100 Values, Motives, and Systems of Action

 

                Fig. 6 presents in schematic form the structure of the object world ^jjd.  Each of the "units" listed at the left may be integrated into action in several (or many) different ways.  It is, of course, a different kind of object, depending on how it is integrated into action.  The columns which make up the body of the chart show the various ways each of the units may be integrated as an object. (Fig. 6 is on page 254.)

 

[jjd 8/2/01:  When it talks here of object world, I go back to something like the Iverson 360 chart, and imagine the possiblilty of a diagram that starts by referencing “components” as they are in OOM (or OOP?) 3-tier charts, and both carrying it down (thru a contemporary APL) to the dot on the chip, and up to the social and personal needs of the internet colony, and also to those deprived of colony.]

 

                The distinction of modalities applies chiefly to social objects and only these form interactive relationships; the first two columns therefore present this distinction for social objects.  The nonsocial objects appear separately in the right-hand column, since the quality-performance distinction is inapplicable to them.⁴⁵  The latter are relevant to action as empirical and symbolic means, conditions, and obstacles of the gratification of need-disposition.

 

                The classification of social objects within each of the modalities follows the distinctions employed in our analysis of actor and situation: the actor as an individual as an object, alter as an individual as an object, and a collectivity as an object.

 

                We have already remarked that the actor is a special sort of methodological abstraction, a point of reference.  The particular actor who is performing the particular action at a particular moment cannot be an object of an orientation which has a future reference.  Only the empirical system of action which has duration and which is referable to that point of reference (i.e., the personality) can be an object.  From the point of view of any given actor, ego, his own personality (i.e., his system of action or any part of it which is larger and more extensive in time than the action which he is performing at the moment) may be an object and is, as a specific, concrete object, differentiated from the personality of any other actor.  The inclusion of the personality of ego, expressly as an object and not only as the actor, is fundamental to the theory of action.  It is only through the employment of this device that many of the most crucial analytical operations of the theory of action, such as the use of the mechanism of identification and the corresponding concept of the "internalization" of cultural norms, become possible.  Common sense, we may say, lays all the stress on the difference between ego and alter as two separate entities.  The theory of action accepts this difference as fundamental and embodies it in one of its major classifications.  But it also employs a classification according to which certain analytical distinctions, such as that between the object modalities, apply equally to ego and to alter because, both being objects precisely to ego, the categories which are significant for the onentation to objects apply to both of them.  It then becomes possible to relate ego's own personality as an object to the rest of the object world in a way which would not be possible so long as a rigid qualitative distinction is maintained between the self as a concrete entity and all objects which are classified as belonging to the "outside" world. In essence we are analytically splitting the concrete self into two components, the self as actor and the self as object.

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                ⁴⁵ There seems to be one exception to this rule.  Organisms, as physical objects, seem amenable to the quality-performance distinction; thus the nonsocial column is placed at the bottom of the diagram.

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Orientation and Organization of Action 101

 

                These distinctions are indispensable for the analysis of the interaction of social objects and make possible the basic structural homology ⁴⁶ between various personalities (on other than constitutional, biological bases) and between personalities and social systems, which is fundamental to our analysis

of the interdependences between the two systems.

 

                The second basic distinction within the category of social objects is that between the individual actor and the collectivity as action systems.  It should be remembered that the individual actor (as a personality or a subsystem of it) is here defined as a system of action.  A collective system of action, of

which the actor may or may not be a member, can be an object of orientation just as an individual can. 

The collectivity in this case may be either a whole society (a self-subsistent social system) or a partial social system.

