1. Talcott Parsons and

2. Talcott Parsons Born1902- Died 1979
SOC4044 Sociological Theory
Saturday, April 15, 2017
Talcott Parsons Born1902- Died 1979
Education:
Undergraduate work at Amherst University in biology and medicine
Studied economics in the London School of Economics
Strongly influenced by the social anthropologist Brownislaw Malinowski (a functionalist)
Attended Heidelberg University, in Germany, on an educational exchange
Alfred Weber (Max Weber’s brother) was his primary teacher
Also sat under the instruction of Karl Mannheim
© by Ronald Keith Bolender

3. SOC4044 Sociological Theory
Saturday, April 15, 2017
Talcott Parsons
Harvard Professor of Economics, and then Sociology,
Founded the Department of Social Relations combining Sociology, Anthropology, and Psychology, 1944
Key works: The Structure of Social Action (1937) The Social System (1951) Social Structure and Personality (1964) The System of Modern Societies (1971) The Structure and Change of the Social System (1983)
© by Ronald Keith Bolender

4. Talcott Parsons a partial bibliography

8. Talcott Parsons and Grand Theory
SOC4044 Sociological Theory
Saturday, April 15, 2017
Talcott Parsons and Grand Theory
“The dominant figure in American sociology – if not world-wide – from the mid-1940’s to the mid-1970’s.” (Bell, 1979)
“Talcott Parsons was probably the most prominent theorist of this time, and it is unlikely that any one theoretical approach will so dominate sociological theory again.” (Turner 1998)
“Parsons’ theory of society is plagued by an absence of clarity. His work abounds with ambiguities in both semantics and syntax.” (Perdue, 1986)
© by Ronald Keith Bolender

9. Talcott Parsons and Grand Theory

10. Talcott Parsons: The Social System

13. Talcott Parsons: The Structure of Social Action
SOC4044 Sociological Theory
Saturday, April 15, 2017
Talcott Parsons: The Structure of Social Action
Voluntaristic Theory of Action: the Unit Act
Involves these basic elements
Actors are individual persons
Actors are viewed as goal seeking
Actors also possess alternative means to achieve goals
© by Ronald Keith Bolender

14. Talcott Parsons: The Structure of Social Action
SOC4044 Sociological Theory
Saturday, April 15, 2017
Talcott Parsons: The Structure of Social Action
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 influence the selection of goals and means.
Actors are governed by values, norms, and other ideas such that these 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 conditions.
© by Ronald Keith Bolender

16. Talcott Parsons: The Structure of Social Action

17. Talcott Parsons: The Social System
Types of Action

20. Parsons’ Conceptualization of Social Integration

21. Talcott Parsons: The Social System
SOC4044 Sociological Theory
Saturday, April 15, 2017
Talcott Parsons: The Social System
How do social systems survive? More specifically, why do institutionalized patterns of interactions persist?
© by Ronald Keith Bolender

22. Talcott Parsons: The Social System
The Process of Institutionalization

23. Talcott Parsons: The Social System
Cybernetic Hierarchy of Control

25. Talcott Parsons: The Social System

26. Talcott Parsons: The Social System
SOC4044 Sociological Theory
Saturday, April 15, 2017
Talcott Parsons: The Social System
The Four Functional Imperatives
Adaptation
Securing sufficient resources from the physical and social environment and then distributing these throughout the system.
Goal Attainment
Establishing priorities among system goals and mobilizing system resources for their attainment.
© by Ronald Keith Bolender

27. Talcott Parsons: The Social System
SOC4044 Sociological Theory
Saturday, April 15, 2017
Talcott Parsons: The Social System
The Four Functional Imperatives
Integration
Coordinating and maintaining viable interrelationships among system units thru communication and common value systems.
© by Ronald Keith Bolender

28. Talcott Parsons: The Social System
SOC4044 Sociological Theory
Saturday, April 15, 2017
Talcott Parsons: The Social System
The Four Functional Imperatives
Latency (Two related problems):
Pattern Maintenance
Ensuring that actors in the social system display the appropriate characteristics
Motives
Needs
Roles
Tension Management
dealing with the internal tensions and strains of actors as they meet the demands of the social system.
© by Ronald Keith Bolender

29. LATENT PATTERN MAINTENANCE & TENSION MANAGEMENT
ACTION SYSTEMS within PARSONS’ AGIL MODEL
ADAPTATION
Behavioral Organism: Energy for Environmental Interactions
GOAL ATTAINMENT
 Personality System: Selective Self-Determination
INTEGRATION Social System: Institutions of socialization and social control
LATENT PATTERN MAINTENANCE & TENSION MANAGEMENT
Cultural System: Values and Norms, Beliefs and Ideologies
Bare Materials
(Human Nature)

