Talcott Parsons Born1902- Died 1979

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Talcott ParsonsBorn1902- 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 Webers brother) was his
  primary teacher
• Also sat under the instruction of Karl Mannheim

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Talcott Parsons

• Harvard Professor of Economics, and then
  Sociology, 1927-1973
• Founded the Department ofSocial Relations
  combiningSociology, Anthropology,and
  Psychology, 1944
• Key worksThe 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)

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Talcott Parsonsand Grand Theory

• The dominant figure in American sociology if
  not world-wide from the mid-1940s to the
  mid-1970s. (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)

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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

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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.

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Talcott Parsons The Social System

• How do social systems survive?
• More specifically, why do institutionalized
  patterns of interactions persist?
• Parsons, Talcott. 1951. The Social System.
  Glencoe, IL The Free Press.

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Talcott Parsons The Social System

• The Four Functional Imperatives
• Adaptation
• Involves securing sufficient resources from the
  environment and then distributing these
  throughout the system
• Goal Attainment
• Refers to establishing priorities among system
  goals and mobilizing system resources for their
  attainment

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Talcott Parsons The Social System

• Integration
• Denotes coordinating and maintaining viable
  interrelationships among system units

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Talcott Parsons The Social System

• Latency
• Embraces two related problems
• Pattern Maintenance
• Pertains to how to ensure that actors in the
  social system display the appropriate
  characteristics
• Motives
• Needs
• Role-playing
• Tension Management
• Concerns dealing with the internal tensions and
  strains of actors in the social system

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ACTION SYSTEMS withinPARSONS AGIL MODEL
ADAPTATION     EconomicEnergy for Environmental Interactions GOAL ATTAINMENT     PoliticalSelectiveGroup-Determination
INTEGRATION   Cultural-Legal System Institutions of socialization and social control LATENT PATTERN MAINTENANCE TENSION MANAGEMENT Kinship (family) SystemValues and Norms, Beliefs and Ideologies
Bare Materials
(Human Nature)
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Talcott Parsons The Social System

• Here are several illustrations of how the Four
  Functional Imperatives can illustrate the
  workings of social systems

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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, church
member, ethnic group, etc.
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The WNBA as a Social System
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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
  womens 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

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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

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The WNBA as a Social System

• Latency (after the WNBA is integrated into the
  nations sports consciousness)
• Pattern Maintenance
• Establishing proper roles and motives
• Tension Management
• Dealing with internal tensions and strains of
  actors in the social system

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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.

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PARSONS MODEL OF SOCIAL CHANGE (countering the
systemic tendency toward equilibrium)
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
INCREASED SOCIAL STRAIN Critical mass
Dissatisfaction Value inconsistencies
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PARSONS MODEL OF SOCIAL CHANGE (countering the
systemic tendency toward equilibrium)
RECONNECTION TO THE DOMINANT SOCIAL SYSTEM
Introduction of internal discipline
Institutionalization of new core values
Adaptive concessions to external realities
DEVELOPMENT OF MEANINGFUL IDEOLOGY
Acceptable claim to legitimacy
Symbols with wide appeal Coherent
Relevant
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Talcott Parsons The System of Modern Societies

• The System of Modern Societies
• A historical study of societal evolution as
• evident in the stages of systematic development
• within Western history.
• Published in 1971 .

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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 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

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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.

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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.

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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.