 

                In a collectivity as a system of action no one actor or his personality is the point of reference, and indeed, strictly speaking, the individual personality as such is not a relevant point of reference at all when we speak of a social system from an analytical standpoint.  (Empirically, of course, the personality system of the members will be very relevant to our understanding of the working of a collectivity as a social system.)  When ego and alter are oriented toward one another, the question whether they are or are not members of the same collectivity will be important in their orientation; it will determine the relational qualities of alter and ego.  They will not in these terms be orienting themselves toward collectivities as objects but toward

alters as objects having relational or membership qualities.  For this reason memberships are classified in Fig. 6 as the qualities of individuals as objects and not as the qualities of collectivities.  Its membership composition (i.e., the number and kinds of members) is, on the other hand, a quality of the collectivity.

 

                It is nonetheless important to bear in mind that collectivities as such, past, present, and future, may well be objects of orientation. The actions of individuals in membership, representative, or executive roles are oriented toward collectivities (other collectivities and their own) as systems of actions, and not merely toward individuals with membership qualities.  The maintenance by an executive of a given system of relationships within a corporate body or collectivity, as well as the discontinuance or prohibition of certain corporate practices, is an orientation toward a collectivity.  It is not just an orientation to a single alter as an object, but toward a system of relationships among a plurality of alters who form a system.

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                ⁴⁶ The term homology refers to certain formal identities.  It will be discussed at the end of this chapter.

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102 Values, Motives, and Systems of Action

 

                It is particularly important to realize that the collective object is usually a partial social system. 

The individual actor, on the other hand, is typically a member not of one but of many collectivities. 

He is a member of all the subsystems in which he has distinguishable roles.  The concept of the collectivity

of which the actor is himself a member as an object ol orientation by others is fundamental to the concept of role, which is crucial to the analysis of social systems.  From this point of view, the actor's role in a particular collectivity is an organized subsystem of his total system of action.  It is a normatively regulated orientation to a collectivity as an object, i.e., to an organized plurality of alters in terms of the reciprocal interlocking of ego's role-expectations concerning his own action, with his expectations of their interindividually organized or concerted contingent reactions to the various possibilities of his behavior.

 

                Within the category of nonsocial objects as units, a further distinction appears which is not directly relevant to the classification of modalities: the distinction between organisms and other nonsocial objects.⁴⁷  In its conceptualization, the theory of action does not treat the actor as an organism - the common, though usually implicit, assumption that he is, is a basic biological fallacy in the analysis of behavior.  The concrete individual who behaves is, however, also in one aspect always an organism.

He must be distinguished from other objects since in his personality aspect he is "tied" to a particular organism.  This is of course equally true both for ego and for alter.  The qualities and the propensities for performance of the organism provide criteria which may become fundamentally important foci for action orientation, again both ego's own organism and alter's.  For instance, the significance of ego's own sex for his personality structure, as in his "acceptance" of his sex role, is to be analyzed in terms of the role of this particular "trait" of his body as an object in his orientation, by virtue of which he "classifies himself" with fellow persons of the same sex as distinguished from those of opposite sex. The same holds, of course, for performance capacities or propensities, such as physical strength or agility.

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                ⁴⁷ It will be noted in the diagram that this is a very particular class of nonsocial objects, as the quality-performance distinction does apply to it, whereas it does not apply to other nonsocial objects. 

This is because concretely the actor's personality and the organism are not separate.

 

                ⁴⁸ In relation to the action schema, the psychoanalytic conception of the id fails to differentiate between two things:

(1) the organic energy which enters into action as motivation, and thus is prerequisite to personality;

(2) certain aspects of dispositions which are organized within the personality in relation to the object world.  The latter component in present terms is definitely part of, not prerequisite to, personality as a system of action.  In recent psychoanalytic theory the tendency seems to have been to include most of the latter in the unconscious parts of the ego.  The distinction between points 1 and 2 is vital in the theory of action.  Whether and at exactly which point a line corresponding to that drawn by Freud between Id and Ego should be drawn within the personality as a system of action, rather than between it and the organic need-motivation system, is a question which may be deferred until Chapter II.