30. LATENT PATTERN MAINTENANCE & TENSION MANAGEMENT
ACTION SYSTEMS within PARSONS’ AGIL MODEL
ADAPTATION
Economic: Energy for Environmental Interactions
GOAL ATTAINMENT
 Political: Selective Group-Determination
INTEGRATION Cultural-Legal System: Institutions of socialization and social control
LATENT PATTERN MAINTENANCE & TENSION MANAGEMENT
Kinship (family) System: Values and Norms, Beliefs and Ideologies
Bare Materials
(Human Nature)

32. Talcott Parsons: The Social System
SOC4044 Sociological Theory
Saturday, April 15, 2017
Talcott Parsons: The Social System
Here are several illustrations of how the Four Functional Imperatives can illustrate the workings of social systems:
© by Ronald Keith Bolender

33. A U.S NAVAL DESTROYER AS A SOCIAL SYSTEM:
GOAL ATTAINMENT comprises the activities related to sinking enemy ships as when all hands are at battle stations.
ADAPTATION involves keeping the ship afloat and operating – repairs, drills, recruitment and training of personnel.
INTEGRATION is the maintenance of smooth relations between the various departments – gunnery, supply, engineering, and so on, in order to reduce jealousy and enhance cooperation.
LATENT PATTERN MAINTENANCE & TENSION MANAGEMENT involves the efforts of each crew member to reconcile the goals and standards of the ship with those of his/her other roles (husband, wife, son, daughter, father, mother, ethnic group, etc.) and providing allowing ways of relieving tension and strain.

34. The WNBA as a Social System
SOC4044 Sociological Theory
Saturday, April 15, 2017
The WNBA as a Social System
© by Ronald Keith Bolender

35. The WNBA as a Social System
How to Integrate the WNBA into the United States’ Sports Consciousness
Adaptation
Resources are allocated to the WNBA
The United States is evaluated as ready for a women’s league similar to the NBA.
Resources are deliberately allocated to help give the WNBA a structure similar to the NBA.
Return on those allocated resources will not be immediate.

36. The WNBA as a Social System
Goal Attainment
Priorities are developed to insure goals are attained
Media space (television) is given to the WNBA even though the audience is not yet fully developed.
Integration
Coordinating various relationships within the sports world.

37. The WNBA as a Social System
Latency (after the WNBA is integrated into the nation’s sports consciousness)
Pattern Maintenance
Establishing proper roles and motives
Tension Management
Dealing with internal tensions and strains of actors in the social system

38. The WNBA as a Social System,
SOC4044 Sociological Theory
Saturday, April 15, 2017
The WNBA as a Social System,
If any of the four components “fails,” then the WNBA will not be “integrated” into the social system of organized professional athletics in the United States….
….and so will any Social System fail.
© by Ronald Keith Bolender

39. Talcott Parsons: The Social System

41. Talcott Parsons: The Social System

42. Talcott Parsons: The Social System

43. Talcott Parsons: The Social System
PARSONS’ PATTERN VARIABLES

44. Talcott Parsons: The Social System
PARSONS’ PATTERN VARIABLES

45. Talcott Parsons: The Social System
The AGIL Model of Social Organization

46. Talcott Parsons: The Social System
PARSONS’ PATTERN VARIABLES
There are five pattern variables of role-definition that Parsons discusses, although he says that there are many more possibilities. The first is the gratification-discipline dilemma: affectivity vs. affective-neutrality. The dilemma here is in deciding whether one expresses their orientation in terms of immediate gratification (affectivity) or whether they renounce immediate gratification in favor of moral interests (affective-neutrality). parsons says, ''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''.

