Talcott Parsons Social System and Pattern Variables PDF

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Question: Explain Talcott Parsons social system and pattern variables?

Answer: Talcott Parsons was the first to formulate a systematic theory of social systems,
which he did as a part of his AGIL paradigm. Parsons‘s theory of voluntary action which explains
social system is an attempt at engaging with the problem of social order. He suggested that just as a
discrete individual action is an impossible social fact, so is non-ordered social action; and by order he
meant non-randomness, not equilibrium (Alexander 1978). For Parsons, the basic unit of study in
order to understand action is the „unit act‟, which involves the following. An actor motivated
towards an action; an end towards which action is oriented; means to reach this end; a situation
where the action takes place; and norms that shape the choice of means to ends. In other words,
actions are to be understood in the context of structures and processes through which humans are
motivated to form meaningful intentions, on the basis of their shared knowledge, that are put into
practice within the social system. This shared knowledge comes from internalizing normative
interpretations. Thus, Parsons‟ voluntaristic theory of action assumes that action, whether
independent or passive, always involves an internalised component (Alexander 1978). He tried to
explain this with his conceptualization of the „unit act‟, which he identified as the basic element in
combining the objective and subjective into a single scheme.

According to Parsons, „unit act‟ is the basic element to understand action. A „unit act‟ involves the
following:

(1) An actor motivated towards an action.

(2) an end towards which action is oriented.

(3) means to reach this end.

(4) a situation where the action takes place and

(5) norms that shape the choice of means to ends. It is, however, to be noted that the „unit act‟
does not exist in isolation.

For Parsons, the reference point for „action‟ is the actor and it is a process oriented towards the
realization of an end, which occurs in conditional circumstances that must be calculated upon by the
actors while pursuing their ends. Thus, „action‟, in the Pasonian sense, also includes internalized
norms, about which exists a shared knowledge among the actors of a particular system.
For Parsons, every system rests on four functional imperatives, which he defined in the AGIL system:
(1) adaptive (A): whereby a system adapts to its environment.

(2) goal-attainment (G): how a system defines and achieves its goals.

(3) integrative (I): the regulation of the components of the system.

(4) latency (L) or pattern maintenance.

Apart from social systems that constitute the more general system of „action‟ in Parsonian theory,
the other primary constituents that he talked about, in relation to the AGIL scheme, are: cultural
systems, personality systems, and behavioural organisms, each of which serves a functional
imperative:

1. The behavioural organism performs the adaptive function.

2. The personality system performs goal attainment.

3. The social system performs the integrative function.

4. The cultural system performs pattern maintenance.


The stimulation of motivation and that of the dimensions of culture that create and sustain
motivation. The behavioural organism performs the adaptive function; the personality system
performs goal attainment; the social system performs the integrative function; and the cultural
system performs pattern maintenance.

A „role‟ is normatively regulated, where a person participates in a concrete process of social


interaction with specified, concrete role-partners within an action system. A „role‟ is a normative
component that governs the participation of individual persons in given collectivities; and a
collectivity component indicates the normative culture that spell out the values, norms, goal-
orientations, and ordering of roles for a concrete system of interaction.

According to Parsons, a strictly limited and defined set of choices are available to actors in a given
situation, and the relative primacies given to choices account for the ''patterning of relational
institutions.'' These choices or alternatives constitute orientationselection, which he suggests as five
pattern variables: (1) affectivity (immediate gratification) vs. affective-neutrality (renunciation of
immediate gratification in favour of moral interests);

(2) self-orientation (pursuit of private interests) vs. collectivityorientation (pursuit of collective


interests);
(3) universalism (value-orientation standard derived from the generality of a normative rule) vs.
particularism (value-orientation standard derived from the particularity of an object or from the
status of the object in a relational system);

(4) achievement role behavior (which give premium to the performance of people) vs. ascriptive
role behaviour (which give importance to the qualities or attributes of people);

(5) specificity (one assumes the „role‟ of orienting oneself to the social phenomenon in specific
terms) vs. diffuseness (the mode of orientation is outside the range of obligations defined by the
role-expectation; one orients oneself to the whole of the social phenomenon).

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