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Orientation and Organization of Action 103

 

                                It should be quite clear that we are here speaking of the organism or the body as an object.  This excludes the organism as a source of motivation, or in its significance as the id.⁴⁸  The energy which the physiological organism supplies for action, according to the paradigm of the theory of action, is

incorporated into the modes of motivational orientation.  It does not go into but only toward the constellation of objects.  The distinctions among ego's body, ego as personality, and ego as actor underlies much that is specific to action theory.  This is essential to avoid the confusions involved in much of

the traditional biological way of looking at human action.  But, however fundamental these distinctions, it is also equally fundamental clearly to distinguish the organism, whether of ego or of alter, as an object from other physical objects in the situation.

 

                The rest of the nonsocial object system is classified into physical objects and cultural objects. However important the distinction between physical and cultural objects for many purposes, relative to social objects they have much in common: on the one hand, they constitute objects of immediate

cognitive-cathectic significance; on the other, they are instrumentally significant means - that is, "resources" - conditions, and obstacles.  In the present context, it is as units of the object system, as distinguished from other units, that the first lines of distinction are drawn.  A house, an automobile, a tree, or a book are different objects of orientation in the sense that they are distinguishable - one house as a unit from another housee, and a house from an automobile - but they are also all distinguishable from actors

as units and from the bodies of actors.  However within the class of non-social objects the distinction between cultural and physical objects remains as of very marked conceptual and empirical significance.

 

                A particularly important class of such nonsocial units are, however, concretely both physical and cultural.  Of those mentioned, only a tree is a purely "natural" object.  But a house or an automobile is primarily significant as a humanly shaped and adapted physical object; whereas a book is primarily a cultural or symbolic object, which has a "physical embodiment."  It is the "content" of the book, not the paper, ink, and covers, which primarily makes the book into an object of orientation.

 

                Just as the motivation of ego is not an object of orientation, neither are his internalized culture patterns.  We have already remarked that for analytical purposes internationalized value standards are treated as an independent category of the system of action, not as part of the object world.

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                ⁴⁹ Cognition need not be explicit or conscious.

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104 Values, Motives, and Systems of Action

 

                We should also repeat here a point which has rather general bearing.  The system of objects is known to the actor(s) in question.  It is only when known (i.e., cognized) ⁴⁹ that it is a set of objects of orientation.  We must therefore distinguish the known situation from those features of the situation

"as it really is" which may be known, or are intrinsically knowable, to an observer, but are not at the moment known to the actor(s).  The interrelations between the actor's situation as he is oriented toward it and the

situation as discerned by a contemporary or later observer raises some of the most important problems of empirical analysis.  In principle, the same is true of new elements which may come into the situation and which may be predictable to an observer.  Hence the distinction between what is known to the actor and what is not is always potentially important.  For a standard by which to assess this, it is necessary to have an appraisal of the situation as it is known to or knowable by an observer.

 

                The cognitive orientation of the actor may not only pass over an object completely so that the actor is ignorant of it, but it may also be distorted.  It may involve errors of perception and interpretation.  This is of first importance to the analysis of action, and again can only be assessed with reference to a conception of the situation "as it really is," which is the equivalent of its being known by an observer.  The observer's knowledge need not and cannot be absolute; it is only necessary that it should be adequate to the problem in hand.

 

                Another source of complexity and possible misunderstanding is the question of whether ego's orientation to an object must, in whole or in part, be conscious.  The answer is quite clear; it is not necessary.  The criterion is whether ego acts toward the object in a meaningful way so that it is reasonable 'to interpret his action as based on his orientation to what the object is, has been, or is expected to be. 

This means of course that a given "situation" will often be the object of several cognitions by the actor: he will perceive it in accordance with the current canons of valid perception, and he will also perceive it as possessing the properties imputed to it by his unconscious need-dispositions to attribute certain probably empirically invalid properties to objects that he has already perceived to possess certain other properties. 

