Showing papers in "American Sociological Review in 1953"

The Social System.

Abstract: In the history of sociological theory, Talcott Parsons holds a very special place. His The Structure of Social Action (1937), was a pioneer work that has influenced many social scientists. The present work, The Social System, presents a major scientific and intellectual advance towards the theory of action first outlined in his earlier work.

Some Principles of Stratification: A Critical Analysis

Abstract: The fact of social inequality in human society is marked by its ubiquity and its antiquity. The ubiquity and the antiquity of such inequality have given rise to the assumption that there must be something both inevitable and positively functional about such social arrangements. A generalized theory of social stratification must recognize that the prevailing system of inducements and rewards is only one of many variants in the whole range of possible systems of motivation which, at least theoretically, are capable of working in human society. Whether or not differential rewards and opportunities are functional in any one generation, it is clear that if those differentials are allowed to be socially inherited by the next generation, then, the stratification system is specifically dysfunctional for the discovery of talents in the next generation. Smoothly working and stable systems of stratification, wherever found, tend to build-in obstacles to the exploration of the range of available talent.

Social Stratification and Psychiatric Disorders

Abstract: T HE research reported here grew out of the work of a number of men, who, during the last half century, have demonstrated that the social environment in which individuals live is connected in some way, as yet not fully explained, to the development of mental illness.' Medical men have approached this problem largely from the viewpoint of epidemiology.2 Sociologists, on the other hand, have analyzed the ques-

The Help Pattern in the Middle Class Family

Abstract: as an integrating device for Soviety society by permitting the release of system-induced tensions and concomitant diminution of personal resentment, by increasing the sense of mass participation and by simultaneously acting as an additional control on the mas-sive Soviet bureaucracy, they become one factor among the myriad to be weighed in assessing the continued effective functioning of the Soviet system.

The Deferred Gratification Pattern: A Preliminary Study

Abstract: SCATTERED pieces of sociological research have highlighted what we shall call "the deferred gratification pattern." The present paper is not primarily directed toward documentation of these bits of research, but it will gather together significant points from a number of them and will present some of the results of a preliminary empirical study designed to carry forward an exploration of the deferred gratification pattern. Deferred gratification evidently refers to postponement of gratifications or satisfactions. Thus, in the job area, as Hollingshead shows, the lower-class boy, eager to pay his own way and escape family domination, seeks a full-time job at a very early age and accordingly leaves school.' The freedom he thus obtains happens to be illusory and he finds himself caught in a round of jobs with low pay and little promise. Deferment of the gratification of being employed and independent, through the process of obtaining a more elaborate education before one seeks a job, is eventually rewarded. But it is not necessarily implied that deferment of gratification is always worthwhile, and this is in any case largely beyond our present concern. The deferment of gratification occurs in many other areas. It may be contended that it does indeed fall into a pattern, characteristic of the so-called "middle class," members of which tend to delay achievement of economic independence through a relatively elaborate process of education, tend to defer sexual gratification through intercourse, show a relatively marked tendency to save money, and the like. For purposes of this preliminary specification, two further points must be noted. The deferred gratification pattern appears to be closely associated with "impulse renunciation."2 Thus, some of the per-

The Quest for Universals in Sociological Research

Abstract: times are contradictory. That's good. For all will hope that nothing said today to our young Ph.D.'s will inhibit a daring willingness to pick up torches which others found too hot to handle or which in older hands merely sputtered and went out. And all through this unique symposium there glows a faith in the future for those who will build the sociology of the last half of the twentieth century. This program has been made possible by the facilities of the Columbia Broadcasting System.

Social Correlates of Religious Interest

Abstract: attempt to test this hypothesis involved the tape recording in the adjoining room. Subjects were asked to fill out a multiple-choice test based on the content of that recording. The problem set by the test was one of correct recognition of the material reproduced from the tape. Analysis of the data gives no indication of a difference between A and D groups in the recall of this material. The within-group variation is great, as is that between groups, in each of the experimental variations.

