90 Values, Motives, and Systems of Action

 

                Certain other pairs of concepts, representative and autonomous roles for instance, are derivatives from pattern variables.  The pair in this example are derivatives of the second pattern variable - self versus collectivity-orientation - on a more concrete level.  Let us show bow this derivation is made. 

First, a distinction must be made, in dealing with a collectivity, between the internal relations of its members, and their relations outside of the collectivity.  In analyzing their relations outside of the collectivity, the bearing of their membership on the external relations must be taken into account.   Now, a representative role is characterized as follows: in external relations a member is oriented primarily to the role-expectations which govern his conduct as a member of the collectivity; this primacy of collectivity-orientation over self-

orientation defines the representative role.   Correspondingly, an autonomous role is one in which the actor is free (oriented independently) of his roles as a member of the collectivity in external relations; the primacy of self-orientation defines the autonomous role.

 

                Similarly, rational as opposed to traditional action has been suggested as a pattern variable. This seems to be a complex derivative from the pattern variables.  It has a special relation to the universalism-particularism dichotomy, because cognitive standards are inherently rational.  But the reference in the rational-traditional dichotomy is not to the generality of the frame of reference (as it is in universalism) but to the stability of patterns over time.  Thus the rational-traditional dichotomy is a way of formulating al-

ternative ways of adapting primary (pattern variable) value-orientation patterns over a period of time in an empirical action system.

 

                In another sense, the rational-traditional dichotomy may be seen as a way of characterizing any long-run sequence of pattern-variable choices.  In choosing the various sides of the pattern-variable dichotomies, a person may choose in a rational or traditional fashion.  That is, he may shift his choices in accord with the pragmatic exigencies of the situation (in which case the choices would be considered rational), or he may select in accord with his life-long idea of the way his group, or his family, has always made selections in a given matter (in which case his whole set of pattern-variable choices would be considered traditional).  Thus, the rational-traditional variable is in some sense a characteristic of the content of a person's patterned choices over a period of time.  The more consistent a person's selections, independent of varying situations, the more traditional we say he is; the more his choices vary with the situations, the more rational we say he is.  This distinction, however, is certainly not on the same level as the pattern variables; it is not a choice which must be made in addition to other pattern-variable choices before

the situation has determinate meaning.  Rather it is a characteristic of the pattern-variable choices themselves; or if it is a choice alternative at all, it stands on a level antecedent to the pattern variables, being perhaps a choice which ego will make in deciding what will be the basis for his pattern-variable choices.³⁸

 

Orientation and Organization of Action 91

 

                There are three assumptions in our contention that the five pattern-variable dilemmas are an exhaustive set. These assumptions are:

                 (1) acceptance of the basic frame of reference as we have defined it;

                 (2) acceptance of the level of generality on which we are proceeding, which is the first level of

 derivation from the basic frame of reference;

                 (3) acceptance of our method of derivation through the establishment of primacies among

types of interest and the resolution of ambiguities intrinsic to the world of social objects.

 

                Finally, it should be emphasized that the variables as we have stated them are dichotomies and not continua.  In a series of concrete actions, a person may be partly "affective" and partly "neutral." 

But this series would be composed of dichotomous choices; no specific choice can be half affective, half neutral.  The same is true of the other pattern variables.  One who has carefully read the definitions and discussions will see that each concept sets up a polarity, a true dilemma.

 

CLASSIFICATION OF NEED-DISPOSITIONS AND ROLE-EXPECTATIONS

 

                The pattern variables are tools for the classification of need-dispositions and role-expectations, which, as has been pointed out, represent allocative foci for both personality and social systems.  Before we go into the classification of these units, it might be wise to recapitulate briefly the way the allocative and integrative foci fit into the frame of reference of the theory of action.  We have said that action systems, as either actors or social objects, may be personalities or collectivities, both of which are abstracted from the

same concrete action.  The different principles of abstraction used in locating the two systems derive directly from the notion that personalities and collectivities have different kinds of allocative and integrative foci. 