For example, an action by a person in an authoritative role will be interpreted (i.e., perceived) unconsciously as also having certain properties of aggressiveness.  The unconscious in the psychoanalytic sense can be analyzed in terms of the theory of action, and its actual formulation in present-day psychoanalytic theory is not very far removed from the terms of the theory of action.  In other words, the line between conscious and unconscious has nothing to do with the limits of analysis in terms of the frame of reference of the theory of action, including, of course, cognitive orientation.

 

                Neither of these two problems creates any difficulties for our classification of objects - although they add greatly to the complexities of empirical analysis.  The "real" situation (of the observer) and the "cognized" situation (of the actor) can both be described in terms of our classification of objects. 

The consciously perceived situation of the mildly neurotic adult, and the distortedly perceived situation of his unconscious reinterpretation, are likewise subject to description in the same categories.  Indeed, this possibility of describing discrepancies contributes to the formulation of many important problems in the study of personality and social systems.

 

Orientation and Organization of Action 105

 

In conclusion, it may again be pointed out that

the scheme of the pattern variables as the variable components of value-orientations and

the classification of the structural components of the object system are common to all three types of system in which action elements become organized: personalities, social systems, and systems of cultural orientation.  It is this which gives unity to the theory being developed here.  This conceptual unity and its consequent advantages for systematic empirical analysis will be indicated in the three chapters which follow, in which we will attempt to present a systematic account of each of the three types of system and certain of their conceptual and empirical interrelations . No effort will be made to demonstrate the empirical hypotheses derived here, since our aim will be to show only that they can be derived from this conceptual scheme.  It should not be forgotten, however, that applicability to the study of the real behavior of human beings is the ultimate test of any theoretical scheme.

 

THE BASIC STRUCTURE OF THE INTERACTIVE RELATIONSHIP

 

                The interaction of ego and alter is the most elementary form of a social system. The features of this interaction are present in more complex form in all social systems.

 

                In interaction ego and alter are each objects of orientation for the other.The basic differences from orientations to nonsocial objects are two.  First, since the outcome of ego's action (e.g., success in the attainment of a goal) is contingent on alter's reaction to what ego does, ego becomes oriented not only

to alter's probable overt behavior but also to what ego interprets to be alter's expectations relative to ego's behavior, since ego expects that alter's expectations will influence alter's behavior.  Second, in an integrated system, this orientation to the expectations of the other is reciprocal or complementary.

 

                Communication through a common system of symbols is the precondition of this reciprocity or complementarity of expectations.  The alternatives which are open to alter must have some measure of stability in two respects: first, as realistic possibilities for alter, and second, in their meaning to ego.  This

stability presupposes generalization from the particularity of the given situations of ego and alter, both of which are continually changing and are never concretely identical over any two moments in time.  When such generalization occurs, and actions, gestures, or symbols have more or less the same meaning for both ego and alter, we may speak of a common culture existing between them, through which their interaction is mediated.

 

                Furthermore, this common culture, or symbol system, inevitably possesses in certain aspects a normative significance for the actors.  Once it is in existence, observance of its conventions is a necessary condition for ego to be "understood" by alter, in the sense of allowing ego to elicit the type of reaction from alter which ego expects.  This common set of cultural symbols becomes the medium in which is formed a constellation of the contingent actions of both parties, in such a way that there will simultaneously emerge

a definition of a range of appropriate reactions on alter's part to each of a range of possib]e actions ego has taken and vice versa.  It will then be a condition of the stabilization of such a system of complementary expectations, not only that ego and alter should communicate, but that they should react appropriately to each other's action.

 

106 Values, Motives, and Systems of Action

 

                A tendency toward consistent appropriateness of reaction is also a tendency toward conformity with a normative pattern.  The culture is not only a set of symbols of communication but a set of norms for action.

 

                The motivation of ego and alter become integrated with the normative patterns through interaction.  The polarity of gratification and deprivation is crucial here.   An appropriate reaction on alter's part is a gratifying one to ego.   If ego conforms with the norm, this gratification is in one aspect a reward ^jjd for his conformity with it; the converse holds for the case of deprivation and deviance.  The reactions of alter toward ego's conformity with or deviance from the normative pattern thus become sanctions to ego. 

