Showing papers on "Social system published in 1975"

The structure of social systems

Abstract: This text critically examines and clarifies existing concepts employed by sociologists to describe various aspects of social organization or structure. It redefines them to develop a conceptual framework for building structural models of social systems, from small groups to societies.

Social exchange in marketing

Abstract: Exchange is a fundamental and universal aspect of human behavior. Economic exchange models have dealt with the buying and selling of material goods and services, while social exchange models have broadened their scope to include social and psychological aspects of interactions. In its present form, however, the social exchange model exhibits serious shortcomings for the marketing scholar and practitioner; it is largely atheoretical, unrealistic, narrow in applicability, and lacking in its depiction of important facets of man's behavior. In light of these criticisms, the notion of an exchange system is proposed and illustrated as an explanatory framework. Finally, it is suggested that marketing can be viewed as a component of the social system functioning as both a cause and consequence of social change.

Organized Social Complexity: Challenge to Politics and Policy

Abstract: One striking feature of modern political and social development has been the construction of social systems encompassing more and more groups. The increase in social complexity, the authors of this volume contend, has reached a point where accepted concepts fail to describe social and political phenomena adequately. The studies in this book reevaluate traditional assumptions. Part One defines organized social complexity and discusses the effects of technological change. Part Two assesses national planning and systems analysis, approaches supposed to provide direct control over social matters. Part Three describes methodological aspects and research applications, and Part Four provides retrospective and prospective views of theories on social complexity.Originally published in 1975.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The Life Course, Age Grading, and Age-Linked Demands for Decision Making

Abstract: Life-span developmental psychology intersects with sociology at the point where social systems, whether they be small groups or nations, deal with the biological and social maturation and aging of their individual members. The basic premise of this paper is that age is an important variable that cuts across all areas of social life, and that it does so primarily through three social mechanisms: the life course, the system of age grading, and age-linked demands for decision making. This paper treats the life course, age grading and age-linked demands for decisions as highly interrelated social forces operating in the development of human beings. The life course is portrayed as a crude road map with quite a few alternative routes for getting through life's various stages. The existence of the life course provides a conception of successive changes in the structure of an individual's life and an expection that these changes will occur. Age grading, is portrayed as a process that combines with sex to control the individual's access to various groups, roles, aspects of culture(including norms, attitudes, values, beliefs, and skills), social situations, and social processes. Decision demands provide the individual, and those who care about him or her, with motivation for imposing structure on what otherwise would be a chaotic system of sometimes contradictory age norms and age-linked opportunities. Decision demands are a prime normative mechanism for providing the movement that translates the static age grading system into the life course and ultimately into the biography of an individual. Finally, some social factors that shape the individual's responses to change are discussed. This paper represents a preliminary excursion into poorly charted territory. It contains many speculations intended to promote thinking and spark research in new directions. It is necessarily short on well-documented answers to the issues it raises. At the same time, it seeks to provide a more complex approach to the sociology of the life span than has been available to developmental researchers in the past.

The Comparative Study of Disaster: A Social Organizational Approach

Abstract: Disasters can provide an exceptional opportunity for the comparative analysis of social systems, Disaster events are particularly useful for comparative purposes since they activate a variety of structures and processes with which the social system attempts to cope. In addition, disaster events allow for the observation of complex intergroup and interinstitutional relationships which in "normal times" usually emerge more slowly and segmentally. Such complexity is often slighted in most other comparative research since methodologies are used which place a premium on precision and abstraction rather than on the real complexities of social interrelationships. Disaster events are also useful for comparative purposes not only in understanding the more immediate adaptation of social systems but also because they are significant in understanding long-range social change.

