toys in the attic:
ideological furnishings for the homeless
mind
daurril
library: talcott parsons
Toward a General
Theory of Action - 3:40 PM 7/24/01
In the
fall of 1948 some members of the Department of
Social Relations of Harvard University had an informal discussion with the
officers of the Carnegie Corporation of New York about the possibility of a
"stocktaking" of the theoretical resources of the field of Social
Relations. It seemed to both groups
that a careful analysis of the theoretical foundations underlying the synthesis
which had been worked out on the organizational level through
the foundation of the Department of Social Relations two
years before might be useful not only in the Department itself but for the
development of the social sciences generally.
Within the Department it seemed likely to help greatly in clarifying the
problems we faced individually in our teaching and research as well as in our
corporate capacity as a department.
After some exploration of the feasibility of the project, the Carnegie Corporation kindly placed a grant at the disposal of the Department. This grant was supplemented by funds from the Laboratory of Social Relations at Harvard. Through the cooperation of Provost Paul H. Buck of Harvard, I was relieved of teaching and administrative duties for the fall term of 1949-50, and two distinguished scholars, Professor Edward C. Tolman of the University of California and Professor Edward A. Shils of the University of Chicago, were invited to come to Harvard for the term to collaborate in the project. In addition, the services of Richard C. Sheldon, Fellow of the Russian Research Center and a social anthropologist, were made available on a full-time basis. The four of us constituted the staff of the project.
In addition to the direct work of the staff, we decided to hold a series of discussions with each of two groups, out of which it was hoped that clear lines of thinking would emerge. Because of the great advantages of discussion in a small group, especially when such subtle questions are at issue, one such group was organized. This, besides the four staff members, consisted in the five who have collaborated with the staff in the present volume. However, this policy, if adhered to alone, would have meant going without the extremely valuable contributions of many other, especially the younger, members of the Department. Hence all interested members of the Department were invited to participate with the staff in a second discussion group on theoretical problems. Many of the more important ideas published here owe much to this larger, and younger, group.
Both of
these groups met weekly from late September 1949 through January 1950. A highly informal procedure was
followed. There had previously been
circulated within the Department some three versions of a document entitled
"Assumptions of Basic Social Science," which had been formulated in
connection with the departmental proseminar on Problems and Concepts of Social
Relations.1 This document was
taken as the point of departure, and various attempts to begin a revision of it
were made. Some members of the group also drafted memoranda on particular
theoretical problem areas. In November
we reached agreement that the general theoretical scheme in which we were
interested could be couched within what we agreed (in the smaller group) to
call the "action" frame of reference. Shortly after that, stimulated especially by Clyde Kluckhohn's
presentation, before the smaller group, of his approach to the analysis of
values, the staff evolved a number of new theoretical insights and
developments. All of the subsequent
meetings were devoted to discussion of various aspects of these developments
and their possible implications.
Work
was not, however, limited to the weekly meetings; we had many personal
discussions and applied ourselves to writing as well. After many long discussions with Edward Shils, I undertook the
first draft of what appears in this volume as Part II,
"Values, Motives, and Systems of Action"; Professor Shils took the
lead in the draft's extensive revision. Professor Tolman began work on his
"Psychological Model," which forms Part III of this book. Mr. Sheldon's contribution, "Some
Observations on Theory in Social Science," appears as Chapter II of Part
I.2
The question of exactly what the material outcome of the project would be had to be left in abeyance until we could explore the implications of some of the new developments. It finally was agreed to prepare the present volume for publication and to include contributions from the staff and also papers from the other participants in the smaller discussion group. It was decided that the non-staff collaborators would write on a subject of particular personal interest which would be relevant to the general theoretical field of the project. These papers make up Part IV of this volume. This made such a large book that, unfortunately, contributions from members of the larger discussion group were precluded; hence, as noted, the book fails to do justice to their important part in the project.
It
gradually became clear that what originally had been drafted as an introductory
chapter of Part II contained the basis of an agreed statement of general
principle. Though this draft, which in
turn was based on many discussions, provided the starting point, it was
subjected to several severe - indeed radical -
revisions before it emerged as the "General Statement" which
forms the first chapter of Part I. All members of the group contributed careful
and detailed critical comments on several of the drafts, so that as far as
humanly possible, the statement represents both a carefully considered and a
collaborative product. To be sure that
no member of the group was having views attributed to him which he did not
really share, we agreed that each one should have the privilege of including
over his own initials notes of explication or dissent on particular
points. The fact that only two
members have availed themselves of this privilege, one of them mainly for
clarification, is, we feel, an index of the fullness of the measure of
agreement we have been able to attain.
This
volume thus is the product of nine individual social scientists. The whole character of the enterprise, however,
and the constitution of the group, which included four psychologists, three
sociologists, and two anthropologists, make its relation to current
movements of thought in the field of some interest. Many influences and sources are discernible in the material here
set forth. Perhaps the two most
important sources in the field of psychology are the study of human personality
and the study of animal behavior. The
former involves Freud, and the movements stemming from his work, perhaps more
than any other influence, but this stream has flowed through several channels -
and in its course has influenced the sociologists and anthropologists in the
group as well as the psychologists.
Other influences have also been important in their effect on personality
theory, particularly those documented in Gordon Allport's book on that subject.
The study of animal behavior is, we believe, relatively catholic in its
influence upon us.
Sociologically,
we have been strongly influenced, especially through two of the group, by the
work of the Europeans, Durkheim and Max Weber. Professor Stouffer, however, can be said to
represent an almost wholly American influence, with the ideas of W. I. Thomas and Park especially prominent
in his theoretical thinking. Finally, on the anthropological side, we also have
a variety of sources: Boas, Kroeber, and Sapir stand out, but there are many
others as well.
Another
significant feature of the background of the group is that quite clearly the
major trend of thinking of each member has been notably influenced by more than
one "school" and more than one discipline. It might perhaps be said that the very fact that we do embody so
many different influences has made it all the more urgent for us to attempt to
synthesize our thinking. The process
has not been altogether easy. Some of
us have been closely associated over a considerable span of years. But when we tried to drive mutuality of
understanding to deeper theoretical levels than was usual in our discourse, we
frequently found unexpected and apparently serious differences - some of which,
of course, were attributable to our having been educated in different academic
disciplines, each with its sensitivities and blind spots. However, with patience and persistence, we
have found it possible to make what, to us, is substantial progress toward
agreement.
This
fact, combined with the very diversity of the influences which, through their
importance to us, have gone into this product, seems to us to bring out with
peculiar vividness the fact that these many streams of thought are in the
process of flowing together. We feel
that the present effort belongs in the context of a major movement, whose
significance to the future of social science far transcends the contributions
of any one particular group . If we have helped to deepen the channel of the
river and remove some obstacles to its flow, we are content.
Finally,
those of us on the regular Harvard staff must acknowledge our special debt to
our two visiting collaborators. They
contributed not only their great knowledge, acute understanding, and fresh
points of view, but through unfailing tact were able to serve as most effective
catalytic agents. Their value to the
project has been incalculable.
1
The principal authors were Professors Kluckhohn and Murray.
2
Mr. Sheldon also carried the heavy burden of supervising the production of a
record of the weekly meetings; this unfortunately limited the time he could
devote to theoretical work as such.
Contents - 3:53 PM 7/24/01
PART 1 The General
Theory of Action
1 SOME FUNDAMENTAL
CATEGORIES OF THE THEORY OF ACTION:
A GENERAL STATEMENT
Talcott
Parsons, Edward A. Shils, Gordan W. Ailport, Clyde Kluckhohn, Henry A.Murray,
Robert R. Sears, Richard C. Sheldon, Samuel A. Stouffer, Edward C.Tolman
(1) Introduction.
(2) The frame of reference of the theory of action.
(3) Some fundamentals of behavior psychology.
(4) Interaction and the development of personality.
(5) Cultural aspects of action systems.
(6) The social system. A note on the place of economic
theory and political theory in the general theory of action.
2 SOME OBSERVATIONS
ON THEORY IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
Richard
C. Sheldon
PART 2 Values,
Motives, and Systems of Action
Talcott Parsons, Edward A. Shils, with the assistance of
James Olds
INTRODUCTION
I CATEGORIES OF THE ORIENTATION AND ORGANIZATION OF
ACTION.
Action and its orientation.
Components of the frame of reference of the theory of
action.
Commentary on the frame of reference.
Classification of objects.
Orientation to the situation.
Dilemmas of ~ orientation and the pattern variables.
The definition of pattern variables.
The interrelations of the pattern variables.
Classification of need-dispositions and role-expectations.
Classification of components of the object situation.
The basic structure of the interactive relationship.
The concept of system and the classification of types of
systems.
2 PERSONALITY AS A SYSTEM OF ACTION .
Motivational concepts.
Need-dispositions.
Functional prerequisites of the personality system.
Learning processes and performance processes.
The mechanisms.
Subintegrations in the personality system.
The articulation of personality and social systems.
Need-dispositions and role-expectations.
Individuality.
Deviance.
3 SYSTEMS OF VALUE-ORIENTATION . - -
The place of value-orientation patterns in the organization
of culture.