Ego's expectations vis-a-vis alter are expectations concerning the roles of ego and of alter; and sanctions reinforce ego's motivation to conform with these role-expectations.  Thus the complementarity of expectations brings with it the reciprocal reinforcement of ego's and alter's motivation to conformity with

the normative pattern which defines their expectations.

 

[jjd 8/1/01: But there was never any opportunity in cases to know about alter’s interest in conformity, since all of alter’s components persisted in lying about basic issues of fact.]

 

                The interactive system also involves the process of generalization, not only in the common culture by which ego and alter communicate but in the interpretation of alter's discrete actions vis-a-vis ego as expressions of alter's intentions (that is, as indices of the cathectic-evaluative aspects of alter's

motivational orientations toward ego).  This "generalization" implies that ego and alter agree that certain actions of alter are indices of the attitudes which alter has acquired toward ego (and reciprocally, ego toward alter).  Since these attitudes are, in the present paradigm, integrated with the common

culture and the latter is internalized in ego's need-dispositions, ego is sensitive not only to alter's overt acts, but to his attitudes.   He acquires a need not only to obtain specific rewards and avoid specific punishments but to enjoy the favorable attitudes and avoid the unfavorable ones of alter.  Indeed,

since he is integrated with the same norms, these are the same as his attitudes toward himself as an object.  Thus violation of the norm causes him to feel shame toward alter, guilt toward himselt.

 

                It should be clear that as an ideal type this interaction paradigm implies mutuality of gratification in a certain sense, though not necessarily equal distribution of gratification.  As we shall see in the next chapter, this is also the paradigm of the process of the learning of generalized orientations.  Even

where special mechanisms of adjustment such as dominance and submission or alienation from normative expectahons enter in, the process still must be described and analyzed in relation to the categories of this paradigm.  It is thus useful both for the analysis of systems of normative expectations and for that of the actual conformity or deviation regarding these expectations in concrete action.

 

Orientation and Organization of Action 107

 

                In summary we may say that this is the basic paradigm for the structure of a solidary interactive relationship.  It contains all the fundamental elements of the role structure of the social system and the attachment and security system of the personality.  It involves culture in both its communicative and its value-orientation functions.  It is the nodal point of the organization of all systems of action.

 

THE CONCEPT OF SYSTEM AND THE CLASSIFICATION OF TYPES OF SYSTEMS

 

                With our discussion of interaction we have entered upon the analysis of systems.  Before we discuss more fully personality and social systems, it is desirable to state explicitly the principal properties of empirical systems which are relevant for the present analysis.  The most general and fundamental property of a system is the interdependence of parts or variables.  Interdependence consists in the existence of determinate relationships among the parts or variables as contrasted with randomness of variability. 

In other words, interdependence is order in the relationship among the components which enter into a system.  This order must have a tendency to self-maintenance, which is very generally expressed in the concept of equilibrium.⁵⁰   It need not, however, be a static self-maintenance or a stable equilibrium. 

It may be an ordered process of change - a process following a determinate pattern rather than random variability relative to the starting point.  This is called a moving equilibrium and is well exemplified by growth.  Furthermore, equilibrium, even when stable, by no means implies that process is not going on; process is continual even in stable systems, the stabilities residing in the interrelations involved in the process.

