Talcott Parsons was born in December 13, 1902 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He studied economics and later political economics. He became a lecturer at Harvard University and later the department of social relations chair and pioneered the combinations of sociology, anthropology and psychology in development of principles addressing social science.
Parsons theorized and
hoped to give an understanding to social science with principles just the same
way as the physical sciences. His work was actually influenced from the
following theorists; the conception of the social system and the bases of its
integration by Emile Durkheim, the idea of composition of relationship by
Radcliffe Brown, comparative analysis of social structure and the analysis of
the border line between social system and culture by Max Weber and articulation
between social systems and personality by Freud and also the idea of
gratification and need disposition by Malinowski.
Parsons was interested
in coming up with a general theory of social action that transcended
disciplinary boundaries that is sociology, psychology and anthropology. His
goal was to take elements from previous theories and combine them into a single
abstract theory that explains the general process in the social world. Parsons
tries to understand society by first looking at the basic level of the society
that is the action. He theorized action based on voluntaristic actions of
individuals based on structural aspects of the society to create social order.
According to Weber, simple
behaviour or any action can be distinguished from social action by looking at
the subjective orientation of the actor. A social action refers to an act which
in its execution takes into account, reactions of other individuals as informed
by social institutions that are the decisions of an actor in reference to the
situation the actor finds himself in. According to Weber the process of doing
something (action) becomes social `if the acting individual takes account of
the behaviour of others and is thereby oriented in its course’. Thus an action
is an activity which is related in some manner to principles of
relationship/inter-relationship to things outside the organism. The action is
connected to the organism and with other persons’ social situations and
culture.
Max Weber from whom
parsons synthesizes his theories of social structure, looks at both the above
concepts of action theory and develops a typology of social action based on the
following contexts; ‘In terms of rational orientation to a system of discrete
individual ends, in terms of rational orientation to an absolute value, in
terms of affectual orientation especially emotionally determined by affects and
states of feeling of the actor or traditionally oriented through the
habituation of a long practice’.
The focus of Weberian
action theory is on the degree of rationality in human behaviour based on
absolute rationality and individual ends rationality. Other theories such as
exchange theory and rational choice theory take up Weber’s action theory focus
of rationality and argue that action is best understood in terms of people
making rational choices in which they maximize their utilities whereas Parsons
focuses on voluntaristic action theory. His approach does not look at the major
divisions of action theory but he is concerned about how meanings are
negotiated in interaction and aims at understanding the context of human
action. Parsons goes beyond Weber in proposing a typology of action and uses
them to form a broader theory of institutionalization. In understanding
various types of action, parsons look beyond the voluntaristic actions and unit
act to the modes of orientation to explain different actions. Parsons argument
is that people tend to interact with others who share similar orientations.
Just like Weber’s rationality in human behaviour, Parsons voluntaristic action
draws from utilitarianism in that it sees humans as making choices between
means and ends. Besides the utilitarianism, Parsons see choices undertaken by
individuals as circumscribed by the physical the positivism through the
situational condition or the context and the cultural environments which is
idealism through ideas, norms, values etc. He conceptualizes voluntarism as the
subjective decision-making processes of individual actors, but he viewed such
decisions as the partial outcome of certain kinds of constraints both normative
and situational. Voluntaristic action is basic element of social structure
where actors are individual persons and are goal seeking who possess alternative
means to achieve goals confronted with a variety of situational conditions
which influence the selection of goals and means and they are governed by
values, norms and other ideas. Actors here are oriented to situations in terms
of two modes of orientation which are motivational and value orientation.
Motivational mode of orientation involves three kinds of motives which are
cognitive, cathectic and evaluative on the same side value mode of orientation
involves three kinds of value which are cognitive, appreciative and moral. Through these various modes of orientation an
actor makes various composition of the action which seems strongest to the
actor at the given situation. Actor creates composite type of action which can
be one of three types instrumental, expressive or moral. And when the
interaction among oriented actors takes place through modes of orientation and
it creates a pattern then it leads to institutionalization of interaction. This
institutionalization is based on normative behaviors in terms of status, roles
which makes social system.
The organization of unit
act into social systems requires a parallel conceptualization of motives and
values that become respectively the personality and cultural systems. The goal
of action theory now becomes understanding how institutionalized patterns of
interaction are circumscribed by complexes of values, beliefs, norms and other
ideas and by configuration of motives and role playing skills.
