Systems Approach and Theory of Social Action: Talcott Parsons

1. TALCOTT PARSONS
SYSTEMS APPROACH AND THEORY OF
SOCIAL ACTION

2. TALCOTT PARSONS
▸ A pioneer of functionalism in
Sociology
▸ More specifically in America; which
sees society as a system or
structure and every part of this
structure is performing some
functions
▸ He introduced grand functional
theories in Sociology
▸ Also focused on social action

3. ▸ Borrowed ideas from Economic Sociology, Culturology
and Psychology
▸ Combined them and developed a grand theory of social
action that claimed to capture every possible human
behaviour in time and space
▸ Integrated French Positivism, German Idealism and British
Utilitarianism; synthesised micro and macro view which is
evident in his they of social action and social system.
THEORY OF SOCIAL ACTION

4. ▸ According to him, all possible empirical action of the
people can be arrested into a universal theoretical
framework
▸ He defined Social Action in his first seminal work The
Structure of Social Action (1937) “as any act, consciously
performed is a Social Action”
▸ In contrast to Weber’s four Ideal Types of Social Action;
according to Weber, action should be oriented towards
others for it to be social.

5. ▸ Parsons gave four conditions;
1. It occurs in a social situation (the actor is a member of
society while performing a Social Action)
2. It is oriented towards attainment of a particular goal
(actor is motivated)
3. Action is regulated by norms and values
4. It involves investment of energy

6. ▸ According to Parsons, an actor is a goal seeking individual
with alternative means to attain those goals and is
influenced by two factors
1. Motivational Orientation- It is due to the personal condition
of the actor, affected by cognitive, cathectic (emotional
response) and evaluative needs of an individual
2. Value Orientation- It refers to the influence of norms and
values of society and influenced by values in three ways,
I.e., cognition, appreciation and moral

7. ▸ Like Weber, he also classified actions into three types
1. Instrumental Action (Similar to Zweckrational Action of Weber)- evaluative
component is the most dominating; both means and ends are logically
decided
2. Expressive Action (Affective Action of Weber)- Here appreciative component
is dominant
3. Moral Action (Traditional or Wertrational Action)- In this, the actor’s own
motivation is subordinate to the values of society
‣ further, action do not occur in isolation, but in constellation and such
constellation, in the form of institutionalised social interactions is called Social
System

8. THEORY OF SOCIAL SYSTEM
▸ Parsons soon moved away from the micro aspect of reality and
came up with a grander framework for understanding social
reality in the form of the concept of social system
▸ Structural functionalist theory as a master framework for the
working of all social institutions including society
▸ Idea of social system is explained in his works “The Structure of
Social Action” (1937), and “The Social System” (1951)
▸ Aim was to come up with a grand model to explain the working
of all the systems in the society

9. ▸ Social system is defined as— “consisting of plurality of individual
actors interacting with each other, in a situation which has an
environment with actors, who are motivated in terms of a tendency
to the optimisation of gratification”
▸ System has two parts- Structure (actors, environment, relation, etc)
and Functions (performance of which leads to gratification)
▸ Structure has various parts like institutions, organisations, kinships,
stratification, power relations, religion and moral values
▸ Since he was a structural functionalist, he delineate a number of
functional prerequisites of a social system

10. FUNCTIONAL PREREQUISITES OF A SOCIAL SYSTEM
1. Social systems must be structured so that they operate compatibly with other
systems
2. To survive, the social system must have the requisite support from other
systems
3. The system must meet a significant proportion of the needs of its actors
4. The system must elicit adequate participation from its members
5. It must have at least a minimum of control over potentially disruptive
behaviour
6. If conflict becomes sufficiently disruptive, it must be controlled
7. A social system requires a language in order to survive

11. ▸ The introduction of AGIL was a subtle shift from analysis of
structure to analysis of function; according to him every
system fulfils certain functions
▸ Social system itself performs function of integration in
society; according to AGIL model, every system has further
four sub-systems
▸ He gave a concept of Action System as a precursor to his
idea of Social System; Action Systems are the highest
conceptual abstractions in his theoretical framework

12. ▸ He gave four Action Systems, which do not exist in the real world but are analytical tools
for analysing the real world
1. Organismic System or Biological System or Behaviour System- It is the physical or
Biological aspect of social reality; store house of energy.
2. Personality System- it represents the internal, hidden aspects of society, resulting from
motives alone; it is the storehouse of motivation
3. Social System- it refers to a pattern of actual interaction between units in the society;
institutionalised roles are viewed as a Social System; also has four subsystems- Economic
System (for adaptation), Political System (for Goal Attainment), Socialisation System or
Fiduciary System (eg. family and educational institutions for latency or pattern
maintenance)
4. Cultural System- consisting of norms and values; also termed as storehouse of
information

13. PRIMACY TO STRUCTURE OVER INDIVIDUAL
▸ Though he viewed the social system as a system of
interaction, he did not take interaction as the fundamental
unit in the study of social system, rather the “Status-Role”
complex as the basic unit of the system., which defined by
the structure and not the individual who performs them
▸ Status- a structural position within the social system
▸ Role- what the actor does in such a position, seen in the
context of its functional significance for the larger system