 

                A particularly important feature of all systems is the inherent limitation on the compatibility of certain parts or events within the same system.  This is indeed simply another way of saying that the relations within the system are determinate and that not just anything can happen.  Thus, to take an example from the solar system, if the orbit of one of the planets, such as Jupiter, is given, it is no longer possible for the orbits of the other planets to be distributed at random relative to this given orbit.  Certain limitations are imposed by the fact that the value of one of the variables is given.  This limitation may in turn be looked at from either a negative or a positive point of view.  On the one hand, again using the solar system as example, if one of the planets should simply disappear, the fact that no mass was present in that particular orbit would necessitate a change in the equilibrium of the system.  It would make necessary a readjustment of the orbits of the other planets in order to bring the system into equilibrium.  This may also be expressed in the statement that there is a change in the structure of the system.  On the other band, the same problem may be treated from the standpoint of what would happen in the case of the coexistence of “incompatible" elements or processes within the same system.  Incompatibility is always relative to a given state of the system.  If, for example, the orbits of two of the planets should move closer to each other than is compatible for the maintenance of the current state of the system, one of two things would have to happen.  Either processes would be set up which would tend to restore the previous relation by the elimination of the incompatibility; or if the new relation were maintained, there would have to be adjustments in other parts of the system, bringing the system into a new state of equilibrium.

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                ⁵⁰ That is, if the system is to be permanent enough to be worth study, there must be a tendency to maintenance of order except under exceptional circumstances.

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108 Values, Motives, and Systems of Action

 

                These properties are inherent in all systems.   A special additional property, however, is of primary significance for the theory of action.  This is the tendency to maintain equilibrium, in the most general sense stated above, within certain boundaries relative to an environment - boundaries which are not imposed from outside but which are self-maintained by the properties of the constituent variables as they operate within the system.  The most familiar example is the living organism, which is a physicochemical system that is not assimilated to the physicochemical conditions of the environment, but maintains certain distinct properties in relation to the environment.   For example, the maintenance of the constant body temperature of the mammal necessitates processes which mediate the interdependence between the internal and the external systems in respect to temperature; these processes maintain constancy over a wide range of variability in environmental temperatures.

 

                The two fundamental types of processes necessary for the maintenance of a given state of equilibrium of a system we call, in the theory of action, allocation ⁵¹ and integration. 

By allocation we mean processes which maintain a distribution of the components or parts of the system which is compatible with the maintenance of a given state of equilibrium. 

By integration, we mean the processes by which relations to the environment are mediated in such a way that the distinctive internal properties and boundaries of the system as an entity are maintained in the face of variability in the external situation.  It must be realized that self-maintenance of such a system is not only maintenance of boundaries but also maintenance of distinctive relationships of the parts of the system within the boundary.  The system is in some sense a unity relative to its environment.  Also, self-maintenance implies not only control of the environmental variations, but also control of tendencies

to change - that is, to alteration of the distinctive state - coming from within the system.

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                ⁵¹ The term allocation is borrowed from the usage of economics, where it has the

general meaning here defined. Specifically, economists speak of the allocation of resources

in the economy.

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Orientation and Organization of Action 109

 

                The two types of empirical systems which will be analyzed in the subsequent chapters are personalities and social systems.  These systems are, as will be repeatedly pointed out, different systems which are not reducible to each other.  However, there are certain conceptual continuities or identities between them which derive from two sources.

                (1) They are both systems built out of the fundamental components of action as these have been discussed in the General Statement and in the present chapter.  These components are differently organized to constitute systems in the two cases; nevertheless, they remain the same components.

                (2) They are both not only systems, but both are systems of the boundary-maintaining, self-maintenance type; therefore, they both have properties which are common to systems in general and

the more special properties which are characteristic of this particular type of system.

                (3) A third basis of their intimate relation to each other is the fact that they interpenetrate in the sense that no personality system can exist without participation in a social system, by which we mean the integration of part of the actor's system of action as part of the social system. 

Conversely, there is no social system which is not from one point of view a mode of the integration of parts of the systems of action which constitute the personalities of the members.  When we use the term homology to refer to certain formal identities between personalities and social systems which are to be understood in terms of the above considerations, it should be clear that we in no way intend to convey the impression that a personality is a microcosm of a social system, or that a social system is a kind of macrocosmic personality.

 

                In spite of the formal similarities and the continuous empirical interdependencies and interpenetrations, both of which are of the greatest importance, personalities and social systems remain two distinct classes of systems.