Toward a Social-Psychological Theory of Charismatic Social Influence Processes

Abstract: The concept "charisma" is generally applied in an unsystematic fashion, to noncomparable events, using post hoc analysis. An effort is made to construct a testable model of certain social influence processes included under the "charismatic" influence rubric. Charismatic social influence is viewed as an attribution process influenced by a number of intrapersonal, interpersonal, and social system factors which limit and direct audience members' construction of perspectives. Various social system-environmental factors, message and message delivery characteristics, speaker features, and intra-audience processes are discussed as determinants of certain kinds of social influence and attributions of a speaker's relative greatness. Among Weber's three types of authority (Gerth and Mills, 1946; Weber, 1922) charismatic influence is a residual phenomenon quite distinct from the other two types. Both traditional and rational-legal authority rest on a status, or position-centered, base of legitimation. Social influence not having status legitimation is lumped under the category of charismatic influence and viewed as a result of others' acceptance of someone's claim to exceptional characteristics (Weber, 1922). This bifurcation of social influence into position-centered, normatively controlled authority versus that which is emergent and often in violation of extant norms, has had a substantial impact on sociological theory. Much of the sociological enterprise has followed Weber's lead in dichotomizing behaviors into recurring action patterns supporting system equilibrium and transcendental, unusual action patterns resulting in widespread social change. This mode of analysis has promoted the equilibrium theory-conflict theory polemic and necessitated the creation of special topic categories to handle "nonfitting" behaviors, e.g., deviant and collective behavior. Furthermore, such an approach sustains the voluntarismdeterminism debate which has generated so * Special gratitude to Carl Couch for stimulating my thinking on this topic and criticizing earlier drafts of this paper. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.17 on Thu, 01 Sep 2016 06:39:04 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 486 / SOCIAL FORCES / vol. 53:3, march 1975 much ideological heat but so little scientific fire. Abstraction of this type clearly violates the ideal of theoretical parsimony. The inadequacies of this theoretical approach are dramatically illustrated in the charisma literature itself. Generally, the concept is applied in an obtuse and completely post hoc fashion with little emphasis on hypothesis construction. In addition, -there is little agreement as to the range of phenomena embraced by the concept. Shils (1965) argues that people and positions of great power automatically generate attributions of charisma. Runciman (1963) equates charismatic influence with outstanding personal leadership in diverse settings. Friedland (1964) views charismatic leadership as a predictable outcome of certain types of social situations. Finally, Dow (1969) returns to the hallowed tradition of exceptional men whose supramundane qualities remain largely inexplicable. The subject of this paper is speaker-audience relationships which result in the attribution of unique qualities to the speaker and create the opportunity for speaker directed action. This dual concern includes things like effective story telling and stirring play acting but considers additional factors necessary to generate social action. METATHEORETICAL FOCUS One method of accounting for systematic, repetitive behaviors in any social system, in any system state, at any given time, is to assume their genesis in shared communication processes (Buckley, 1967; Newcomb, 1953). Shared communications result in the dissemination and reinforcement of one or more perspectives circumscribing expected behaviors, system boundaries, and opportunity structures. Behavioral uniformity or diversity is viewed as a product of the relative availability of, and support for, alternative perspectives. This approach treats norms as only one way, albeit an important way, of circumscribing alternatives. Applying this mode of analysis entails the assumption that the person is capable of selfregulatory, flexible, symbol-mediated behaviors (Luria, 1961; Mead, 1934). Defining behavior as symbol-mediated does not, however, imply a nondeterministic theoretical stance. Clearly, self-regulatory, flexible behavior depends on an available repertoire of alternative perspectives that one can invoke in the decisionmaking process. The sheer availability of, and support for, perspectives depends on various environmental circumstances. This is essentially what is being demonstrated in studies relating social class to intelligence levels, academic performance, and different cognitive structures. Furthermore, sharedness of perspectives determines the type and manner of sanction applied to any given behavior. Sanctions influence the probability of occurrence of that particular behavior (Scott, 1972). These are precisely the underlying assumptions of social role theories, ideas concerning the impact of reference others, and socialization theories. Writers from Freud (1922) to LeBon (1917) have characterized the behavioral expression of certain speaker-audience relationships as "primitive," or analogues to early parent-child relationships. Explanations have included such things as the operation of primeval instincts and the somewhat mysterious work of "contagion" (Turner, 1964). Various speakeraudience relationships suggesting "charismatic influence" do indeed exhibit parallels to early child-parent relationships. This paper argues, however, that the parallels between child-parent and crowd member-speaker relationships result from similarities in availability and processing of information that characterize both children and crowd members under certain circumstances. Charismatic influence can be viewed as the end product of a complex attribution process. Various social-structural and social-psychological factors delimit people's perspectives in ways fostering receptivity to certain types of social influence. Oftentimes, under conditions to be subsequently delineated, heightened receptivity to social influence is accompanied by overt, somewhat intense, reactions directed toward a speaker. When relatively large numbers of people exhibit intense parallel reactions directed toward a speaker they, and those observing their behavior, select the speaker as the influence source and attribute unusual characteristics to that person. Furthermore, those identified as charismatic leaders vary tremendously in their ability to direct audience members' activity. Such variation stems from different combinations of social and psychological factors which shape audience members' perspectives in ways affecting a speaker's ability to direct their activity. Variation in perspective determinants is examined for the audiences of effective story tellers and play actors, religious evangelists, and those instrumental in promoting social upheavals. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.17 on Thu, 01 Sep 2016 06:39:04 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Charismatic Social Influence / 487 This comparison process illustrates and highlights the argument. In discussing factors which channel perspective construction and availability social-structural, social-psychological, and psychological processes are included. At the social-system level norms and certain crisis, or stress producing, agents are discussed. At the interpersonal level various message and message delivery characteristics, definitions of the speaker's social characteristics, and aspects of audience involvement are included. Finally, at the intrapersonal level both perceived audience involvement and emotional arousal are analyzed. SOCIAL CONSTRAINTS ON PERSPECTIVE CONSTRUCTION AND SUPPORT IN CHARISMATIC SITUATIONS