14. FOUR STRUCTURES OR SUBSYSTEMS IN SOCIETY IN TERMS OF THE FUNCTIONS (AGIL) THEY PERFORM
▸ According to him, a system exists because it performs certain
functional pre-requisites which are necessary to sustain the system in
equilibrium
▸ To visualise the system and its functional prerequisites, Parsons gave
AGIL framework, where there are four problems or functional pre-
requisites of any system
▸ Adaptation (to physical environment), Goal Attainment, Latency or
Pattern Maintenance (for stability) and Integration
▸ A system or society must find solution to these problems or pre-
requisites, if it is to survive

15. ▸ In order to survive, Social System must gain some control over environment (for
needs like food and security); economy subsystem-adapting to the
environment through labour, production and allocation; helps society to adapt
to these external realities
▸ The polity (political system) performs the function of goal attainment by
pursuing societal objectives and mobilising actors and resources to that end
▸ The Fiduciary system or institutions of socialisation (schools, family, religion)
handle the latency or pattern maintenance function by transmitting culture
(norms and values) to actors and allowing it to be internalised by them
▸ The Integration function is performed by the societal community or institutions
of social control (law), which coordinates the various components of society
AGIL: ALL THE PARTS OF THE SOCIETY IN TERMS OF THE FUNCTIONS THEY PERFORM

16. PATTERN VARIABLES
▸ Inspired from Weberian idea of ideal type; Referred as Types of
Orientation
▸ Fundamental dilemmas that actors face in any situation
▸ Pattern variables are choices between alternative variables
while performing roles; connecting link between social action
and Social System.
▸ Action systems in society exists in the form of Roles; society
develops such roles in order to achieve certain goals; roles are
vital link between individual and society

17. ACCORDING TO PARSONS DICHOTOMOUS VARIABLES EXIST IN FIVE PAIRS
▸ Self-Orientation Vs Collective Orientation- Refers to the
dilemma between fulfilment of self interest or collective interest
▸ Affectivity Vs Affective Neutrality- refers to the dilemma
between emotional attachment and emotional detachment in a
particular situation
▸ Particularism Vs Universalism- refers to the dilemmas regarding
the standard of values to be used in an evolutionary process.
Particularism refers to traditional values and beliefs;
Universalism- modern and rational value system

18. ▸ Ascription Vs Achievement- these are patterns which help
the actors to judge others in a situation. Whether the
judgment is to be done in terms of ascriptive (based on
birth) attributes or on achieved attributes
▸ Diffuseness Vs Specificity- refers to the dilemmas
regarding relations and obligations (EG. Business in Rural
and Urban contexts)

19. ▸ Parsons took a synthetic approach (as he synthesised the
Action theory or micro and systems theory for macro
explanations) which is called as structural functional view
of the society
▸ He saw existence of society in terms of a Social System,
which has various subsystems and so on and each
performs a unique pre-requisite
▸ His idea of system and social system was said to be a
master analytical framework!

20. CRITICISM
▸ His Social System theory is termed as a grand functional theory with little
practical utility and low on empirical testability; ideas are too abstract
with little verifiability; Dahrendorf called his conception as utopian
▸ He takes an over-socialised view of man, in which, man is influenced by
the values and norms alone like a cog in a machine
▸ Merton termed such a grand conception as bot futile and sterile
▸ According to Jonathan Turner, structural functionalism of Parsons suffers
from illegitimate teleologies and tautologies, which are the two most
important logical problems confronting structural functionalism. They
often take cause for an effect and vice-versa

21. ▸ Marxist sociologists criticise functionalism for its neglect of
class conflict or class antagonism that exist in society.
▸ Political sociologists criticised it for neglecting the role of
power and domination in the structure and function of
social institutions
▸ He ignored conflict. According to Turner, he was obsessed
with integration.

22. SIGNIFICANCE OF PARSONIAN FRAMEWORK
▸ Despite its limitations, the Social System framework can be used as a framework to
understand various social sub-systems and their problems or functional pre-
requisites.
▸ Social problems like insurgencies in tribal areas can be understood from systems
view as—
1. Poverty, as a result of problem of adaptation in the economic system
2. Vested interests affect the goal attainment in political system
3. Deprived people feel alienated and face the problem of integration in the
cultural system
4. Stress and lack of motivation creates problems of latency in institutions of
socialisation like family

23. ACTIVITY
▸ Parsons soon moved away from the micro aspect of reality and came up with a grander
framework for understanding social reality. Please discuss this grander framework of
analysis.
▸ Though he viewed the social system as a system of interaction, he did not take interaction
as the fundamental unit in the study of social system. What was his fundamental unit of
analysis and how did he carry out it?
▸ Parsons’ idea of social system was too vague and futile. It was too grant to find a favour
among many social researchers. What are the major limitations of his framework?
▸ Merton’s idea of Latent Function introduced the much needed flexibility in the functional
analysis of the society, evaluate this statement in the light of the limitations of Parsonsian
frameworks.
▸ Merton exposed the proverbial chinks in the armour of Parsons, but he himself repeated
the same mistakes. Comment.

24. REFERENCES
▸ Wallace, Ruth A. & Wolf, Alison. 2012. Contemporary
Sociological Theory: Expanding the Classical Tradition.
New Delhi: Prentice- Hall of India.
▸ Turner, Bryan S., 2000. The Blackwell Companion to Social
theory. Blackwell
▸ Ritzer, George. 2013. Sociological Theory. New Delhi:
McGraw Hill