispensable

There are limits to what individuals can do and to the
effectiveness of how individuals can cooperate with one
another
Segmentation refers to the development of sub
collectives within a larger collectivity system in which
some members participate more intimately than others
The necessity of segmentation derives largely from the
problems of integration resulting from the other
exigencies to which units of the system are subject.

PARSONS: Pattern Variables

Parsons set out to formulate a grand theory of general

action that would consider the relevance of cultural
phenomena such as ideas, norms, and goals.
Parsons also formulated the pattern variables, which are
sets of choices any individual (or actor) must make in a
given situation. He also used them to analyze larger-scale
phenomena, such as patterns of norms within entire
cultural systems. His pattern variables include:
affectivity-affective neutrality
specificity-diffuseness
Universalismparticularism
ascription-achievement
self-collectivity
Parsons later turned away from action theory toward a
structural-functionalism that had at its core the concepts of
functional imperatives, status-roles, need-dispositions, and
value orientations.

PARSONS: A Summary

Parsons is best known for bringing

classical sociological theory (typical of
Europe) to the United States and
formulating a grand classical theory of
his own

He strove for integration in

sociological theory in many ways by
attempting to unify the study of
various social sciences, delineating
levels of social analysis, and arguing
for the importance of maintaining
stability in the social world