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Showing papers on "Social system published in 1986"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Role theory is used to analyze various forms of social system as mentioned in this paper, and role concepts have generated a lot of research in recent years, including functional, symbolic interactionist, structural, organizational, and cognitive role theory.
Abstract: Role theory Concerns One of the most important features of social life, characteristic behavior patterns or roles. It explains roles by presuming that persons are members of social positions and hold expectations for their own behaviors and those of other persons. Its vocabulary and concerns are popular among social scientists and practitioners, and role concepts have generated a lot of research. At least five perspectives may be discriminated in recent work within the field: functional, symbolic interactionist, structural, organizational, and cognitive role theory. Much of role research reflects practical concerns and derived concepts, and research on four such concepts is reviewed: consensus, conformity, role conflict, and role taking. Recent developments suggest both centrifugal and integrative forces within the role field. The former reflect differing perspectival commitments of scholars, confusions and disagreements over use of role concepts, and the fact that role theory is used to analyze various forms of social system. The latter reflect the shared, basic concerns of the field and efforts by role theorists to seek a broad version of the field that will accommodate a wide range of interests.

1,697 citations


Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 1986
TL;DR: A major goal of the control developed by social systems is the subordination of individual needs to the larger goals of the survival of the group as mentioned in this paper, which is why a Skinnerian analysis has viewed society as a giant mechanism for the enforcement of self-regulation.
Abstract: Social systems have developed out of the need for the regulation of individual behaviors in order to facilitate communal living. A major goal of the control developed by social systems is the subordination of individual needs to the larger goals of the survival of the group. What is beneficial for an individual is often a satisfaction attained at the expense of pain or harm to others or to oneself at a future time. It is for such reasons that a Skinnerian analysis has viewed society as a giant mechanism for the enforcement of self-regulation. Social and cultural evolution has developed elaborate agencies of religion, education, government, family, and law. But they leave many loopholes in the control of individuals.

91 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
Charles Smith1
TL;DR: In this paper, a paradigm originating within physical science research is used to frame a model of social system transformation and regeneration, and an illustrative case study from the NASA Apollo organization is presented.
Abstract: This paper focuses on the study of transformation and regeneration processes in social systems, and identifies aspects of these processes that have parallels across systems levels. A paradigm originating within physical science research is used to frame a model of social system transformation. Social system change literature is presented in terms of the model and implications for change agents and researchers are discussed. An illustrative case study from the NASA Apollo organization is presented.

30 citations




Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the emergent social psychology of social endings and how culminating behaviors associated with role conclusions in general and with retirement in particular can contribute to both social and personal order.
Abstract: This paper elaborates upon the emergent social psychology of social endings and explicates how culminating behaviors associated with role conclusions in general and with retirement in particular can contribute to both social and personal order. Now that role careers are typically concluded by design rather than by death, invidious comparisons are being drawn and ending strategies rank-ordered in terms of their desirability. It is hypothesized that some retirements are recognized as being better than others and that our social system is coming to recognize and celebrate those who excel in their role performances until the very end. As illustration, we consider American professional team sports as the cultural totem dramatizing modern work relations and examine how the quality of athlete's career conclusions affect how they are remembered.

9 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the emergence and development of a self-reflexive contingent structure is depicted as a threshold condition which produces a set of properties not available to systems of lower complexity and which increases the variety available to the system through structural reformulation in the face of envi...
Abstract: Niklas Luhmann has provided a view of social theory from the perspective of contemporary systems theory which highlights a large number of social mechanisms that tend to be overlooked in the more traditional approaches. Using a complex hierarchical approach to social structure, I demonstrate the kinds of social change which Luhmann brings out in a way that avoids his own functionalist teleology while at the same time emphasizes his unique description of the role of contingency in the evolution of social systems. Finally, from Luhmann's approach toward social theory I suggest a theory of development and change in social structures which is unique to the level of complexity where social activities are found. This theory depicts the emergence and development of a self-reflexive contingent structure as a threshold condition which produces a set of properties not available to systems of lower complexity and which increases the variety available to the system through structural reformulation in the face of envi...

7 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Reformation debates between the Reformers and their adversaries can be seen as analyses of the nature of life in an association or in a social system and thereby as extending our understanding of these two forms of social organization.
Abstract: Several years ago, I found that a group's being organized as an association or a social system had important consequences (Swanson, 1967, 1971). Societies in early modern Europe were likely to become Protestant if they were organized as associations. The more definite a society's organization as an association, the more likely it was to become Calvinist rather than Lutheran (or Anglican). Societies organized primarily as social systems were likely to remain Roman Catholic. I came to these findings by a familiar route, that is by drawing on sociology for an understanding of religious developments. But one can move in the opposite direction as well. The debates between the Reformers and their adversaries can be seen as analyses of the nature of life in an association or in a social system and thereby as extending our understanding of these two forms of social organization. The things we learn from that approach can improve our account of any historical event in which the distinction is important. The Reformation is but one such event. In this paper I present evidence from new studies that turn on the distinction between association and social system. Each study concerns relations between personality and social structure as suggested by the Reformation debates. In each case I describe some feature of these relations as conceived at the Reformation. Then I cast them in a more general form and look at samples of primitive societies and/or American families to see whether expected relations to association/social system do in fact appear.