The classification of the elements of culture.
Cognitive symbols.
Expressive symbols.
Evaluative symbols.
Pattern consistency and sources of strain.
The integration of systems of value-orientations into the
social system.
Systems of personal values.
The problem of classification of value systems.
4 THE SOCIAL SYSTEM -
Major features and prerequisites.
The foci of organization.
The allocation of rewards.
The integration of the social system.
Classification of social systems and their components:
structural types.
The content of roles.
Integration: consensus and power.
The analysis of social structure.
Motivation and the dynamics of social process.
The problem of social change.
5 CONCLUSION . -
PART 3 A Psychological Model
Edward C. Tolman
1 INTRODUCTION
The independent variables.
The dependent variable of behavior (action).
Intervening variables.
Postulated causal connections.
2 THE MODEL . -
Need system (A).
Belief-value matrix (B) -
Behavior space (C) -
Locomotion in and resultant restructuring of the behavior
space.
Capacity and temperamental traits (T) -
3 LEARNING AND THE PSYCHODYNAMIC MECHANISMS
4 FURTHER PROBLEMS CONNECTED WITH THE MODEL -
The need system.
Further problems concerning matrices and their effects upon
the behavior space.
The discourse use of symbols and social relationship units.
Operational definitions.
5 VALUE STANDARDS, PATTERN VARIABLES, SOCIAL ROLES,
PERSONALITY
6 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
For psychology.
For social science.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
PART 4 The Theory of Action and Its Application
1 PREJUDICE: A PROBLEM IN PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL
CAUSATION
365
Gordon W. Ailpart
Is research on prejudice basic?
Stimulus approach.
The phenomenological approach.
Personality dynamics and structure: the functional
significance of structure.
Conformity.
Socialization.
The situational approach.
Culture and subculture.
The historical approach.
Conclusion.
Bibliography.
2 VALUES AND VALUE-ORIENTATIONS IN THE THEORY OF ACTION: AN
EXPLORATION IN DEFINITION AND CLASSIFICATION -
Clyde Kluckhohn
Normative and existential propositions.
Definition of value for the theory of action.
Operational indices.
Operations for the study of values.
Toward a classification of values and
value-orientations.
Differentiation from related concepts.
3 TOWARD A CLASSIFICATION OF INTERACTION -
Henry A. Murray
A few assumptions.
Opinions unfavorable to the classification of tendencies
(needs).
Varieties of activities, actions, needful states.
Debated issues and possible solutions.
Criteria for the classification and discrimination of
needs.
Final suggestion.
Bibliography.
4 SOCIAL BEHAVIOR AND PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
Robert R. Sears
Action.
Monadic and dyadic units.
Dynamics.
Personality as antecedent.
Personality Development.
Bibliography.
5 AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF TECHNICAL PROBLEMS IN ANALYSIS OF
ROLE OBLIGATION -
Samuel A. Stouffer
Role conflict and personality.
Note on Lazarsfeld's latent distance scale as applied to
role conflict data.
1 PART 1 The General
Theory of Action - 4:06 PM 7/24/01
1 Some Fundamental Categories of the Theory of
Action: A General Statement
1. INTRODUCTION
The present statement and the volume which it introduces are intended to
contribute to the establishment of a general theory in the social sciences.
Theory in the social sciences should have three
major functions. First, it should aid in the codification of our existing concrete knowledge. It can do so by
providing generalized hypotheses for the systematic reformulation of existing
facts and insights, by xtending the range of implication of particular
hypotheses, and by unifying discrete observations under general concepts. Through
codification, general theory in the social sciences will help to promote the
process of cumulative growth of our knowledge. In making us more aware of the
interconnections among items of existing knowledge which are now available in a
scattered, fragmentary form, it will help us fix our attention on the points
where further work must be done.
Second, general theory in the social sciences
should be a guide to research. By codification it enables us to locate and
define more precisely the boundaries of our knowledge and of our ignorance.
Codification facilitates the selection of problems, although it is not, of
course, the only useful technique for the selection of problems for fruitful
research. Further than this, general theory should provide hypotheses to be
applied and tested by the investigation of these problems. If research problems
are formulated in terms of systematically derived theoretical hypotheses, the
resulting propositions will in turn contribute toward both the validation and
revision of the theory.
Third, general theory as a point of departure for specialized work in the social sciences will
facilitate the control of the biases of observation and interpretation which are
at present fostered by the departmentalization of education and research in the
social sciences.
This statement does not itself purport to be the general theory which will adequately fulfill
these three functions. It is rather a formulation of certain fundamental
categories which will have to enter into the formulation of this
general theory, which for many years has been developing through the convergence
of anthropological studies of culture, the theory of learning, the
psychoanalytic theory of personality, economic theory,1 and the study of modern social structure.
2. THE FRAME OF REFERENCE OF THE
THEORY OF ACTION
The present discussion will begin with an exposition of the
fundamental concepts from which it is intended to develop a unified conceptual
scheme for theory and research in the social sciences. In accordance with
already widespread usage, we shall call these concepts the frame of reference of the theory of action.
In order to make the rest of the exposition
comprehensible, we shall define a considerable number of the concepts2 and state their more general bearing on our
problem.
ORIENTATION AND SITUATION
In the theory of action the point of reference of all terms is the action of an individual actor or of a collectivity of actors. Of course, all individual actors are, in one aspect, physiological organisms; collectivities of actors are made up of individual actors, who are similarly physiological organisms. The interest of the theory of action, however, is directed not to the physiological processes internal to the organism but rather to the organization of the actor's orientations to a situation. When the terms refer to a collectivity as the
acting unit, it is understood that it does not refer to all
of the actions of the individuals who are its members, but only to the actions
which they perform in their capacity as members. Whether the acting unit is an
individual or a collectivity, we shall speak of the actor's orientation of action when we describe the action. The concept motivation in a strict sense applies only to individual actors. The
motivational components of the action of collectivities are organized systems of
the motivation of the relevant individual actors. Action has an orientation when
it is guided by the meaning which the actor attaches to it in its relationship
to his goals and interests
1 See note at end of chapter.
2 The authors are fully aware of the
difficulty of standardizing terminology in the present state of social science.
The difficulty is great particularly in view of the heterogeneity of the sources
from which the terms here used have been drawn and the new emphasis we have
often given them. We are not all equally satisfied with every term, and we do
not regard ourselves as hound to use exactly this terminology each in his own
work. We have
merely endeavored to he as clear as possible, to avoid violent neologisms, and
to
use terms which would he as nearly acceptable to all
members of the group as possible.
3 The word set is used to designate a plurality of entities
determinately limited in number and range of variation hut not necessarily
conceived as interdependent so as to constitute a system.
A General Statement 5
Each orientation of action in turn involves a set3 of objects of orientation. These are objects which are relevant in the
situation because they afford alternative possibilities and impose limitations
on the modes of gratifying the needs and achieving the goals of the actor or
actors.4 A situation provides two major classes
of objects to which the actor who is the point of reference may be
oriented.
These are either
(1) nonsocial, that is, physical objects or accumulated cultural
resources, or
(2) social objects, that is, individual actors and collectivities.
Social objects include the subject's own personality as well as the
personalities of other individuals. Where collectivities are \objects, sectors
of the action systems of a plurality of individual actors form a system which is
an object for the actor or actors who are our point of reference. A specific
combination of selections relative to such objects, made from among the
possibilities of selection which were available in a specific situation,
constitutes an orientation of action for a particular actor. The organized
plurality of such orientations of action constitutes a system of action.5
The orientation of action to objects entails selection, and possibly
choice.
Selection is made possible by cognitive discriminations, the location and characterization of the
objects, which are simultaneously or successively experienced as having positive
or negative value to the actor, in terms of their relevance to satisfaction of
drives 6 and their organization in
motivation.This tendency to react positively or negatively to objects we shall
call the cathectic mode of orientation. Cathexis, the attachment to objects which are gratifying
and rejection of those which are noxious, lies at the root of the selective
nature of action.7 Furthermore, since selection
must be made among alternative objects and gratifications at a single point of
time or through time, there must be some evaluative criteria. The tendency of
the organism toward integration requires the assessment and comparison of
immediate cognized objects and cathectic interests in terms of their remoter
consequences for the larger unit of evaluation. Evaluation rests on standards which may be either cognitive standards
of truthfulness, appreciative standards of appropriateness, or moral standards
of rightness. Both the motivational orientations and the value-orientations are
modes of distinguishing, testing, sorting, and selecting. They are, in short,
the categories for the description, on the most elementary level, of the
orientation of action, which is a constellation of selections from
alternatives.
4 The establishment of a definite relationship with objects
(e.g., their possession or modification) or the creation of objects may he among
the goals sought by actors. Objects once created may in turn become objects of
orientation in ensuing actions.
5 The word system is used in the sense that determinate
relations of interdependence exist within the complex of empirical phenomena.
The antithesis of the concept of system is random variability. However, no
implication of rigidity is intended.
6 By drive we mean the organic energy component of
motivation with whatever elements of organization and directionality may he
given with the genetic constitution of the organism.