Levels of Aspiration and Social Class

Abstract: W OVEN throughout much of the material on social class is the implication that different levels of aspiration are held by individuals in different social classes. Mills, for example, holds that for the white-collar class, "Success in America has been a widespread fact, an engaging image, a driving motive, and a way of life." I Warner states that those in the upper-lower class of Yankee City are thought of as "'pushy" and ambitious, and implies that the same is true for those in the lower-upper class.2 Marx maintains that the proletariat can have no aspirations under capitalism, but instead must come to identify with their own class and aspire to an entirely different system of values.3 Knupfer, in summarizing a variety of information, concludes that lower status individuals hold low levels of aspiration "to make life tolerable"; a fact which in some cases is a "sign of apathy and ingrained acceptance of defeat rather than of adjustment to reality. .. ." 4 Finally, the mistrustful "commonsense" view often implies that the middle class contains the

Role Conflict and Ambivalence in Leadership

Abstract: 10 Cf. F. J. Roethlisberger and WV. J. Dickson, Management and the Worker, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1947, Chapters XXII and XXIII, and W. E. Moore, Industrial Relations and the Social Order, New York: The Macmillan Co., 1947, Chapter XV. An exception to this emphasis is provided in D. C. Miller and WV. H. Form, Industrial Sociology, New York: Harper and Bros., 1951, Chapter IX. sential to the very functioning of instituted organizations. The data presented here, based as they are on only two work organizations, are inconclusive. But they do suggest that the relation between primary and institutional controls is by no means a simple one, and that further research on this relation may prove fruitful in the examination of behavior in formal work organizations."

Some Comments on the State of the General Theory of Action

Abstract: IN view of the fact that two books' in which I have had an important hand which were published about two years ago, have lead to considerable comment both in this Review and elsewhere, the Editor of the Review has kindly invited me to "have my say in the matter." In considering how this opportunity could be used most effectively it has seemed best to focus attention on two things, namely clarification, and the placing of the work in perspective, rather than attempting to answer criticisms in detail. Reference will be made to a number of these criticisms, but I feel that the problem of communication and understanding should in an important sense take precedence. Furthermore, considerable additional work has been done since the two books in question were written, a brief report on some aspects of this work may help to clarify some of the points of difficulty. The first important point I would like to make is that, while I, and I think several of my colleagues, felt that the two books in question documented what was in certain respects a considerable advance in the differentiation and integration of the conceptual scheme we have been calling the theory of action, they were in no sense meant to suggest any fundamental break in the continuity of theoretical development in the field as a whole; we feel that they stand in the most intimate relation to a great deal of work done before, and going on concurrently in other circles. This of course includes both sociology and the neighboring fields of psychology and anthropology. With respect to my personal orientation as a sociologist, I am of course aware of the fact that through the double circumstances of having come into the field through economics, and having received my graduate training in Europe, certain European sociologists have exercised the most conspicuous and direct influence on my theoretical thinking. A main reason for my early interest in the work of Max Weber, and later that of Pareto, lay in the fact that these men dealt constructively, in my opinion, with the problems concerning the relation between economic and sociological theory which underlay the "institutionalist" controversy of the time in American Economics. In my opinion the then dominant "Veblenian" group among the American institutionalists failed conspicuously to solve these problems while others, like Wesley Mitchell, seemed to me to be sheer empiricists who essentially abandoned the attempt at theoretical analysis in favor of description of statistical trends. Furthermore, it was only after I became fully aware that Durkheim, in his study of the division of labor, was dealing with essentially the same problems, that I really felt I could adequately understand and evaluate Durkheim's work. This economic and European background has undoubtedly given a certain "slant" to my work, and habits of using terminology, which has perhaps made communication with some of the older traditions of American sociology more difficult than it would have been had I had a regular American graduate training. But I have been increasingly aware of the extent to which many of these American writers were dealing with cognate problems, though often in such different terms that translation was not easy. In the background I found Sumner important. Of the American writers of the last generation, however, I think I have profited most by the work of W. I. Thomas and G. H. Mead, the latter particularly in connection with recent phases of my own work. Both have been most important in helping to build what for me are the critically important bridges between sociology and psychology. In a theoretical sense I have found both Cooley and 1 Toward a General Theory of Action, Edited by Talcott Parsons and Edward A. Shils, Harvard University Press, 1951, and The Social System, by Talcott Parsons, The Free Press, 1951. 618