Реферат: Parsons Grand Theory Essay Research Paper Talcott

the physical and organic environment in which the human lives. Parsons is particularly interested

in the organism’s central nervous system and motor activity. His view of socialization is what

makes the before mentioned systems interrelated.

We, according to Parsons, are merely behavioral organisms at birth. It is when a person

comes into contact with society and its members does that person internalize the values of the

prevailing cultural system. In other words, the person learns role expectations, as mentioned in

the social system, and so become full participants in that society. The socialization disseminates

from the first system to the last. Values first come from the cultural system. Then the

corresponding normative, or role expectations, are learned in the social system. The individuals

identity comes from the personality system and the necessary biological equipment comes from

the behavioral system. Parsons does not consider these four systems to be mutually exclusive.

Instead they exhibit the interdependence that functionalism consistently stresses. It is the context

of the four systems that Parsons attempts to describe actual behavior in his theory of action.

He begins with an actor, which could be either a single person or a collectivity. Parsons

sees the actor as being motivated, as in “motivated toward gratification,” to spend energy and

resources to reach a desirable goal or end. This goal or end is defined in the actor by the cultural

system through socialization. The action takes place in situation defined by the social system and

includes means(facilities, tools, or resources) and conditions(obstacles that arise in the pursuit of

the goal). Being that means are scarce in society and conditions are unforeseeable, the situation

could be so restricting the goal may be unattainable. These elements are regulated by the

normative standards of the social system and an actor who is motivated to pursue a goal must

fulfill those normative expectations. It is because of this standard for goal attainment it could be

said that norms are central to Parsons’ theory of action and the cultural system that legitimates

them is primary(Wallace and Wolf 1999). The theory of action describes the relationship between

a motivated actor, a goal, and the conditions that are defined by the cultural system but says little

about the different contingencies and expectations actors are likely to face in the situation. In an

attempt to show the actor’s situation in not entirely unstructured and uncertain he formulated the

pattern variables.

This segment of Parsons’s work is based on Ferdinand Toennie’s