7 Human beings do much which is
inhibiting or destructive of their interests in its consequences; hence the
naive hedonism which maintains that the gratification of a wish explains every
overt act is clearly untenable. However, to deny that even self-destructive acts
are motivated equally fails to make sense. The postulate that the course of
behavior, at least at certain points where alternatives were open, has had
motivational significance to the actor, that in some sense he "wanted" to do it,
is essential to any logical theory of behavior.
6 The General Theory of Action
It is essential to point out that a description of a system of action
must refer not only to the particular constellation of orientations and sets of
objects actually selected, but also to the alternative sets from which the
selections might have been made but were not. In other words, we are concerned
not only with how an actor actually views a situation, but also with how he
might view it. This inclusiveness is: required for the purposes of a dynamic
theory of action which would atternpt to explain why one alternative rather than
another was selected.
The range of the alternatives of action orientation is determinate; it is
inherent in the relation of the actor to the situation and derives ultimately
from certain general properties of the organism and the nature of objects in
their relation to such organisms. This determinate range of the alternatives
which are available for selection marks the limits within which variability is
possible.
DESCRIPTIVE AND DYNAMIC ANALYSIS
The complete analysis of a system of action would comprise description
both of the state of the system at the given moment and of the changes in the
system through time, involving changes in the relations of the constituent
variables. This dynamic analysis would treat the processes of action and is the
proper goal of conceptualization and theory construction. But we feel that it is
uneconomical to describe changes in systems of variables before the variables
themselves have been isolated and described; therefore, we have chosen to begin
by studying particular combinations of variables and to move toward a
description of how these combinations change only when a firm foundation for
such analysis has been laid. Hence, it should be understood that when we
describe the orientations of action in a given system, we are describing the
state of the system at a given moment. The variables to which we refer in the
analysis of given orientations are also those referred to in the analysis of the
processes which maintain one system of orientation rather than another; these
same variables are also dealt with in the analysis of the processes in which,
through change in the values of the variables, one orientation changes into
another. There is, thus, no difference between the variables involved in
description of the state of a system and analysis of its processes. The
difference lies in how the same variables are used.
A General Statement 7
PERSONALITY, SOCIAL SYSTEM, AND CULTURE
The frame of reference of the theory of action applies in principle to any
segment of the total round of action or to any process of action of any complex
organism. The elaboration of behavior to which this conceptual scheme is
especially appropriate, however, occurs above all in human action. In the formation of
systems made up of human actions or the components of human action, this
elaboration occurs in three configurations.
First, the orientation of action of any one given actor and its attendant motivational processes
becomes a differentiated and integrated system. This system will be called the personality, and we will define it as the organized system of the
orientation and motivation of action of one individual actor. 8
Secondly the action of a plurality of actors in a common situation
is a process of interaction, the properties of which are to a definite but
limited extent independent of any prior common culture. This interaction also
becomes differentiated and integrated and as such forms a social system The social system is, to be sure, made up of the
relationships of individuals but it is a system which is organized around the
problems inherent in or arising from social interaction of a plurality of individual
actors rather than around the problems which arise in connection with the
integration of the actions of an individual actor, who is also a physiological
organism.
Personality and social system are very intimately interrelated, but they
are neither identical with one another nor explicable by one another; the social
system is not a plurality of personalities.
Finally, systems of culture have their own forms and problems of integration which are
not reducible to those of either personality or social systems or both together.
The cultural tradition in its significance both as an object of orientation and as an element in the orientation of action must be articulated both conceptually and empirically with personalities and
social systems.
Apart from embodiment in the orientation systems
of concrete actors, culture, though existing as a body of artifacts and as systems of symbols, is not in
itself organized as a system of action. Therefore, culture as a system is on a different plane
from personalities and social systems.9
Concrete systems of action - that is, personalities and social systems - have
psychological, social, and cultural aspects. For one thing, the state of the system must
be characterized in terms of certain of the motivational properties of the
individual actors. The description of a system of action must employ the
categories of motivational orientation: cognition, cathexis, and evaluation.
Likewise, the description of an action system must deal with the properties of
the system of interaction of two or more individuals or collective actors - this
is the social aspect - and it must note the conditions which interaction imposes
on the participating actors. It must also take into account the cultural
tradition as an object of orientation as well as culture patterns as
internalized patterns of cognitive expectations and of cathectic-evaluative
selection among possible orientations that are of crucial significance in the
personality system and in the social system.
8 The physiological aspect of the human organism is relevant
to action theory only as it impinges on the orientation system. However,
phantasies and imaginative productions, though they may not refer directly to
any realistic situational objects, are unequivocally part of the orientation of
personality as a system of action.
9 Mr. Sheldon dissents from this view.
His grounds are stated in Chapter 11.
8 The General Theory of Action
Cultural elements as
constituents of systems of action may be classified in two ways.
First, they may be differentiated according
to the predominance of types of interests corresponding to the predominance of
each of the modes of motivational orientation.
Second, culture patterns as objects of the
situation may be distinguished from culture patterns as internalized components
of the orientation system of the actor.
These two classifications cut across each other.
In the first method of classification it is
convenient to distinguish the following three major classes of culture patterns.
(1) Systems of ideas or beliefs. Although cathexis and evaluation are
always present as orientational components, these cultural systems are
characterized by a primacy of cognitive interests.
(2) Systems of expressive symbols; for instance, art forms and styles. These systems are characterized by a primacy of cathectic interests.
(3) Systems of value-orientations. Here the primary interest is in the
evaluation of alternatives from the viewpoint of their consequences or
implications for a system of action or one of its subsystems.
With respect to the second classification, it
is quite clear that culture patterns are frequently objects of orientation in the same sense as other types of objects.10 The actor knows their properties (for example, he
understands an idea) ; he "responds" to them (that is, he is attracted or
repelled by them) and he evaluates them. Under certain circumstances,
however, the manner of his involvement with a cultural pattern as an object is
altered, and what was once an object becomes
a constitutive part of the actor. When, for example, he cannot violate a moral rule without
intense feelings of guilt, the rule is functioning as a constitutive part of his
system of orientation; it is part of his personality. Where this occurs a
culture pattern has been internalized.
Before we continue with an elaboration of each of the above three majortypes of system into which the components of action
become organized and differentiated personality, cultural systems, and social
systems - it is essential to review briefly certain other categories of action in general, particularly those that haye been
developed in behavior psychology.
3.
SOME FUNDAMENTALS OF BEHAVIOR PSYCHOLOGY
NEEDS AND THE ORGANIZATION OF BEHAVIOR
Certain trends in psychological
theory have placed the primary sources of behavior into the constitution of
the organism. They have done this through some version of the "instinct"
theory. This tendency has continually been challenged by demonstrations of the
range of plasticity of the organism and the corresponding importance of
"learning" - a challenge which has been greatly accentuated by the cultural
relativity disclosed through the work of social anthropology and sociology.
10 A special position is occupied by physical artifacts which are the products of
action. Like
the objects of the natural environment they do not interact with the actor. They are situational
objects which cannot be internalized into the
orientation system of the actor. They might serve as instrumental objects in
action systems or they might have "meaning" conferred on them by value-orientation systems, in the
same way that meaning is conferred on objects in the natural
environment.
9 A General Statement
The present analysis will observe a rule of parsimony with regard to
assumptions about the constitutional organization of the tendencies of behavior.
There is
certainly a system of viscerogenic needs which are grounded in the interchange of the organism as a
physiological system with its environment. Some of them are highly specific: the need
for food is relatively specific; the needs for sleep and for breathing are much
more so. The object which is constitutionally most appropriate for the cathexis
of a viscerogenic need is, however, seldom absolutely
specific. But, on the other hand, the range of variability open to
action and cultural definition always has some limits. Among these needs
which come to be of primary importance for action, however, the degree of
specificity usually tends to be slight, particularly in the mode as distinct from the fact of gratification. In general, there
is a wide range of variability of the objects and modes of gratification of any
constitutionally given need. In addition to the viscerogenic needs there
seem to be certain needs for "social relationships." These might be constitutionally given or they might, by
being indirectly necessary for the gratification of viscerogenic needs, be
derivative in their origin and come subsequently to acquire autonomy.
We assume then a set of needs which, although initially organized through physiological processes, do not possess the properties that permit these physiological processes
to be exclusively determinative in the organization of action. In other words, the
direction and modes in which these needs can determine action is modifiable by
influence emanating from the situation of action. Moreover, the needs themselves can be
modified, or at least their effect on action is modifiable, by the process of
becoming embedded into need-dispositions.
11 Deprivation is to he understood here as subsuming:
(1) the withdrawal of gratifying objects already possessed
by the actor-
(2) the obstruction of access to gratifying objects which
the actor does not possess and for which he is striving;
(3) the enforced relationship with objects which are not
gratifying, e.g., physical or psychological suffering of positive pain or injury
(this category includes both activ4y encountering and passively receiving pain,
etc.) ;
(4) the threat of any of the foregoing.
Responses by the actors to each of these types of
deprivation might vary considerably.