The integrative foci are, in some sense, the principles of abstraction used in locating or delimiting the system: thus, the individual organism is the integrative focus of a personality system and the interacting social group is the integrative focus of a social system.  The integrative foci are therefore used for

abstracting social systems themselves from the total realm of possible subject matter.

 

                ³⁸ Other pairs of concepts, such as dominance-submission and autonomy-heteronomy should similarly be regarded as being on a different level of complexity.  Some of these will he considered in more detail in later chapters.

 

92 Values, Motives, and Systems of Action

 

                The allocative foci, on the other hand, are the primary units used for analyzing the action system into elements or parts.  The allocative foci of personality systems are need-dispositions.  The personality system is in a sense composed of a variety of need-dispositions; each of these assures that some

need of the personality system will be met.  The referent of a need-disposition is, in a sense, a set of concrete orientations.  That is, a need-disposition is an inferred entity; it is inferred on the basis of a certain consistency of choosing and cathecting in a wide variety of orientations.  Thus, when we speak of a

need-disposition, we will sometimes seem to be talking about a real entity, causally controlling a wide variety of orientations and rendering them consistent; other times we will seem to be talking about the consistent set of orientations (abstracted on the basis of the postulated entity) themselves.  Logicians have shown that it is usually fair to use interchangeably the inferred entity postulated on the basis of a set of data and the whole set of data itself.  The postulated entity is, in some sense, a shorthand for the set of data from which it is inferred.

 

                The allocative foci of social systems are roles or role-expectations.  The social system is in a sense composed of a variety of roles or role-expectations; each of these assures that some need of the social system will be met.  The referent of a role, like that of a need-disposition, is a set of concrete orientations; the role or role-expectation is an inferred entity in exactly the same fashion as is the need-disposition.  Each orientation, according to postulate, is a joint function of a role (which partly controls it), a need-disposition (which also partly controls it), and probably of other factors not mentioned here.³⁹ 

When orientations are grouped ^jjd (or abstracted) according to the need-dispositions that control them, and according to the individual organisms who have these need-dispositions, we are dealing with personality systems.  When orientations are grouped (or abstracted) according to the roles or roles-expectations that control them, and according to the interacting groups to which they belong, we are dealing with social systems. 

 

[jjd 8/1/01: makes one wonder if these refinements in action (since 1937) where not prompted by the widespread use of unit record (viz card sorters) in the 50s.]

 

                Now, since none of the depth variables (allocative foci, etc.) are effective except as they influence the orientation of action (which is not necessarily either conscious or rational), and since all orientations tend to have not only the allocative foci of both social and personality systems as ingredients but also value standards (which, when internalized, are depth variables similar to need-dispositions and role-expectations), no need-disposition, nor any role-expectation, is effective except in conjunction with certain value-orientations with which it is systematically related (at least in the sense that both control the same orientation for the moment).  Hence, in discussing personalities or social systems, using as the primary units of abstraction need-dispositions or role-expectations, we may regard the value-orientation components of the orientations so grouped to be the value-orientation components of the need-dispositions or role-expectations themselves.  Thus we can classify the need-dispositions and role-expectations in terms of the

value-orientations with which they tend to be linked.

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                ³⁹ As will be seen in a moment, each orientation is in some sense a function of the value standards which partly control it.  Furthermore, each orientation is certainly partly a function of the present object situation.

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Orientation and Organization of Action 93

 

                In principle, therefore, every concrete need-disposition ⁴⁰ of personality, or every role-expectation of social structure, involves a combination of values of the five pattern variables.  The cross-classification of each of the five against each of the others, yielding a table of thirty-two cells, will, on the assumption that the list of pattern variables is exhaustive, produce a classification of the basic value patterns.  Internalized in the personality system, these value patterns serve as a starting point for a classification of the possible types of need-dispositions; as institutionalized in the system of social action, they are a classification of components of role-expectation definitions.⁴¹

 

                It should be clear that the classification of the value components of need-dispositions and of role-expectations in terms of the pattern variables is a first step toward the construction of a dynamic theory of systems of action.  To advance toward empirical significance, these classifications will have to be related to the functional problems of on-going systems of action.⁴²

 

                As a last word before taking up the problem of classification itself, we should mention that of the logically possible combinations of the pattern variables, not all are likely to be of equal empirical significance.  Careful analysis of their involvement in a wide variety of phenomena shows that they are all in fact independently variable in some contexts and that there is no tautology in the scheme. Nonetheless there are certainly tendencies for certain combinations to cluster together.  The uneven distribution of combinations and the empirical difficulty, or even perhaps impossibility, of the realization of some combinations in systems of action will raise important dynamic problems.