The Role of Education in a Strategy for Social Change.

Abstract: AT THE CIES MEETINGS in San Francisco this past March, Philip Foster asked our panel on "Educational Change in Revolutionary Societies" how he could agree with much of our analysis of educational change but at the same time so disagree with the implications of our analysis for change. My answer was that we disagreed on the nature of capitalist development. Foster takes a Schumpeterian view, believing that the main problem of capitalist development is that the State interferes with the workings of a market system which is inherently just and fair and leads to maximum economic development. I and my co-panelists believe that the interference by the State is not anti-capitalist. To the contrary, it is part and parcel of the cooperation between the State and capitalists to increase profits. Of course, only a small proportion of capitalists may be rewarded, but we think that the evolution of competitive capitalism to monopoly capitalism is a logical outcome of the way capitalism functions and that the participation of the State in this process is inevitable given the State's role in post-feudal societies. Foster's Schumpterian view of the State's role in economic development is clear in his proposals to decentralize educational decisions and responsibilities. According to Foster, decentralization would be possible because centralized authority is the product of a colonial "state of mind." However, I have suggested that the dominant role of the State in development is due to the economic and social structures of dependent capitalism. Thus, it seems to me that many of Foster's suggestions for decentralization will not be implemented because they conflict with the interests of the government and capitalist local bourgeoisie who profit from its decisions and foreign, ex-colonial groups who believe more in economic stability than in reform and decentralized decision-making. This is the fundamental reason why I can agree with parts of Foster's analysis and so disagree with his strategy for educational development and social change. By 1985, the majority of the world's children will have had some formal schooling. We can view this fact with pride, believing that it marks a forward step in human development, or we can view it with serious misgivings, fearful that much of the schooling experience is no more than a further incarceration of the human will and spirit. Our judgment should emerge from an analysis of the economic and social system which this formalized teaching-learning process is being used to maintain and promote. I submit that schooling should be analyzed as an institution serving a particular society with well-defined ends and means to

The Dynamics of Conflict and Cooperation between Nations. A Computer Simulation and Some Results