10 The General Theory of Action
However, even though the set of viscerogenic needs has initially a
physiological organization, it possesses one persistent
property which plays a central role as the set of needs evolves into the system of need-dispositions. It is incipiently organized with respect to a
positive.negative discrimination; that is, it discriminates between
need-gratifying and need-blocking or need-depriving aspects 11 of the situational object system. This
discrimination is the point of departure of a complex process of further
differentiation into need-dispositions 12 which might
possess varying degrees of specificity. In addition to the specific viscerogenic
needs and the wider discrimination between gratification and deprivation, the
human organism has a constitutional capacity to react to objects, especially
other human beings, without the specific content or form of the reaction being
in any way physiologically given. This reactive capacity or potentiality may be likened to the capacity to learn
language, which is certainly not constitutionally specific to any
particular language, and if the individual is not exposed to speech of other
human beings, may not be activated at all. The human organism has a
"sensitivity" to other objects, a potentiality of cathecting them as objects in
various ways, depending on the context of orientation and situation.
This sensitivity extends to nonsocial objects but it is especially
significant where interaction is involved. Moreover, this sensitivity is, like the
discriminatory tendency to which we have already referred, inherently responsive
to experience in interactive relationships. On the one hand, gratifying
experience with an object engenders a positive attachment-seeking and -forming
tendency; on the other, deprivation from an object predisposes the actor to a
reaction of flight, escape, or aggression, a tendency to avoid or injure the
object in order to control or forestall the deprivational effect of its
action.
COGNITIVE AND CATHECTIC ORIENTATION IN THE ORGANIZATION OF
ACTION
Impelled by its drives and needs, the acting organism is
oriented to social and nonsocial objects in two essential, simultaneous, and
inseparable modes.
First, it "cathects" particular objects or
classes of objects through attributing to them significance for direct
gratification or deprivation of impulse-needs.13 It may become attached to an object as a
source of gratification 14 or repelled by it as
a source of deprivation. Second, it cognizes the
object field, discriminating any particular object from others and otherwise
assessing its properties. Only when the actor knows the relations of objects to
one another and to his own needs can his behavior become organized with
reference to cathectic-cognitive discriminations.
12 The term need-disposition has been chosen to emphasize that
in action the unit of motivation faces two ways. On the one hand, it is involved
in the equilibrium of the actor as a personality (and organism), and on the
other, it is a disposition to act in relation to one or more objects. Both
references are essential. It is to he distinguished from need by its higher degree
of organization and by its inclusion of motivational and evaluative elements
which are not given by viscerogenic needs.
13 A distinction between affect and cethexis is desirable for
present purposes. Affect refers to a state of the
organism - a state of euphoria or dysphoria or qualitative variants
thereof. Cathexis refers to a state of the organism - a state of
euphoria or dysphoria - in
relationship to some object. Thus the term cathexis is broader in its
reference than the term affect; it is affect plus object. It is
object-oriented affect.
It involves attaching affective significance to an object; although it involves
attachment to one or more properties of the object, as used here it does not
itself refer to a property of the object, but to a relation between actor and object. Furthermore,
there is no connotation either of activity or passivity in the actor's relation
to the object implied in the concept.
14 The content of the gratifications need not be specified
here. Gratifications may of course include those experiences or states which are
normally viewed as pleasures, such as love, physical comfort; they may also
under certain conditions include certain experiences ordinarily conceived as
deprivational, such as pain, horror, disgust, but which because of the
organization of a given personality system may have gratifying
consequences.
A General Statement 11
The essential phenomena in motivational orientation are thus cognitive
and cathectic discriminations among objects. When these discriminations become
organized in a stable way, they form a system of orientation. The actor
selects or is committed to culturally imposed selections among accessible objects
with respect to their potentialities for gratification; he also selects from
among the modes of their possible significance to him. The most primitive forms
of this selectivity are perhaps acceptance - for instance, incorporation of
food, remaining in a comfortable place, etc. - and rejection - spitting out,
withdrawal from, or avoidance.
Cathectic-cognitive orientation toward the object world, in any system of
behavior extending through time, always entails expectations concerning gratifications or deprivations receivable or
attainable from certain objects and classes of objects. Action involves not
merely discrimination and selection between immediately present objects, and the
directly ensuing striving, acceptance, or rejection, but it involves also an
orientation to future events with respect to their significance for
gratification or deprivation. A discrimination between immediately
available and future gratifications and the assessment of their relative value
is an essential aspect of action.
EXPECTATIONS AND EVALUATIONS
Where there are alternative opportunities for gratification in a present
situation and alternatives distributed among present and expected situations,
the actor must have some means of deciding which of the alternatives or combinations of alternatives
he should follow. The process of deciding among alternatives, of assessing them
in the light of their ramified consequences, is called evaluation. Evaluation is the more complex process of selection built
upon the discriminations which make up the cognitive-cathectic orientation.
There is a variety of possible ways in which action can be organized with
respect to expected events. One of the most important categories of reaction to
expectations is that of activity-passivity. On the one hand, the actor may
actively seek out objects and manipulate them in the interest of
his goals,15 or he may explore the situation seeking
previously unrecognized opportunities. Alternatively, he may passively await the impact of expected situations and renounce interest hi
positive but still unattained goals. (There are various possible combinations of
active and passive elements, such as the positive effort to escape from a
situation expected to be threatening or enlisting the aid of others to cope with
a threat.)
15 The cognitive-cathectic and evaluative orientations are
connected by the "effort" of the actor. In
accordance with a value standard and/or an expectation, the actor through effort
manipulates his own resources, including his own body, voice, etc., in order to
facilitate the direct or indirect approximation to a certain cathected goal -
object or state.
12 The General Theory of Action
LEARNING
Learning 16 becomes relevant at this
point in the development of the frame of reference of the theory of action.
Learning is not merely the acquisition of "information" (that is, specific items
of cognitive orientation) about the properties of the object world; it is also
the acquisition of new "patterns of orientation." That is, it involves acquiring
new ways of seeing, wanting, and evaluating; these are predispositions to
approach or avoid, to seek actively in certain types of situation or to "lie
low" and wait, to keep away from noxious objects or to control them.
Of fundamental importance in learning is the degree and incidence of
generalization 17 which is introduced into the
actor's orientations to his object world. Generalizations are modes of defining
the actor's orientations to particular objects of which he has not yet had
experience. This entails the categorization of the particular, concrete objects
of his situation into general classes. In the acquisition of systems of cultural symbols, generalization is perhaps the most important of
the learning mechanisms. As frames of reference, as the content of communication,
and as the foci of common orientations, cultural patterns must possess content
with a degree of generality which transcends the particularity of all concrete situations and
experiences.
Generalization through a cognitive process has consequences for the
cathectic aspect of orientation. For example, through generalization it is
possible to cathect categories of objects as well as particular objects.
Generalization as a cognitive mechanism orders the object world and thereby defines the structure of alternatives open to the orientation of action. The world in the actor's expectations comes to be composed of classes of objects, as well as particular objects, defined and differentiated by properties significant to the actor. Furthermore, the experiences of gratification or deprivation from particular objects may be generalized to other objects which are, in the actor's definition of the situation, classified with the original objects.
16 Learning is the acquisition of changed modes of
orientation to the object world, including in the latter the actor's
personality, ideas, culture, social objects, etc.
17 It is recognized that the term
"generalization" has two principal current meanings:
(1) the discrimination of the
objects in what had previously been a single undifferentiated category to
constitute two or more classes still possessing certain common features, and
(2) the discernment of common
properties in a group of events previously discriminated as different.
The common element of the two meanings is the organization
of the object world into categories. If it is important to distinguish the two
meanings, the applicable meaning will he made clear.
A General Statement 13
CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEARNED COMPONENTS OF GENERALIZED
NEED-DISPOSITIONS
Anxiety is one type of generalized expectation of deprivation from
a class of objects to which the actor is also simultaneously attached. There is
a constitutional basis for the reaction to danger which is usually called
fear. We speak of anxiety when this reaction to
danger is generalized and organized as a need-disposition to anticipate a large
class of deprivations. Anxiety exists where the actor "cries before he is hurt";
whether the anticipated deprivation is attributed to his inadequacy, to others,
or to "circumstances" is a further distinction which we need not consider here.
An anxiety, which might have originated in the fear of a specific class of
objects, might become so highly generalized as to permeate virtually the whole
system of orientation of a personality. Corresponding to anxiety and fear is the
obverse generalized expectation of gratification in what is commonly referred to as optimism or a sense of
security.
