For centuries man has pondered the societies he has developed. Some of our oldest documents, going back five thousand years or more, record man’s efforts to analyze and understand their social order. But no civilized society, since the first cities arose in Mesopotamia five thousand years ago, has ever, until very recently, had a way to measure the wants and feelings of the people with reasonable accuracy. In this search, men have sought truth from many sources and have used many methods, some highly successful, some less so. History might be a very different story if a technique had been available to Pericles, or Caesar, George III, Louis XIV, Woodrow Wilson, or Nicholas II.
Like other social sciences, sociology is relatively new in being accepted as a scientific discipline compared to those in natural sciences. Sociologists such as Talcott Parson and Robert Merton, left a significant mark on the field and as such, will be discussed on this paper.
Parson, born on December 13, 1902 in Colorado Springs. He received his B.A. from Amherst College by 1924. Parsons studied at the London School of Economics and at the University of Heidelberg, where he received his PhD three years after. He joined the faculty of Harvard University as instructor in economics; he began to teach sociology in 1931, became full professor in 1944, and was appointed chairman of the new department of social relations in 1946, a post he held until 1956. He remained at Harvard until his retirement in 1973. Parsons served as president of the American Sociological Society in 1949. He died (May 8, 1979) in Munich at the age of 77 (“Parson, Talcott”. The New Encyclopedia Britannica).
Works Parson is generally acknowledged as the founding figure of ‘modern’ functionalism, the theoretical perspective that dominated sociology in America and Britain from the late 1930’s up to the 1960s. In his first major work, The Structure of Social Action (1937), Parsons drew on elements from the works of several European writers such as Alfred Marshall, Vilfredo Pareto, Emile Durkheim, and Max Weber. He developed a common systematic theory of social action based on a voluntaristic principle (i.e., the choices among alternative values and actions must be at least partially free).
Parsons defines the locus of sociological theory as residing not in the internal field of personality as developed by Freud and Max Weber but in the external field of institutional structure developed by society, operating to determine action and deriving continuity through action. In The Social System (1951), he turned his analysis to large-scale systems and the problems of the social order, integration, and equilibrium. He advocated a structural-functional analysis, a study of the ways in which the interrelated and interacting units that form the structures of a social system contribute to the development and maintenance of that system.
Perhaps the key aim of Parson’s wide-ranging work was to provide a theoretical structure for sociology to follow, based on the establishment of an analytical link or relationship between the action and behavior of individuals and that of large-scale social systems. For society to function, indeed for social order to be established and maintained, individuals within the social system had to be adequately socialized and integrated. In part this integration occurred as a result of individuals holding a general agreement on values and norms. Parson attempts to link macro and micro sociological theorizing as illustrated by his emphasis on the social system and how it strongly influence the behavior of individuals, through a focus on socialization and social integration.
He is known for developing the concept of ‘pattern variables’ to help explain and deal with the dilemmas of social interaction. As well as his ‘grand theoretical’ work, Parsons also researched and wrote a number of empirical studies on, for instance, kinship, family and medicine. He united clinical psychology and social anthropology with sociology, a fusion still operating in the social sciences (I. Marsh. “Parsons and Grand Theory”). Parson’s work is mainly concerned with a general theoretical system for the analysis of society rather than with narrower empirical studies.
He received his PhD from Harvard University in 1936, after which he joined the Harvard faculty, where he also developed a theory of deviant behavior based on different types of social adaptation. He served on the faculty of Tulane University, New Orleans (1939-41), and then accepted an appointment at Columbia University (1941), becoming a full professor in 1947, and being named Giddings professor in 1963. He served as associate director of the university’s Bureau of Applied Social Research (1942-71), working with Paul Lazarsfeld, who arrived a year earlier than Merton and headed the new bureau.
Lazarsfeld’s logic of concept clarification and his methodology of quantitative and qualitative research influenced Merton’s orientation to historical studies, and Merton’s gift for theory influenced Lazarsfeld’s philosophic grasp of the discipline of sociology. They produced important research and writing on methods of improving standards of training for the social sciences. Merton died on February 23, 2003, receiving various honors including the National Medal of Science (“Merton Awarded Nation’s Highest Science Honor”).
Works Merton is also an American sociologist whose various interests included the sociology of science and the professions, sociological theory, and mass communications, thus making numerous contributions. In 1949, he proposed in his Social Theory and Social Structure (rev. ed. 1968), Merton defined the interrelationship between social theory and empirical research, advancing a structural-functional approach to the study of society and creating the concepts of manifest and latent function and dysfunction. Merton argues that some aspects of behavior or social structure are dysfunctional because they do not contribute to the maintenance of a group. He also offers refinement of functionalism including a distinction between manifest and latent functions (B. Hess, E. Markson, and P. Stein. “The Sociological Perspective”).
In the sociology of science, he studied the relationship between puritan thought and the rise of science, writing Science, Technology and Society in Seventeenth Century England (1938; reprinted 1970) and The Sociology of Science (1973). Other works include Mass Persuasion (1946); reprinted 1971), On the Shoulders of Giants (1965), On Theoretical Sociology (1967), Social Theory and Functional Analysis (1969), and Social Ambivalence and other Essays (1976) (“Merton, Robert”. The New Encyclopedia Britannica).
Merton’s famous contribution is coining the term “self-fulfilling prophecy”. According to Merton, “self-fulfilling” prophecy” is one in which the prophecy starts a series of events which make it come true. If great musicians are expected to be highly temperamental, and their outbursts of rudeness and immaturity are excused as “artistic temperament”, such outbursts may be encouraged and likely to recur despite there is no empirical evidence to prove such stereotyping is reliable (PB Horton and CL Hunt. “Culturally Approved Deviation”). Merton’s main interest is in the predictable impact of social structure on human being’s behavior.
Merton acknowledged Parson as one of his significant mentor. Both are considered functionalist, however, there is a clear distinction between Parson and Merton’s approach. The latter differed from creating a “grand theory” for society like Parson did and, encouraged other sociologists instead to study and clarify principles that affect and govern a particular social phenomena. Thus, Merton is often classified as neofunctionalist.
References
- “Parsons, Talcott”. The New Encyclopedia Britannica. vol. 9. 1991
- Edited by Marsh, I. “Parsons and Grand Theory”. Classic and Contemporary Readings in Sociology. pp. 96-102. 1998
- “Merton Awarded Nation’s Highest Science Honor”. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/record/archives/vol20/vol20_ iss2/record2002. 13 .html
- Hess, BB, Markson, EW, and Stein, PJ. “The Sociological Perspective”. Sociology: Study Guide, 3rd ed. 1988
- “Merton, Robert”. The New Encyclopedia Britannica. vol. 8. 1991.
- Cited by Horton, PB and Hunt, CL. “Culturally Approved Deviation”. Sociology. p.153. 1964