Abstract: International relations and especially problems concerning conflict and cooperation between nation-states are one of the most complicated subjects in the study of social systems. This is what Carl J. Friedrich had in mind when he argued that, in politics, one general rule may be 'to expect the unexpected.'1 Jay Forrester has very aptly characterized these properties of complex social systems as 'counter intuitive'2. Their behavior often leads to unexpected and sometimes unintended results. A social system and especially the international system is an open system on principle. The behavior of open systems depends more or less on unpredictable influences from their respective environments. As we are not able to model the universe in order to predict and study all possible processes existing now and in the future, it may very well be a good advice to expect the unexpected'. But if we do not want to surrender political decision to mere intuitive experience, it is not enough to be aware and sensitive of unexpected events. We also need a set of means and methods which enables us to react in a proper way to unplanned disturbances, and thus to assure a satisfactory performance of the system. This implies that we have to know how a system will behave without influences from outside, and how the system will alter its dynamics in the event of environmental disturbances and regulative inputs. The main characteristic of a social system is its complexity. Numerous parts interact in a rather sophisticated way. The interrelationships are mostly non-linear and include time lags and other delays. But our mental processes, on the other hand, have been conditioned and sharpened almost exclusively by experiences with simple systems of everyday life containing, in the language of cybernetics, a negative first-order feedback structure, that is to say, simple goal attainment and adaptation. Complex systems, being multiple-loop and non-linear, exhibit dynamics far beyond the reach of our mental capabilities. To mention but a few of their characteristics we might include: complex systems are remarkably insensitive to changes in many system parameters, they often resist policy changes, they counteract and compensate for externally applied corrective efforts, they react differently in the long run than they do in the short run. We cannot hope to understand the very complicated structure of complex social systems through intuition alone. More powerful methods have to be applied. Statistical procedures now at hand may allow us to study the relationship between a few independent and dependent variables. But they are totally ineffective for the analysis of the over-all behavior of complex systems, partly because the feedback-structure of these systems does not contain wholly independent variables, partly because conventional statistics are inadequate for tracing nonlinear relationships. The mathematical models of social systems, in so far as they try to deduce analytic solutions, have to be rather simple. They cannot model the complexity of real systems, and the analytic solutions based on unrealistic assumptions are of little practical value. The attitude is pri-

Daladali in Calcutta in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract: In this paper I wish to illustrate the hypothesis that a necessary co-relate of stable social order is a system of controlled conflict. In other words, a social system depends for its cohesion on the existence of conflicts in smaller sub-systems, provided that the conflicts are conducted within an accepted convention. Hence faction-feuds in a social system are not necessarily evidence of fission in that system but may also be evidence of fusion. I wish to illustrate this theme, what Gluckman called ‘The peace in the feud’, from evidence from Calcutta in the nineteenth century.

Longitudinal Study of Language Development in Severely Malnourished Children

Abstract: At the community level, malnutrition--more specifically protein-calorie malnutrition--is a man-made disorder characteristic of the lower socioeconomic segments of society, particularly of the preindustrial societies, where the social system consciously or unconsciously creates malnourished individuals, generation after generation, through a series of social mechanisms among which limited access to goods and services, limited social mobility, and restricted experiential opportunities at crucial points in life play a major role.

SOCIAL WORK AND CORRECTIONS Comments on an Uneasy Partnership

Abstract: This paper offers a summary of social work contributions to correctional treatment and provides a refutation to charges that social work in corrections is ineffective and adds a therapeutic veneer that prolongs the life of an outmoded, deficient system. Fundamental theories and practices of social work are consistent with the shifting emphasis from punishment to rehabilitation and community integration through focusing on the client within a social framework, attempting to influence the functioning of the social system, and coordinating new resources to met emerging needs. Postponing access to social services until after discharge from prison prevents the most rootless and disorganized among the prison population, with the highest probability of recidivism, from receiving necessary services, which might help to break the vicious cycle.