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                ⁴⁰ A need-disposition as the term is used here always involves a set of dispositions toward objects. In abstraction from objects the concept becomes elliptical.  Only for reasons of avoiding even greater terminological cumbersomeness is tbe more complex term "need-disposition toward objects" usually avoided.  However, such a need-disposition and the particular objects of its gratification are independently variable.  The mechanism of substitution links the need-disposition to various objects that are not its

"proper" gratifiers.

 

                ⁴¹ The classification of role-expectations and need-dispositions according to value patterns is only a part of the larger problem of classifying concrete need-dispositions and role-expectations.  Other components of action must enter the picture before a classification relevant and adequate to the problem of the analysis of systems is attainable.  For example, one set of factors entering into need-dispositions, the constitutionally determined components, has been quite explicitly and deliberately excluded from the present analysis.  So far as these are essential to an adequate classification of the need-disposition elements of personality, the classification in terms of pattern variables obviously requires adjustment.

 

                ⁴² This means above all that the motivational processes of action must be analyzed as processes in terms of the laws governing them, and as mechanisms in terms of the significance of their outcomes for the functioning of the systems of which they are parts.  In due course the attempt to do this will be made.  Also, it should be noted that the necessary constitutional factors which are treated as residual in this conceptual scheme will find their place among the functional necessities of systems.

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94 Values, Motives, and Systems of Action

 

                To classify need-dispositions and role-expectations, we must begin by making the cross-classification tables mentioned above.  In constructing such tables we find that certain of the pattern-variable dichotomies are of major importance with respect to need-dispositions (and hence personality systems). 

Similarly, certain pattern-variable dichotomies are of major importance with respect to role-expectations (and hence social systems).  Furthermore, the pattern variables of major importance for classification of need-dispositions are not the same as those of major importance for classification of role-expectations. In fact, the two sets are more or less complementary; those of major importance for need-dispositions are the ones of minor importance for role-expectations, and vice versa.

 

                The only one of the pattern variables equally applicable to both need-dispositions and role-expectations is the self-collectivity variable (number two).  Of the other four, the first, affectivity-neutrality, and the fifth, specificity-difuseness, are chiefly important with respect to need-dispositions.  The third, universalism.particularism, and the fourth, ascription-achievement, are chiefly important with respect to role-expectations.

 

                Figs. 3 and 4 present the formal classifications of types of need-disposition orientation and of role-expectation orientation, respectively.  In each case, for the sake of simplicity, the pattern variable concerning the distribution between private and collective values and interests is omitted.  This variable seems to occupy, as we shall see presently, a special place in the comprehensive integration of systems of action and is the only one which has a fully symmetrical relation to both diagrams.  It is therefore possible to omit it here and introduce it when personality systems and social systems are discussed in more detail subsequently.

 

                The characterizations of each of the types in the cells of the main diagrams and the illustrations in the supplementary ones indicate that each of the cells makes sense empirically.  Concrete phenomena can be adduced as illustrations without distortion.  The two figures do not have an identical arrangement. 

Figure 3 is divided into four major "blocks" by the cross-classification of the first and the fifth pattern variables while the further subdivision within each of the blocks is the product of cross-classification of the other two variables, universalism.particularism and ascription-achievement. 

In Fig. 4 the four main blocks are the result of the cross-classification of universalism-particularism and ascription-achievement, while the subdivisions within the major types are produced by cross-classifying affectivity-neutrality and specificity.diffuseness.  The pattern variable, self- versus collectivity-orientation, is not involved in the symmetrical asymmetry of these fundamental classificatory tables and is omitted.