Some psychologists have tended to treat "aggressiveness" as a set of
impulses constitutionally given in the organism.18 It seems probable that a disposition to
"strike back" if attacked or under certain types of intense strain is at least
latent in normal human organisms. This disposition will be activated under
certain conditions and if it is not overlaid by conflicting motives. However, such an
innate disposition does not in any simple way determine responses to an
experience or expectation of deprivation. Such responses, when organized as part
of the actor's orientation, and if they include a disposition to injure or
destroy the object felt to be the source of the deprivation, may be called
aggressiveness. Aggressiveness, powerful and fundamental as it is, may
take many forms; by itself it is one among a set of alternative
responses to threats of deprivation. The other responses
include withdrawal and avoidance or simply waiting passively for deprivations to occur. Furthermore, aggressiveness as a
need-disposition may well be associated with actions which overtly are not
aggressive. Which of these alternatives is chosen seems to depend on the
prevalence of integrative predispositions 19 in
the actor's personality system, which may suppress the expression of aggressive
impulses in favor of alternative actions, such as a general tendency to
"mastery" over situations as against a tendency to "passivity." Aggressiveness,
then, is here treated as the manifestation in the organized orientation of
action of the need-disposition to remove, injure, or destroy an object; the
constitutional capacity for anger is a part of the organized need-disposition of
aggressiveness.
18 The capacity to experience anger may be different from the
disposition to strike back if attacked. Both, of course, may be learned; but they
seem to have some innate foundation.
19 Including internalized cultural norms
and the influence of the particular situation.
14 The General Theory of Action
CONFLICT, EVALUATION, AND MOTIVATIONAL BALANCE
The individual actor possesses a large set of need-dispositions, some of
which are active at the same tune that others are quiescent. The gratification and quiescence of one need-disposition
may be the signal for the activation of another and vice versa. Two or more need-dispositions are often concurrently
activated, pressing the actor toward the performance of conflicting actions
which are incompatible in the sense that gratifying one of the need-dispositions
entails the deprivation of others. The actor seeking to achieve gratification
and avoid deprivation is seldom, within a short time, capable of extirpating or
extinguishing a well-established need-disposition even though its overt
gratification may entail serious consequences for him. Through the process of
evaluation, which operates unconsciously as well as deliberately, he
will very often strike some sort of compromise among his conflicting
need-dispositions, both simultaneously and over a period of time. Since
deprivation is to be avoided or minimized, and since the situation makes some
deprivation unavoidable, the compromise represents in some sense the best
available in the circumstances, given both the exigencies of the
situation and the actor's own personality structure. He will often perform
actions which, taken alone, are self-deprivational but which, when seen in the
wider constellation of his need-disposition system, represent the most gratifying total balance of action possibilities which could be performed under the
circumstances.
So far, little has been said of the internal differentiation of the
actor's object world except that it is differentiated along the axis of potentialities for gratification or deprivation. But
even on this elementary level it has been possible to show the roles in action
of the fundamental categories of orientation and their derivatives, of cognition
and need, of evaluative and instrumental orientation, of discrimination and
choice, of learning and generalization. When all of these elements are organized into
a relatively coherent system of action, then a stable balance between the
interest in increasing gratification and in the minimization of deprivation is
made possible. This organization would consist of a relatively stable, interrelated set of discriminations or choices which has
as a necessary counterpart a relatively stable set of expectations.
INTERACTION AND THE COMPLEMENTARITY OF
EXPECTATIONS
Before entering into further discussion of the organization of systems of
action, it is necessary to discuss one of the
differentiations in the structure of the object world which is very crucial
in relation to the actor's gratification interests. Only the potentiality of gratification or deprivation from
objects is more crucial. We refer here to the distinction between objects
which interact 20 with the
acting subject and those objects which do not. These interacting objects are themselves actors or egos 21 with their own systems
of action. They will be referred to as social objects or alters. A potential food-object, at least as it approaches the
state of edibility, is not an alter, because it does not respond to ego's
expectations and because it has no expectations of ego's action; another person,
a mother or a friend, would be an alter to ego. The treatment of another actor, an alter, as an interacting object has very great
consequences for the development and organization of the system of action.
20 This is a technical usage of the term interaction. It implies a
relationship both parties to which are actors in the technical sense. It is thus
distinguished from the sense in which interaction is synonymous with interdependence.
A General Statement 15
When we analyze the interaction of ego and alter, we shift from the analysis of the orientation of a single given actor
to the consideration of two or more interacting actors
as a system. In this case, the expectations of ego are
oriented both to the range of alternatives for alter's actions (i.e., the
alternatives open to alter in the situation) and to alter's selection, which is intentionally contingent on what ego himself
does, within the range of alternatives. The obverse is true for alter. Ego does not expect the behavior of a
nonsocial object to be influenced by expectations regarding his own
behavior, although, of course, ego's behavior is influenced by his expectations
concerning the behavior of the nonsocial object. It is the fact that expectations operate on both sides of the relation between a given actor and the object of his orientation
which distinguishes social interaction from orientation to nonsocial objects.
This fundamental phenomenon may be called the complementarity of expectations, not in the sense that the expectations of the two actors
with regard to each other's action are identical, but in the sense that the
action of each is oriented to the expectations of the other. Hence the system of
interaction may be analyzed in terms of the extent of conformity of ego's action with alter's expectations and vice versa.
We have seen that an actor's system of action is oriented to the polarity of
gratification and deprivation. Social interaction introduces a further
complication in that the motivational significance is no longer attributed only to the properties of the
immediate object alone, but also to alter's expectations with regard to
ego. The
contingent reactions of alter to ego's action may be called sanctions. Their efficacy derives precisely from the
gratificational significance to ego of alter's positive reactions and the deprivational significance of his negative reactions. The significance of these secondary
gratifications and deprivations to ego rests on two bases:
(1) Any need-disposition can be directly or indirectly gratified or
deprived through the consequences of alter's reactions to ego's actions.
(2) Personalities certainly develop need-dispositions directly for certain types of
response from actors who are significant objects to them, whatever
the constitutional basis of this fact. In other words, they develop
social-relational needs.
21 This usage of the term ego is different from that current in psychology.
Here it refers only to an actor taken as a point of reference in his relation to
another actor referred to as alter. The term as here used is parallel to
anthropological usage in the description of kinship systems.
16 The General Theory of Action
Thus, sanctions have two kinds of
significance to ego. First, alter's intentional and
overt action, which can change ego's objective situation, may have direct
significance to ego by increasing his opportunities for gratification or
limiting them, insofar as alter controls important aspects of ego's situation of action. But
ego through generalization also becomes sensitive to alter's attitudes toward him and
his action, so that even where alter has no specific intentions in the
situation, it will still matter to ego whether alter approves or disapproves of his action - whether he shows love, hostility, or some
other attitude toward him.
Thus consideration of the place of complementarity of expectations in the
processes of human interaction has implications for certain categories which are
central in the analysis of the origins and functions of cultural patterns. There is
a double contingency inherent in interaction. On the one hand, ego's
gratifications are contingent on his selection among available
alternatives.
But in turn, alter's reaction will be contingent on ego's selection
andwill result from a complementary selection on alter's part. Because of this
double contingency, communication, which is the precondition of cultural
patterns, could not exist without both generalization from the particularity of the specific situations (which are never identical for ego and alter) and
stability of meaning which can only be assured by "conventions"
observed by both parties.
Furthermore, the double contingency implies the normative
orientation of action, since alter's reaction of punishment or reward
is superadded to alter's "intrinsic" or direct behavioral reaction to
ego's original selection. If punishment or reward by alter is repeatedly manifested under certain conditions, this reaction acquires for ego
the meaning of an appropriate consequence of ego's conformity with or deviation from the norms of a shared symbolic system. A shared symbolic system is a system of "ways of
orienting," plus those "external symbols" which control these ways of orienting,
the system being so geared into the action systems of both ego and alter that
the external symbols bring forth the same or a complementary pattern of
orientation in both of them; such a system, with its mutuality of normative
orientation, is logically the most elementary form of
culture. In this elementary social relationship, as well as in a
large-scale social system, culture provides the standards (value-orientations) which are
applied in evaluative processes. Without culture neither human personalities
nor human social systems would be possible.
7/25/01 Tie the preceding on “norms” the Berger’s “anomie” (Sacred Canopy) esp in the
context of Culture.
A General Statement 17
4. INTERACTION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF
PERSONALITY
The interactive element in the system of action, when joined with the
fundamental variables of the organization of behavior discussed above, accounts
for the enormously complicated differentiation and organization of the social
and personality systems. In interaction we find the basic process
which, in its various elaborations and adaptations, provides the seed of what on the human level we call personality and the social
system. Interaction makes possible the development of
culture on the human level and gives culture its significance in the
determination of action.
SOCIALIZATION
7/15/01: following also resembles Canopy: note
here also the adult/child counterpoint.
Before we begin our analysis of the personality system, we shall examine
briefly the significance of interaction in the socialization process. We have referred above to the
social-relational needs 22 of the infant. The importance of
these needs centers on the infant's state of initial dependency. As a result of this
dependency, the social-relational context in which viscerogenic needs are
gratified or deprived becomes perhaps just as important as the intrinsic
gratification or deprivation of the viscerogenic needs themselves. The child's
overwhelming sensitivity to the reactions of the significant adult objects,
particularly to the reactions of the mother, opens the door
to new possibilities of frustration and even trauma. The child develops
needs for appropriate attitudes on the part of these adults. It is on the basis
of these new needs that the human attains levels of organization beyond those
open to animals.