6 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Anthropologists often select a field site, live there for a number of years, write about their observations, and return to the site late in their careers to assess changes.
Abstract: Anthropologists often select a field site, live there a number of years, write about their observations, and return to the site late in their careers to assess changes. Contemporary practicing anthropologists inhabit public and private agencies much like classic village-dwelling anthropologists. The notable difference in their behavior within the social system stems from a deeply held belief that the purpose of understanding the sociocultural context includes the creation of change. The practicing' anthropologist uses data collected to facilitate effective social action.

5 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present preliminary findings of a longitudinal study that focuses on the dynamic interaction between an individual of a minority culture and a new social system, and their observations and clinical implications are reviewed within a cognitive/psychosocial model.
Abstract: This paper presents preliminary findings of a longitudinal study that focuses on the dynamic interaction between an individual of a minority culture and a new social system. Observations and clinical implications are reviewed within a cognitive/psychosocial model.

4 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The article provides the evidence of incompatibility between Public Health Planning and short term management in the French social system and the concern of the medical profession with lifestyles and provides a brief description of different ways of defining health among social classes, and of different health beliefs.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: However dominant a social system may be, the very meaning of its domination involves a limitation or selection of the activities it covers, so that by definition it cannot exhaust all social experience, which therefore always potentially contains space for alternative acts and alternative intentions which are not yet articulated as a social institution or even project as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: However dominant a social system may be, the very meaning of its domination involves a limitation or selection of the activities it covers, so that by definition it cannot exhaust all social experience, which therefore always potentially contains space for alternative acts and alternative intentions which are not yet articulated as a social institution or even project. Raymond Williams, Politics and Letters

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Democracy and anthropology the seven families community authority the two forms of individualism endogamy asymmetry asymmetry anomie African systems as discussed by the authors, and the seven family community authority.
Abstract: Democracy and anthropology the seven families community authority the two forms of individualism endogamy asymmetry anomie African systems.

Posted Content
TL;DR: Ho et al. as mentioned in this paper examined the relationship between post-industrialism and patterns of social organization that may be observed among international migrants at the micro-level; more specifically, the connection between certain aspects of postindustrial technology such as innovations in telecommunications and transportation and the social organization of Caribbean immigrants, a subset of the New Immigrants to the United States.
Abstract: Author(s): Ho, Christine G.T. | Abstract: In this paper, the author examines the relationship between "post-industrialism" and patterns of social organization that may be observed among international migrants at the micro-level; more specifically, the connection between certain aspects of post-industrial technology such as innovations in telecommunications and transportation and the social organization of Caribbean immigrants, a subset of the New Immigrants to the United States. The intent is to draw attention to the idea of non-territorial social systems as an emerging social form in the post-industrial era. This paper focuses on the New Immigrants largely because the New Immigration has coincided with the development of the computerization and automation of information, communication and transportation infrastructures, which is to say, at a post-industrial moment in history.



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: When microcomputers are introduced into the classroom, they are, in effect, introduced into a complex social system, in which students, parents, teachers, administrators, policy-makers, and vendors all have vested interests and play vital roles as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: When microcomputers are introduced into the classroom, they are, in effect, introduced into a complex social system, in which students, parents, teachers, administrators, policy-makers, and vendors all have vested interests and play vital roles.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the problem of "misplacedness" of the concrete reality of life world from the abstract reality of science is discussed, and the same problem is also discussed in Niklas Luhmann's system theory from a different point of view.
Abstract: It has recently become very popular in such a discipline as sociology, philosophy and linguistics that the matter of everyday experience, everyday knowledge and everyday life comes into reconsideration in all its aspects. In the sphere of sociology the problem of everyday life is discussed mainly in what is called “new” sociology, such as ethnomethodology, symbolic interactionism and phenomenological sociology.In this paper the matter will be discussed in three points as follows.1. What is the impulse that makes sociologists turn their interests to the problem of everyday life? Why is the everyday experience-oriented sociology called “new” ? How and in any problem-context are the matter of everyday experience and system theory related with each other?2. We will examine as a typical example of Parsons-Schutz dispute about the theory of social action the problem of “misplacedness” of the concrete reality of life world from the abstract reality of science, which is clarified in the section 1.3. One can find that the same problem of the section 2 is also discussed in Niklas Luhmann's system theory from a different point of view, that is, one of the self-hypostatization of science. Luhmann insists that the self-hypostatization of science can only be solved by means of self-thematization of social system. We must critically examine the logic of Luhmann's thesis.