The configuration of
motives and role playing skills is the element of personality system where the
individual through motives and role playing skills is suppose to fulfill some
needs which is instinct according to psychologist but according to
anthropologist or sociologist its constitutional because the needs are not
given. According to Malinowski needs are of two types primary and secondary
needs. Primary needs are also known as viscerogenic needs which are the basic
need of an individual like need for food, need for sleep etc. whereas secondary
needs are needs for social relationships. The direction and modes in which
these needs can determine action is modifiable by influence emanating from the
situation of action. The needs themselves can be modified by the process of
becoming embedded into need dispositions. When the needs of the individual are
fulfilled it leads to gratification and when the needs are not fulfilled it
leads to deprivation. Any need disposition can be gratified or deprived in
context of alter and ego. The idea of alter and ego is influenced by Freud
where the complementarity of expectations is looked into it. The action of each
is oriented to the expectation of other. Here expectations operate from both
sides of the relation between a given actor and the object of is orientation
which distinguishes social interaction from orientation to nonsocial
objects. There is a double contingency
inherent in interaction. On one hand ego’s gratifications are contingent on his
selection among available alternatives but in turn alter’s reaction will be
contingent on ego’s selection and will result from a complementarity selection
on alter’s part. Ego’s or alter’s system of need dispositions may or may not
predispose him to conform with these expectations. If there is conformity it
will lead to stability and accommodation and if there is non-conformity it will
lead to conflict and change. When there is nonconformity or conformity there is
expansion of role expectation which leads to creative personality and these
deviations takes place from the norms of shared symbolic system. On the basis
of these interactions the system of social system evolves.
The social system is a
system which is made up of relationships of individuals but it is a system
which is organized around social interaction of a plurality of individual
actors. The social system is derived from social structure and the basic unit
of social structure is role which involves set of complementary expectations in
an institutionalized sector. In a social structure roles might be same but the
enactment is different but it should not vary much because it might be lead to
threaten so to maintain this looseness the social structure has to be flexible
enough to accept these variation in the roles. Because in a social structure
the personalities are a lot but the roles are limited which leads to the
problem of allocation and integration in a social structure, but these
integration and allocation is carried out by institutional mechanism which is
in more power than others. These role expectations and composition of relationships
is impacted by the norms, values, ideas which is the cultural systems.
The emergence of
cultural system takes into account the cultural tradition in its significance
both as an object of orientation and as an element in the orientation of action
which must be articulated both conceptually and empirically with personalities
and social systems. The cultural system is a highly complex constellation of
elements. Cultural patterns act as a solution for the modes of orientation.
Cultural pattern tend to become organized into systems. The peculiar feature of
this systematization is a type of integration which is consistency of pattern.
A cultural pattern may be involved in action either as an object of the actor’s
situation or it may be internalized to become part of the structure of his
personality. Cultural patterns when internalized become constitutive elements
of personalities and of social systems.
According to Parsons, the relationship between means and ends is formed
through shared value systems. In this sense, cultural value systems function as
a scale of priorities that contains the alternatives of selective orientations.
Parsons sees the value hierarchy through evaluative aspect of culture as very
important in defining the patterns of role expectation and sanctions and the
standard of cognitive as well as appreciative judgements for any interaction.
The values we hold tell us the kinds of behaviour to expect from others and how
to judge those behaviour and other social objects.
Because of this
empirical interrelatedness there is a dynamic theory of culture which
corresponds to that of the dynamic theory of personality and social systems.
With the institutionalization of the culture patterns, especially value
orientation patterns in the social structure the threefold reciprocal
integration of personality, social system and culture takes place. The value
patterns institutionalized in the social structure through the operation of
role mechanisms with other elements organize the behavior of adult members of
society. Through the socialization process values are in turn constitutive in
establishment of the personality structure. The process of socialization is
dependent upon the social interaction with a social structure.
Talcott Parsons clearly
shows the theory building process of all the three kinds of system and how each
one is interrelated to each other and how the action systems is operated
through the cultural systems. But he over emphasized the idea of consensus in
the society and neglect the idea of conflict and change. And also the crux of Parsons
misrepresentation is his overweening emphasis on the category of the normative.
A confusion of "factual regularities" with "normative
validity"--despite Weber's numerous warnings against such led Parsons to
an exaggeration of the importance Weber assigned to normative orientations of
social action, legitimacy and collectivity integration, and, correspondingly,
to a severe understatement of the importance of non-normative aspects of social
action and structures of dominance
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