The learning of the behavior patterns characteristic of the adult culture
requires new kinds of generalization, including symbols which abstract from
particular situations and which refer to classes of objects by means of
language. In order to learn such generalizations,
particularized attachments which are essential in the
earliest stages must be superseded.
This substitution takes place through a mechanism
like the following: the child forms a social attachment which transcends any
particular viscerogenic gratification which the object confers. This attachment
makes it possible for the child to accept the necessary deprivations which are
involved in renouncing earlier types of gratification and to acquire the new
attachment in that 4though continuance of the old gratifications is made more
difficult still favorable reactions from the significant social object are
received. The newly learned generalization is acceptable if the child feels that
the adult wants it to do the things in question and that it is loved.
22 When subsequently we use the term relational needs it should
be understood to refer
to what we are here calling social-relational needs.
23 It is well known that use of this term
is by no means consistent. It seems essential to distinguish
(1) the internalization of the values but not the role of the model from
(2) internalization of his specific role. Though there are still other meanings of the term, these two seem to be the most important for present purposes. In both cases, what is taken over is a value pattern and not an action.
18 The General Theory of Action
Although the problem is still obscure, there is approximate agreement
that the development of identification 23 with adult objects is an essential mechanism of the socialization
process. For
present purposes the most significant characteristic of identification in this
sense is the child's acceptance of the adult's values in the relevant contexts;
in other words, what the adult wants for the child, the child comes to want for
itself. The
extent to which this necessarily involves the child's formation of an ideal
image of itself as similar to the adult in all respects (for example, with
respect to sex, even though the adult is of the opposite sex) remains an open
question.
The value-orientations and other components of the culture, as well as
the specific accumulated objects which make up the cultural tradition iii the
form of skills, knowledge, and the like, are transmitted to the on-coming generation. Through the process
of socialization, however, expectation systems become organized into patterns of
selection in which the effective criterion is the differential significance of the various
alternatives for the gratification-deprivation balance of the actor. To
say then that a system of action has a degree of stability as a system is to say
that there is a certain stability and consistency in its choice patterns. Such
stability and consistency are prerequisites of the development of the higher
levels of cultural behavior.
Because the child is dependent on the adult, the latter's reaction patterns become crucially important factors in the organization of
the child's choice patterns. The child becomes oriented to the wishes which embody for
him the values of the adult, and his viscerogenic needs become
culturally organized needs, which are shaped so that their gratification is sought in
directions compatible with his integration into this system of interaction.
PERSONALITY AS A SYSTEM
The child's development of a "personality" (or an "ego structure") is to be viewed as the establishment of a relatively specific, definite, and consistent system of need-dispositions operating as selective reactions to the alternatives which are presented to him by his object situation or which he organizes for himself by seeking out new object situations and formulating new goals. What will be needed, therefore, for the coherent description and analysis of human personality as a system will be the categories and hypotheses bearing on four main sets of variables.
1. Fundamentals of behavior
psychology of the sort discussed above: motivation, the
gratification-deprivation balance, primary viscerogenic and possibly
social-relational needs, cognition and learning, as well as the basic mechanisms
of cognitive and cathectic-evaluative learning and adjustment. The latter involves
the examination of such learning mechanisms as differentiation and generalization, where cognitive interests have primacy, and reinforcement, extinction, inhibition, substitution,
identification, and imitation, where cathectic or evaluative interests have primacy.
2. The allocative processes,24 by which the strivings toward gratification are
distributed among the different available objects and
occasions and gratification opportunities are distributed among the
different need-dispositions. These processes
keep conflict and anxiety within the limits necessary for the working of the
personality system; the failure of their smooth operation calls the special
mechanisms of defense and adjustment into play.
24 By
allocation we mean the distribution of significant components within a system in such a
way as to be compatible with the functioning of the system in a given
state. The
term is borrowed from
economics.
A General Statement 19
3. The mechanisms, classifiable as those of defense and adjustment,25 by which the different
components of need-dispositions are integrated internally as a system and directed toward objects.
4. The integration of the various need-dispositions into an "on-going" personality capable of some degree of self-control and
purposeful action.
The character of the on-going personality cannot be understood without
reference to the relatively independent subintegrations within the personality
structure and the adjustive mechanisms which relate them to each other.
The constitutional foundations of the need-disposition structure of
personality continue to function throughout life. But because of the plasticity
of the human organism they directly determine the behavior of the human
adult far less than in many other species. Through learning and
interactive experience they become integrated with the symbolic structures of
the cultural tradition to form an interdependent system of acquired
need-dispositions, many of the latter being closely fused into specific object
attachments and systems of role-expectations. In comparison with its
physiological base, the structure of human personality is highly autonomous and socialized. In addition, the personality usually has a
high degree of autonomy vis-a'-vis the social situation at any particular moment,
in the sense that the variations in the social situation do not bring about completely corresponding variations in the
personality systems.
PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL ROLE
One particular crucial aspect of the articulation of
personality with the social system should be mentioned briefly. Once an
organized system of interaction between ego and alter becomes stabilized, they
build up reciprocal expectations of each other's action and attitudes which are the nucleus
of what may be called role-expectations. Alter expects ego to behave in given
situational conditions in certain relatively specific ways, or at least within
relatively specific limits. Alter's reaction will then, contingent on the
fulfillment or nonfulfillment of his expectations, be different; with
fulfillment leading to rewards and/or favorable attitudes, and nonfulfillment
leading to the reverse. Alter's reaction is in turn meaningfully
interpreted (not necessarily correctly - distortion is of course possible and
frequent) by ego and this interpretation plays a part in shaping the next stage
in the process of his action toward alter (all this, of course, takes place in
reverse too).
The pattern of expectations of many alters, often generalized to include all of those in the
status of ego, constitutes in a social system the
institutionalized 26
definition of ego's roles in specified interactive situations.
25 By mechanisms of defense we mean the motivational processes by
which conflicts internal to the need-disposition system of a personality are
resolved or the severity of their consequences mitigated. Mechanisms of adjustment, on the other hand, are the processes by
which strains on the actor's relations to objects are coped with. Complete resolution may occur
through normal learning, but short of this special mechanisms operate.
20 The General Theory of Action
Ego's system of need-dispositions may or may not predispose him to conform with these expectations. There are, of
course, many complex possibilities of variation between dispositions to
complete conformity and to drastic alienation - that is, predispositions to avoid conformity, to
withdraw, or to rebel. There are also many complex possibilities of
accommodation between dispositions not to conform, in varying modes and degrees,
and interests in avoiding the sanctions which nonconformity might incur.
Moreover, alienative and conformist responses to institutional role-expectations do not exhaust the possibilities. Some actors possess, to a high degree, the potentialities of elaborating their own goals and standards, accepting the content of institutional role-expectations but simultaneously modifying and adding something new to them. These are the creative personalities whose conformity or alienation is not motivated mainly by a need-disposition to accept or reject the given institutional role-expectations, but rather by the need to discover, elaborate, and conform with their own ego-ideal.
The group of problems centering around conformity, alienation, and
creativity are among the most crucial in the whole theory of action because of their relevance
to problems of social stability and change. It is essential, in order to make
progress in this area, to have conceptualized both the personality and social
system adequately so that the points of empirical articulation where integration and unintegratedness are in balance (and) can be analyzed.27
5. CULTURAL ASPECTS OF ACTION SYSTEMS
INTERNALIZED ORIENTATIONS AND CULTURAL OBJECTS
We have already stated that the organization of the basic alternatives of selective orientation is fundamental to any system of action. Without this organization, the stable system of expectations which are essential to any system of action could not exist. Not only does the child receive the major organization of his own selective orientations from adults through the socialization process, but consensus with respect to the same fundamental selections among alternatives is vital to a stable social system. In all societies the stabler and more effective patterns of culture are those which are shared in common -though in varying interpretations with varying degrees of conformity, idiosyncrasy, creativity, and persistence - by the members of societies and by groups of societies. The pattern of "commitment" to a particular set of such selections among the potentially open alternatives represents the point of empirical articulation of systems of actions.
26 By institutionalization we mean the integration of the
expectations of the actors in a relevant interactive system of roles with a shared normative pattern of values. The integration is
such that each is predisposed to reward the
conformity of the others with the value pattern and conversely to disapprove and
punish deviance. Institutionalization is a matter of
degree, not of absolute presence or absence.
27 Although many schemes will allow the
ad hoc analyses of some
of the points of
articulation, the scheme presented here seems to have the advantage of
proceeding systematically from the elements of orientation. This permits the
formulation of concepts which reveal the points of conceptual correspondence
among the different types of systems - and this in turn offers a basis for a
more comprehensive and more rigorous analysis of the points of empirical
articulation.
A General Statement 21
Once the analysis of the organization of systems of action is pursued to
the levels of elaboration which are necessary for the analysis of the structure
of personalities, it also becomes necessary to examine the direct articulation
with the patterns of cultural orientation, which have come
to be one of the principal objects of anthropological study. The same basic set
of categories of the selective
alternatives which is relevant for the analysis of personality
structures will also be involved in the macroscopic differentiation and
classification of the cultural
orientations or traditions of social systems.