47. Talcott Parsons: The Social System
The second set of pattern variables of role-definition are the private vs. collective interest dilemma: self-orientation vs. collectivity orientation. In this case, one's role orientation is either in terms of her private interests or in terms of the interests of the collectivity. Parsons explains, ''a 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 interests of the collectivity. The primacy of the former alternative may be called ''self-orientation,'' that of the latter, ''collectivity-orientation''.
PARSONS’ PATTERN VARIABLES

48. Talcott Parsons: The Social System
The third pair of pattern variables are the choice between types of value-orientation standard: universalism vs. particularism. Simply put, ''in the former case the standard is derived from the validity of a set of existential ideas, or the generality of a normative rule, in the latter from the particularity of ... an object or of the status of the object in a relational system'' (109). Example: the obligation to fulfill contractual agreements vs. helping someone because she is your friend.
PARSONS’ PATTERN VARIABLES

49. Talcott Parsons: The Social System
The fourth pair of pattern variables are achievement vs. ascriptive role behavior: the choice between modalities of the social object. Achievement-orientation roles are those which place an emphasis on the performances of the people, whereas ascribed roles, the qualities or attributes of people are emphasized independently of specific expected performances.
PARSONS’ PATTERN VARIABLES

50. Talcott Parsons: The Social System
The fifth pair of pattern variables are specificity vs. diffuseness: the definition of scope of interest in the object. If one adopts an orientation of specificity towards an object, it means that the definition of the role as orienting to the social object in specific terms. In contrast, in a diffuse orientation, the mode of orientation is outside the range of obligations defined by the role-expectation.
PARSONS’ PATTERN VARIABLES

51. PARSONS’ MODEL OF SOCIAL CHANGE
(countering the systemic tendency toward equilibrium)
2. SUB GROUP ORGANIZATION
• Emergence of expressive leadership
S: Situation (chaotic, unstable)
I: Individual (charismatic leader)
S: Symbols (resonating with previous traditions)
A: Audience (marginal, experiencing anomie) • Creation of alternative set of normative expectations and sanctions • Evasion of current cultural sanctions
1. INCREASED SOCIAL STRAIN
• Critical mass • Dissatisfaction • Value inconsistencies

52. PARSONS’ MODEL OF SOCIAL CHANGE
(countering the systemic tendency toward equilibrium)
4. RECONNECTION TO THE DOMINANT SOCIAL SYSTEM
• Introduction of internal discipline • Institutionalization of new core values
• Adaptive concessions to external realities
3. DEVELOPMENT OF MEANINGFUL IDEOLOGY
• Acceptable claim to legitimacy
• Symbols with wide appeal
• Coherent • Relevant

53. Talcott Parsons: The System of Modern Societies
SOC4044 Sociological Theory
Saturday, April 15, 2017
Talcott Parsons: The System of Modern Societies
A historical study of societal evolution as evident in the stages of systematic development within Western history. .
© by Ronald Keith Bolender

54. Talcott Parsons: The System of Modern Societies
SOC4044 Sociological Theory
Saturday, April 15, 2017
Talcott Parsons: The System of Modern Societies
From feudalism to a differential and interdependent division of labor that marked the European system.
During this process, feudal institutions came to be replaced by early capitalism with some growing centralization of political power.
Then came the Renaissance and the development of secular culture within the framework of a still vibrant religious order.
Reformation (the Religious Revolution): During this period, the priesthood began to lose its exclusive entitlement to the keys to the kingdom, an event that signaled the advent of individualism.
© by Ronald Keith Bolender

55. Talcott Parsons: The System of Modern Societies
SOC4044 Sociological Theory
Saturday, April 15, 2017
Talcott Parsons: The System of Modern Societies
Era Two: First Crystallization of the Modern System
Centered in the European northwest (England, France, and Holland), which saw the centralization of a form of state power and the establishment of mercantile capitalism. One noteworthy development here was the coming of a pluralist political system in England, the result of the Political Revolution.
© by Ronald Keith Bolender

56. Talcott Parsons: The System of Modern Societies
SOC4044 Sociological Theory
Saturday, April 15, 2017
Talcott Parsons: The System of Modern Societies
Era Three: Age of Revolutions
During this time, the Industrial Revolution featured the expansion of financial markets, while the Democratic Revolution saw the spreading of the differentiation of rule by people throughout Western Europe, and by this time the Scientific Revolution was beginning to realize its full impact on society.
© by Ronald Keith Bolender

57. Talcott Parsons: The System of Modern Societies
SOC4044 Sociological Theory
Saturday, April 15, 2017
Talcott Parsons: The System of Modern Societies
Era Four: New Lead Society
Parsons argued that the promise of the industrial and democratic revolutions could not be realized in Europe because of its aristocratic, stratified, and monarchal traditions. Primarily because of the lack of such restrictions, together with its educational revolution and political pluralism, the “ new lead society” is (for Parsons) the United States. It is here that Parsons located the highest form of general adaptation, the embodiment of the evolutionary principle that drives systems and systematic theories.
© by Ronald Keith Bolender

59. Talcott Parsons
a mixed legacy….

60. ? ??