 

Orientation and Organization of Action 95

 

                Let us discuss for a moment the reasons why the pair of pattern variables primary for personality is the obverse of the pair primary for social systems.  Personality systems, as we have said, are primary constellations of need-dispositions.  The primary problems regarding need-dispositions and the orientations they control are these:

                (1) On the orientation side of the orientation-object division, the primary question is whether or not the need-disposition allows evaluation.  Metaphorically, we might ask whether the need-disposition

interacts peacefully with the other need-dispositions in the system.  If it allows evaluation, it interacts peacefully, if it disallows evaluation, it competes for all or no affective control of the organism.

                (2) On the object side, the question is whether the need-disposition which mediates attachment to any given object is segmental (being perhaps an uncomplex residue of the biological drive system, or some very segmental learned motivational system), or whether it is a complex integration of many drives and motives into one diffuse and complex need-disposition that can be aroused by many different situations

and conditions.  These two problems are primary because they concern the most basic aspects of the relations which obtain between need-dispositions; thus, the selections of the various need-dispositions on these questions are in a sense constitutive of the nature of the personality system in question.

 

                Social systems, we have said, are primarily constellations of roles or role-expectations.

The primary problems relative to role-expectations and the orientations they control are these:

                (1) On the orientation side, the question is whether or not the role's mutual relationships to other roles (or to the role-expectations which define the role) are based on cognitive or appreciative standards. 

(If this role is related to other roles on the basis of cognitive standards, then, its chief characteristics do not derive from its specific relations to other social objects; and its characteristics do not change so much depending on the alter with which it is interacting.)

                (2) On the object side, the question is whether this role (qua object) is related to other roles on the

basis of the performance or the quality characteristics of its incumbents.  These two problems are primary because they concern the most basic aspects of the relations which obtain between roles; thus, the selections of roles (or occupants of roles) on these questions are in a sense constitutive of the nature of

the social system in question.

 

                At this point, it would be wise to turn to Figs. 3, 3a, 4, and 4a (pp.249-252). 

                Fig. 3 presents the major classification of need-dispositions; that is, according to the affectivity-neutrality variable and the specificity-diffuseness variable.

                Fig. 3a presents the further cross-classification of Fig. 3 by the two pattern variables of secondary importance for personalities, universalism-particularism and quality-performance.

                Fig. 4, similarly, presents the major classification of roles; that is, according to the universalism-particularism variable and the quality-performance variable.

                Fig. 4a presents the further cross-classification of Fig. 4 by the two pattern variables of secondary importance for social systems, affectivity-neutrality and specificity-diffuseness.

 

96 Values, Motives, and Systems of Action

 

                Fig. 5 illustrates the "symmetrical asymmetry" pointed out above.  It shows that affectivity~neutrality and diffuseness.specificity apply most directly to problems of motivational orientation and thus to systems composed of motivational units and that universalism.particularism and ascription-achievement apply most directly to problems of value-orientation and thus to systems composed of units established by social values and norms (that is, systems of roles and role-expectations).  Finally, it shows that the self-orientation =

collectivity orientation variable applies equally to problems of motivational and value-orientation, and thus equally to personality and social systems.

 

                For those who already comprehend the diagrams, the following explanation is unnecessary.  A new topic begins on page 98.  Similarly, those who are interested in the outline but not the finer details of our theory may proceed to that page.  For those who wish it, however, we give a brief discussion of these diagrams.

 

                The four main types of need-dispositions (given in Fig. 3) are variants of the actor's attitudinal attachments to any object, further differentiated by the scope of the attachment to the object.  Two of them (Cells I and III) represent the actor's needs for direct gratification through specific or diffuse attachments. 

In the former there are specific relations to objects (e.g., objects for the gratification of hunger or erotic needs).  In the latter, the attachment is diffuse and involves a large portion of ego's action system in the relation to the object.  The attachment to the object comprises both the reception of the attitudes of the object and the possession of the reciprocally corresponding attitudes toward the object.  A lack of reciprocality in this responsiveness-receptiveness structure of a need-disposition (which mediates an attachment) is, however, extremely frequent empirically.  Thus it presents a major problem in the dynamic analysis of personalities and social systems.  It must be analyzed by the introduction of other variables in addition to those so far considered (see below, Chapter II).