THE ORGANIZATION OF CULTURE
PATTERNS IN SYSTEMS
A cultural system is a highly complex constellation of elements. We may refer here
to the two parallel classifications of the actor's
modes of motivational orientation as cognitive, cathectic, and evaluative, and
of the basic cultural orientations as systems of ideas or beliefs, systems of
expressive symbols, and systems of value-orientation (as set forth above). Each type of
culture pattern might then be regarded as a solution of a type of orientation problem - systems of ideas are solutions of cognitive problems, systems of
expressive symbols are solutions of problems of how "appropriately" to
express feelings, and systems of value-orientations are solutions of problems of evaluation, particularly but
not exclusively in social interaction.
Value-orientation patterns are of particularly decisive significance in the organization of systems of action since one class of them defines the patterns of reciprocal rights and obligations which become constitutive of role-expectations and sanctions. (Other classes of value-orientation define the standards of cognitive and appreciative judgments.)
Cultural patterns tend to become organized into systems. The peculiar
feature of this systematization is a type of integration which we may call
consistency of pattern. Whether it be the logical consistency of belief system, the stylistic harmony of an art form, or the rational compatibility of a body of moral rules, the internal
coherence of a body of cultural patterns is always a crucial problem for the
student of culture.
22 The General Theory of Action
The determination of the extent of the consistency of pattern and deviations from it in a given culture
presents serious difficulties to the analyst. The overt or explicit culture almost always appears fragmentary at first, and its parts seem disconnected. Only under special
conditions - for example, in highly sophisticated systems of ideas or legal systems - is explicit systematization carried out by the
creators and bearers of the culture themselves. In order therefore to determine the existence
of systematic coherence where there has not
been explicit systematization, it is necessary for the student
of culture to uncover the implicit culture and to detect whatever common
premises may underlie apparently diverse and unconnected items of
orientation.
Very close approximations to complete consistency in the patterns of
culture are practically never to be found in large complex social systems. The nature and sources of the mal-integration of cultural patterns are as important to the theory of
action as the integration itself.
THE INTERNALIZATION OF CULTURE
PATTERNS
It has already been made clear that, whatever its systematic form,
a cultural pattern may be involved in action either as an object of the actor's situation or it may be internalized to become part of the structure of his personality. All types of cultural patterns may be
internalized, but particular importance is to be attributed to the
internalization of value-orientations, some of which become part of the
superego structure of the personality and, with corresponding
frequency, of institutionalized role-expectations.25
Cultural patterns when internalized become constitutive elements of
personalities and of social systems. All concrete systems of action, at the same
time, have a system of culture and are a set of personalities (or sectors of them) and a social system or subsystem. Yet all three are
conceptually independent organizations of the elements of action.
Because of this empirical interrelatedness, there is a dynamic theory of culture which corresponds to that of the dynamic theory of personality
and social systems. It is concerned with the conditions under
which certain types of systems of culture can exist in certain types of personalities or societies. It analyzes the
processes of cultural innovation and change in terms of their motivational
determinants, as these operate in the mechanisms of the social system and in the
mechanisms of personality. It is concerned with the unperfections in the integration of cultural patterns and accounts for
them in terms of the empirical interdependence of culture orientations with the
strains and processes of the social and personality systems.
28 This fact of the internalization of values was
independently and from different points of view discovered by Freud in his theory of the superego and by Durkheim in his theory of the institutionalization of
moral norms. The fact that the two men, working from different premises, arrived
at the same conclusion is one of the landmarks of development of modern social
science.
A General Statement 23
6. THE SOCIAL SYSTEM
When, in the above discussion of action, we reached the point at which
interaction of an actor with other persons or social objects became crucial we
disclosed the nucleus of the development of social systems. Personality as a
system has a fundamental and stable point of reference, the acting
organism. It
is organized around the one organism and its life processes. But ego and alter in interaction
with each other also constitute a system. This is a system of a new
order, which, however intimately dependent on them, does not
simply consist of the personalities of the two members.
ROLE AS THE UNIT OF SOCIAL SYSTEMS:
SOCIAL SYSTEM AND PERSONALITIES
In the present terms a social system is a system of the interaction of a plurality of persons analyzed within the frame of reference of the
theory of action.
It is, of course, composed of relationships of individual actors and only of such relationships. The relationships themselves are
constellations of the actions of the parties to the relationship oriented toward
one another.
For most analytical purposes, the most significant unit of social structures is not the person but the role. The role is that organized sector of an actor's
orientation which constitutes and defines his participation in an interactive process. It involves a set
of complementary expectations concerning his own actions and those of others
with whom he interacts. Both the actor and those with whom he
interacts possess these expectations. Roles are institutionalized when they are fully congruous with the prevailing culture
patterns and are organized around expectations of conformity with morally sanctioned patterns of value-orientation shared by the members of the
collectivity in which the role functions.
The abstraction of an actor's role from the total system of his
personality makes it possible to analyze the articulation of personality with the organization of social
systems. The
structure of a social system and the functional imperatives for its operation
and survival or orderly change as a system are moreover different from those of personality.29 The problems of personality and social
structure can be properly treated only if these differences are recognized. Only then can the
points of articulation and mutual interdependence be studied.
When we recognize that roles rather than
personalities are the units of social structure, we can perceive the
necessity of an element of "looseness" in the relation between personality
structure and the performance of a role. Role situations are situations with
potentially all the possible significances to
an actor that situations can have. Their significance and the
resultant effect on the motivation of behavior will be different with different
personalities.
But, in the organization of the latter's reactions where the stability of the sector of the social system in
question is maintained, there are certain "control mechanisms" which serve to
keep the potential dispersion of the actor's reactions within limits narrower than would be produced by the combination of the total
situation and the actor's personality without this specificity of role
expectations.
29 A further distinction between social and personality
systems lies in the fact that a social system is not
tied to any one particular
aggregate of organisms. Furthermore there is no reason to believe that when, having undergone a
change of personnel, the social system remains the same, the new actors who have
replaced those which were lost are necessarily identical in all the details of
their personality with their predecessors.
24 The General Theory of Action
An important feature of a large proportion of social roles is that the
actions which make them up are not minutely prescribed and that a certain range of variability is
regarded as legitimate. Sanctions are not invoked against deviance
within certain limits. This range of freedom makes it possible for actors with
different personalities to fulfill within considerable limits the expectations
associated with roughly the same roles without undue strain. It should also be
noted that role-expectations and sanctions do exert "pressures" on
individual actors which may well generate types of strain which have
important repercussions in various parts of the personality. These will be
manifested in types of action which in turn have a variety of social
consequences and often result in either the development of further mechanisms of
social control or the generation of pressures toward change, or in both. In this
manner, personality and role structure constitute closely interdependent systems.
ROLE TYPES AND THE
DIFFERENTIATION AND INTEGRATION OF SOCIAL SYSTEMS
The structural roles of the social
system, like the structure of need-dispositions of the
personality system, must be oriented to value alternatives. Selections are of course always actions of
individuals, but these selections cannot be inter-individually random in a
social system. Indeed, one of the most important
functional imperatives of the maintenance of social systems is that the
value-orientations of the different actors in the same social system must be
integrated in some measure in a common system. All on-going social systems do actually
show a tendency toward a general system of common cultural orientations. The sharing of
value-orientations is especially crucial, although consensus with respect to systems of ideas and expressive symbols
are also very important determinants of stability in the social system.
A General Statement 25
The range of variation and the shape of the distribution of the types of roles in a social system is neither parallel to nor fully
congruous with the range of variation and the distribution of the personality types of the
actors filling those roles. The actual operation of this structure of
roles as an on-going system is, of course, possible in the last analysis only
because the component personalities are motivated to act in the requisite ways
and sufficient gratification is provided to enough individuals within the
immediate system of roles itself or in the more embracing system of roles. There are
functional imperatives limiting the degree of incompatibility of the possible
kinds of roles in the same action system; these imperatives are ultimately
related to the conditions of maintenance of a total on-going social system of
the type in which the more constitutive of these roles are found. A social system,
like a personality, must be coherently organized and not merely a random
assortment of its components.
As in the case of personality, the functional problem of social systems may be
summarized as the problems of allocation and integration. There is always a differentiation of
functions within any action system. There must accordingly be an allocation of
such functions to different classes of roles; the roles must be articulated for
the performance of collaborative and complementary tasks. The life span of the
individual being limited, there must be a continual process of replacement of
personnel within the system of roles if the system is to endure. Furthermore, both
the facilities necessary to perform functions and the rewards which are
important to the motivation of individual actors are inherently scarce. Hence their
allocation cannot be left to an unregulated competitive process without great
frustration and conflict ensuing. The regulation of all these allocative processes and the performance of the functions which keep the system
or the subsystem going in a sufficiently integrated manner is impossible
without a system of definitions of roles and sanctions for
conformity or deviation. With the development of a considerable
complexity of differentiation there emerge roles and subsystems of roles with
specifically integrative functions in the social system.