School Desegregation as an Instrument of Social Policy: Notes Toward a Sociology of the Sociology of Education.

Abstract: MF-$0.76 HC-$1.58 PLUS POSTAGE Educational Research; *Educational Sociology; Government Role; Integration Effects; Integration Methods; Integration Studies; *Public Policy; Racial Attitudes; Racial Discrimination; Research Needs; *Research Utilization; *School Integration; Scientific Research; Social Sciences; *Values Pointing out that education is clearly one of society's most basic instruments for achieving social conformity, and socialization in the schools is clearly designed to perpetuate the dominant values of the present social system, the author asks whether it does not seem reasonable that those who most precisely articulate these dominant values are very often those who are most extensively educated. If public schooling results in a considerable degree of conformity, what might be expected from the combination of public schooling, college education, and graduate training? Indeed, will not sociologists of education likely be among the most diligent supporters of the prevailing social institutions, as well as their racial values? By discussing school desegregation as an instrument of social policy, the author intends to begin a critical examination of some of the values, assumptions, and questions that underly much of the work of sociologists of education. This paper focuses on three broad areas: (1) the historical relationship between national desegregation policy and social science research; (2) the characteristics of the local school desegregation decision; and (3) the actual utility of research on desegregation. The objectivity and methodology of sociologists of education apparently serve values of which they may be unaware. (Author/JM) OF PARThf PC tit at 101 I DU -ATICIN YAIkrAPf NAT ,.ISTT UTE 01 MSC t.1,014 SCHOOL DESEGREGATION AS AN INSTRUMENT OF SOCIAL POLICY: NOTES TOWARD A SOCIOLOGY OF THE SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION EUGENE S. MORNELL U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Third Annual Sociology of Education Association Conference. .Asilomar, Pacific Grove, California January 31 February 2, 1975 SCOPE OF INTEREST NOTICE The ERIC Facoloy has assigned tho document for pr ^ssing to INTRODUCTION In our pudgement, this document ts also of Interest to the cleat onghouses noted to the oght. Index. ng should reflect their special points of view. The raison d'etre of our association is advancement of the sociology of education; the theme of our conference is educational reform; and the subject of our session is equal educational opportunity. Thus, there would seem to be no more appropriate occasion to reflect upon as issue that is basic to all three of our interests today: the relationship between social science research and the making of social policy. The very nature of our interests suggests that we are concerned whether our research brings about improvement in the schools. We necessarily feel that the knowledge we develop may serve some useful purpose and contribute to educational change. Unfortunately, it too seldom has this result. Yet, rather than criticize the policy makers who fail-to heed our advice, perhaps it would be more 7q .414 helpful to look at our own role in this situation. Here school u desegregation offers an instructive example.

Sociological Theory of Social Order

Abstract: According to Parsonian point or view, we can designate a given set of interactions as a social system in so far as statistical uniformities and orderliness or factual orders observable in that interaction process are, at the same time, normative orders which effectively control actions of persons interacting. Apparently, the concept of the social system just defined implies by definition the tendency for the gratification-deprivation dimension and the conformity-alienation dimension in the interaction process to coincide to a lesser or greater degree. Judging from this reason, it should be clear that Parsonian concept of the social system is a conceptual scheme appropriately called “the institutionally integrated social system”.Then, we can assume that structures of the social system in the above sense consist of the following two types of interdependent roles-complex. One is that of networks of institutionalized roles interlocked by interactions, and the other is that of patternconsistently organized role systems or institutions. In addition, it is also assumed that institutions are differentiated into recruitment, relational and regulative institutions.On the basis of the above preliminary conceptual clarification, it follows that the normative regulation of recruitment and allocation of personnel to roles is the prerequisite for the establishment of the distributive order of social resources at the societal level which in turn makes possible the compatibility (peaceful coexistence) of members under the condition of scarce social resources. It should be recalled that the distributive order is not anything but normative order, the change of which in auy direction is possible only if the resistance of vested interests is successfully overcome.