 

                The other two main types of need-disposition (Cells II and IV) are directed toward less immediate, less intensely positive affective gratification.  The value standards figure more prominently in them. In the specific variant of this more disciplined need.disposition, the needed attachment is to a specific quality or performance.  Again there is receptive-responsive reciprocality - the need.disposition is to approve of the qualities or performances of other persons and to be approved by others for one's own qualities or performances in conformity with some specific value standards (which have been internalized in the personality).  In the diffuse variant the needed attachment is to a whole person; the need is to be esteemed by others on the basis of conformity to a set of standards applying to the whole person, and to esteem others on the basis of their conformity to similar standards.   It should be stressed that the cathexis which is fundamental here covers both phases of the attachment, to loved and loving objects, to esteemed and esteeming objects, and so on.

 

Orientation and Organization of Action 97

 

                In commenting on this simplified systematic classification of need-dispositions, we ought to point back and show whence it is derived; then point to examples and show that the different kinds of need-dispositions do exist; then, perhaps, show how these need-dispositions are generated within the personality.  However, in such an essay as this we cannot spell out all steps completely.  Suffice it to say that the categories are derived from our basic categories of action through the pattern variables.  We have tried to make the steps of this derivation explicit.  As for pointing to examples, we will not here go into all of the specific kinds of need-dispositions that fill our various categories, but we can point out that there are these needs to receive certain attitudes from others and to respond with certain attitudes to others. 

If it is asked how ego comes to be so concerned about the attitudes of approval, love, esteem, and so forth, which alter directs toward ego (and which ego directs toward alter) we must point to the cathectic sensitivity to the attitudes of others which is developed in the course of socialization.  The child learns to need the

love or approval or esteem of others and in the same sense he learns to need to love or approve or esteem others through identification.  In somewhat different form, the same is true of the need for specific attachments to objects as immediate sources of gratification.  There are perhaps physical components

of all these need-dispositions, according to which they also might also be classified.  And ultimately, of course, they are genetically derived from organic sources in the infant's dependency - his needs as a biological organism - but in their operation as parts of a system of need-dispositions they acquire

a very far-reaching functional autonomy in the form of the personality system.

 

                The fundamental reason why Fig. 4 is constructed from pattern variables omitted from Fig. 3 has already been given.  We may expand it briefly.  Personality systems are primarily systems of need-dispositions; the primary questions about need-dispositions (which always govern orientations of actors

to objects), when we are concerned with a system of them, are:

                (1) Does the need-disposition in question integrate harmoniously with other need-dispositions in the system?

                (2) Is the need-disposition in question diffusely related with many other sectors of the system, or is it more or less segmental and cut off with respect to the other aspects of the system of which it is a part?

                Hence in the description of the fundamental need-dispositions, the primarily relevant pattern variables are

                (1) that derived from the problem whether or not evaluation is called for (whether the need-disposition has to be integrated with others) and

                (2) that derived from the problem of whether the object shall be endowed with diffuse or specific significance (whether the need-disposition which mediates the object attachment involves much or little of the action system of ego).

 

98 Values, Motives, and Systems of Action

 

                A social system is primarily a system of roles. The primary questions about roles (which govern mutual orientations of individuals within a social system) when we are concerned with a system of these roles, are:

                (1) Does the role in question integrate with other roles on the basis of universalistic or particularistic principles of organization?

                (2) Are the roles in question defined and thus related in terms of the quality or performance characteristics of their occupants?

                It should be remembered that the determination of how roles are related in this respect is largely a function of the value standards institutionalized in the social system.  Consequently, the pattern variables most relevant to the description of the normative patterns governing roles (i.e., role-expectations) are achievement-ascription and universalism-particularism.  The four main types of role-expectations are presented in the four cells of Fig. 4.  Fig. 4a is constructed by further cross-classifying each main type of role-expectation.  What are classified in Fig. 4 are only the primary value-orientation components of the role-expectations and most emphatically not the concrete roles themselves.