This determination of functions and allocation and integration of roles,
personnel, facilities, and rewards in a social system implies a process of
selection in accordance with standards of evaluation applied to characteristics
of the objects (individual and collective). This does not mean that anyone ever
deliberately works out the "plan" of most social systems. But as in the other
types of action systems it is not possible for the choices of the actors to fall
at random and still form a coherently organized and functioning social
system. The
structure of the social system in this respect may be regarded as the cumulative
and balanced resultant of many selections of many individuals, stabilized and
reinforced by the institutionalization of value patterns, which legitimize commitment to certain directions of selection and mobilize sanctions in the support of the resultant orientations.
26 The General Theory of Action
The patterns of commitment which, in their function as institutional
role-expectations, are incorporated into the structure of social systems are,
in at least one
fundamental aspect of their content (that is, in the commitments which
define rights and obligations) identical with the cultural value-orientation discussed
above. The
latter, in the form of the general moral consensus regarding rights and
obligations, constitutes therefore one fundamental component of the structure of
the social system.
The structural differences between different social systems will often be
found to reside in differences in the content and range of this consensus.
Although the moral consensus of the pattern of value-orientation provides the standards
and sets the limits which regulate the allocations, there must also be special institutional mechanisms through which the
allocative decisions are made and implemented. The institutional roles to which power and prestige are
attached play a preponderant part in this process. The reason for this lies in the fact that
power and prestige possess a highly general significance for the distribution of
other facilities and rewards. The distribution of power and prestige and
the institutional mechanisms which regulate that distribution are therefore
especially influential in the working of a social system.
The general requirement for integration, therefore, demands that the control of allocative and integrative processes
be associated with the same, or with closely interacting, roles; and that the
mechanisms regulating the distribution of power and prestige apportion
sufficient power and prestige to these allocative and integrative roles. And
finally, it is essential that the occupants of these roles perform their
allocative and integrative functions with a view to conforming with the value
consensus of the society. These allocative and integrative roles (whether they
be roles filled by individuals or by subcollectivities) may be considered to be
important integrative mechanisms of the society. Their absence or defectiveness causes conflicts and frustrations.
It must be recognized that no social system is ever completely integrated just as none is ever completely disintegrated. From the sectors of unintegratedness - where expectations cannot be fulfilled in institutional roles or where need-dispositions are frustrated by institutionalized expectations or where the strain is not absorbed in safety-valve mechanisms - from these sectors some of the most important sources of change and growth are to be found.
Any system of interactive relationships of a plurality of individual
actors is a social system.
A society 30 is the type of social
system which contains within
itself all the essential prerequisites for its maintenance as a self-subsistent system. Among the more essential of these
prerequisites are
(1) organization around the foci of territorial location and kinship,
(2) a system for determining functions and allocating facilities and
rewards, and
(3) integrative structures controlling these allocations and regulating
conflicts and competitive processes.
30 Partial social systems, so long as their relation to the
society of which they are parts is made clear, are certainly legitimate objects
of empirical investigation.
A General Statement 27
With the institutionalization of culture patterns, especially
value-orientation patterns, in the social structure, the threefold reciprocal integration of personality, social system, and culture comes full circle.31 Such
value patterns, institutionalized in the social structure, through the
operation of role mechanisms, and in combination with other elements, organize
the behavior of adult members of society. Through the socialization process, they are in turn constitutive in establishment of
the personality structure of the new adult from the plasticity of early
childhood. The
process of socialization, it is clear from the above, is dependent upon social
interaction.
Adults in their orientation to the child are certainly acting in roles,
very largely institutionalized, and almost from the beginning the child himself
develops expectations which
rapidly become role-expectations. Then within the framework of the personality
structures thus formed, adults act both to maintain and to modify the social
system and the value patterns in which and by which they live, and to modify or
keep within the pattern the personality structures of their living
descendants.
The reader should bear in mind that what we have presented in the
foregoing pages is a highly general and abstract scheme. We are fully aware
that by itself it cannot do justice to the immense richness and particularity of
the human scene.
But it can help us to analyze that scene and organize our knowledge of
it.
The general outlines of the nature of action systems sketched here, the
interrelations of the various components and the interdependence of the system
levels of organization of those components, seems to be quite clearly implied in
much contemporary theory and research. But the empirical complexity is immense, and
the unexplored areas are, in the light of present knowledge, Stygian in their
darkness.
To us, progress toward unraveling that complexity and
illuminating some of the obscurity depends, along with empirical investigation,
on more precise and explicit conceptualization of the components of action and
of the ways in which they are interrelated.
Talcott Parsons
Edward A. Shils
Gordon W. Allport
Clyde Kluckhohn
Edward C. Tolman
Henry A. Murray, Jr.
Robert R. Sears
Richard C. Sheldon
Samuel A. Stouffer
31 Although - as must almost inevitably be the case with each
individual signer - there are some things I should prefer to see said somewhat
differently, there is only one point on which I remain slightly uncomfortable. This is the relation of social structure, social
system, role, and culture. Many anthropologists (and certainly the
undersigned) will agree today that there is an element in the social (i.e.,
interactive) process which is not culturally patterned, which is in some sense
autonomous from culture. Nevertheless, one whose training, experiences, and
prejudices are anthropological tends to feel that the present statement does not
give full weight to the extent to which roles are culturally defined, social
structure is part of the cultural map, the social system is built upon girders
supplied by explicit and implicit culture. On the other hand, whatever my
reservations, I welcome the publication of the statement in its present form
because I am convinced that in the present stage of social science it is highly
useful to behave experimentally with reference to conceptual schemes - Clyde Kluckhohn.
28 The General Theory of Action
A NOTE ON THE PLACE OF ECONOMIC
THEORY AND POLITICAL THEORY IN THE GENERAL THEORY OF
ACTION
The general preoccupations and terminology of the foregoing statement are those current in the disciplines of psychology, sociology, and social anthropology. It is reasonable to ask about the relevance of the theoretical interests of the well-established social science disciplines of economics and political science.
Economics is today, in a theoretical sense, probably the most highly
elaborated, sophisticated, and refined of the disciplines dealing with
action. It was
by far the earliest to conceive of the relevant phenomena in terms of a system
of interdependent variables and thus to interpret particular phenomena in the
light of their interrelations with others in a system. It has also achieved a
high level of technical refinement of its concepts and analytical methods.
Most certainly economic theory is a part of the theory of action in the
present technical sense. It has not, however, been explicitly dealt
with above because most of its problems arise only at points of elaboration and
differentiation in the development of social systems beyond those to which we
have carried our analysis.
It is true that there is an "economic" aspect of all empirical action
systems - that
aspect which we have designated as the "allocative," by borrowing a term from economics. But this concept of
economics is so general as to preclude its being used as the basis of a
technical theoretical development. This latter occurs only with the emergence of
specially differentiated types of orientation of action within a correspondingly
differentiated social system. Only with the development of money, of
markets, and of the price mechanism or other differentiated mechanisms of
allocation of resources do the phenomena of special technical interest to the
economist appear on a substantial scale.
Economic theory is the conceptual scheme for analyzing such phenomena as
production - as oriented to a set of market conditions or allocative policies -
exchange, and determination of particular prices and of price levels. As such its
technical basis rests on the fundamentals of action theory as here set forth -
particularly instrumental orientation as an action type and the conditions of
mutuality of such orientation.
Its empirical relevance, on the other hand, rests on
certain types of development of social systems. Just as the economic variant of
instrumental orientation must be placed relative to other types and the
particular combinations of action components they involve, so must the empirical
processes of special interest to the economist be placed in terms of their
relations to those other aspects of the total social system which are not
susceptible of analysis in terms of economic theory
Economic theory, then, is the theory of a particular set of processes or
of a subsystem within a class of highly differentiated social systems. This subsystem is
of very great strategic significance in these societies. Economic theory has
its conceptual foundations in the categories of action theory here set forth,
but only becomes a distinctive subtheory of the general theory on a considerably
more elaborate level of differentiation than that reached here.
The case of political science is somewhat different. Its historical focus
has been much more on a class of concrete phenomena, those of government, than
on a distinctive conceptual scheme. What has traditionally been called political
theory has contained more of philosophical and ethical explication of the
problems of government than of empirical analysis of its processes and
determinants.
In the sense of a distinctive empirical conceptual scheme, political theory has clearly not been in the same
category with economic theory.
A General Statement 29
Since government constitutes one of the most strategically important processes and foci of differentiated structures within social systems, its study is clearly a legitimate basis for the specialization of a discipline within the social sciences. But, like economics, its special relevance does not emerge until degrees of differentiation on both theoretical and empirical levels beyond those reached in the present general statement have appeared.
It appears, furthermore, that the processes and structures of government
necessarily have highly diffuse functions in social systems. It seems likely,
therefore, that if the empirical focus of political science is to remain on the
phenomena of government, it will not as a discipline be able to attain a
sharpness of theoretical focus comparable to that of economics. It is more likely
to draw from a much wider range of the components of the general theory of
action and to find its distinctiveness in the way it combines these components
in relation to its special empirical interests, rather than in the technical
elaboration of a narrow and sharply focused segment of the theory of action, as
is the case with economics.