 

                These two diagrams in a slightly different formulation also constitute classifications of constellations of the alternatives of choice which make up systems of value-orientations themselves.  They are components of "patterns of culture."  Again it should be emphasized that they are classifications of

constellations of components of systems of value-orientation, not of types of such systems.  Types of systems are formed from such constellations when they are related to the more concrete "problems" presented by the situation of action.  These and related questions will be taken up in the analysis of systems of value-orientation in Chapter III.⁴³

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                ⁴³ There is one implication of the above discussion which may be noted now for further analysis.  The symmetrical asymmetry which has been discussed implies a difference between the systematic focus of a value-orientation system for personality, and the corresponding one for the social system (see Fig. 5). 

A system of personal values will be organized primarily around the actor's motivational problems, such as permission and restraint, and the scope of the significance of objects.  The patterns of relationship between persons beyond these bases of interest will be conceptually secondary, although of course they will have to be integrated with the primary foci.

A system of social values, on the other hand, will be organized more about the problems of choice between the types of normative patterns which govern the relations among individuals and the

aspects of those individuals which are to be constitutive of their social statuses and roles. 

This asymmetry may be of considerable importance in defining the relations between the study of cultnre and personality, on the one hand, and culture and society, on the other.  Fig 5 presents in schematic form the relationship of the pattern variables of motivational orientation on the one band, and role-expectation on the other.  The second pattern variab]e, self- or collectivity-orientation, belongs eqilally to both and is central to neither.

 

                ⁴⁴ Every action system has, in one sense, three components: a pattern of value-orientation, a structural object world, and a set of allocative and integrative foci.  Of these three sets of components, the value patterns and the object world are common, without essential differences, to personality and social systems and even to cultural systems.  The differences between personality, social, and cultural systems lie

(1) in the different allocative and integrative foci, and

(2) in the empirical organization and integration of these elements in the concrete control of action.

Thus the components of the object situation, like the patterns of value orientation, can be analyzed once and for all, and the categories so developed should be applicable to all three kinds of systems.

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Orientation and Organization of Action 99

 

CLASSIFICATION OF COMPONENTS OF THE OBJECT SITUATION

 

                Here we shall recapitulate briefly what has been said above about the structure of the object world and elaborate further on the classification of the components of that structure.⁴⁴  The structure of the object world in the most general terms takes form from the distinction between social and nonsocial objects, the further differentiation of the former into the categories of qualities and performances, and the further differentiation of the latter into the categories of physical and cultural objects.  Nonsocial objects, it will be

remembered, are distinguished by the fact that ego does not see them as having expectations about ego's behavior.  Ego knows that social objects "expect" him to do certain things; he does not see nonsocial objects as having such expectations.  Cultural objects, it will be remembered, are distinguished frorn physical objects in that the former are subject to "internalization," the latter are not.

 

                Taking these distinctions as our starting point we will now further differentiate objects along lines which are of maximal significance in the orientation of action.

 

                Social objects may be distiguished as individual actors and collectivities, which are systems of action involving a plurality of individual actors but which are treated as units.  Among physical objects one subclass in particular has such importance for action that it must be singled out.  This is the organism of the individual actor, whether it be ego's own body or that of alter.  Within the class of individual social objects it is desirable to distinguish the personality of alter from that of ego himself as an object.  Internalized cultural

objects are no longer distinct objects but parts of the personalities of ego and alter and of the structure of collectivities.

 

                Finally, we must divide objects in accordance with whether the properties on the basis of which actors are oriented toward them are attributes of a class (of qualities or performances) or whether they are possessed by virtue of a relationship.  This distinction is not identical with the quality-performance distinction; in fact, it cuts across it.  Nor is it derived from the distinction between universalism and particularism, though it is closely related to it.  It is derived from the distinction between the actor as such and the system of action which involves status and role in relationships.  The actor in abstracto is simply a set of properties by which he can be classified; in action he is involved in a system of relationships.  Hence social objects can be distinguished by certain properties which they have independently of their relationships as well as by those which they have in their capacities of participants in a relationship which may be social, biological, or spatial.