Functionalism

12 Key excerpts on "Functionalism"

• 

  eBook - ePub

  Rethinking Sociological Theory

  Introducing and Explaining a Scientific Theoretical Sociology

  • Stephen K. Sanderson(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Chapter One Functionalism BASIC PRINCIPLES Functionalism is a term that has been widely used in the social sciences, sociology and anthropology in particular, to identify a variety of related lines of thought. For my purposes, a crucial distinction must be made between Functionalism as a theoretical tradition and a functionalist mode of social explanation. The former incorporates the latter, but the latter can stand on its own and can be (and sometimes is) associated with other theoretical traditions. Functionalism as a theoretical tradition began in anthropology in the early part of this century with the works of such prominent figures as Bronislaw Malinowski and A. R. Radcliffe-Brown. 1 These thinkers sought to identify the parts of society, show how they were interrelated, and demonstrate their function or functions for the maintenance of society. Both Radcliffe-Brown and Malinowski, especially the former, were greatly influenced by Emile Durkheim, whose ideas also had a major influence on sociological Functionalism. Functionalism came into sociology partly by way of importation from anthropology and, more substantially, through the work of Talcott Parsons and his students and disciples. In The Social System, Parsons generated a functionalist model of societies as social systems. 2 He was preoccupied (virtually to the point of obsession) with the “problem of order,” and his sociological theory is overwhelmingly devoted to dealing with this problem. Like Durkheim, Parsons strongly rejected nineteenth-century utilitarian thinking. Society could not be composed simply of individuals pursuing their own interests, for such a thing would not be stable

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Classical Sociological Theory

  • Craig Calhoun, Joseph Gerteis, James Moody, Steven Pfaff, Indermohan Virk, Craig Calhoun, Joseph Gerteis, James Moody, Steven Pfaff, Indermohan Virk(Authors)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  Part IX Functionalism Introduction to Part IX 41 “The Position of Sociological Theory” 42 “Manifest and Latent Functions” 43 “Social Structure and Anomie” Classical Sociological Theory , Fourth Edition. Edited by Craig Calhoun, Joseph Gerteis, James Moody, Steven Pfaff, and Indermohan Virk. Editorial material and organization © 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Published 2022 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Functionalism (sometimes called “structural Functionalism”) refers to a body of theory first developed in the 1930s and 1940s that treats society as a set of interdependent systems. The theory rests on an organic analogy that likens a social system to a physical body, in which each subsystem is necessary to maintain the proper functioning of the entire organism. From a functionalist point of view, the key to understanding a social subsystem is thus to trace its function in the working of the whole. According to such arguments, there are a number of functional “requisites” necessary to meet the basic needs of any society (see Aberle et al. 1950). Specific subsystems develop to meet those social needs. Functional theorists generally assumed that these subsystems would tend toward a stable equilibrium, with social change proceeding in a gradual evolutionary manner. For example, the social need for a common form of communication leads to a stable, slowly evolving system of language. The need to control disruptive behavior leads to a relatively stable legal and political system. Perhaps most importantly, every society has some system for assigning people to different social positions and socializing them into the relevant roles, resulting in a relatively stable stratification system. To say that a system is “functional” is thus to say that it serves the needs of the society as a whole, not that it serves the interests of every individual.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  The Structure of Social Science

  A Philosophical Introduction

  • Michael H. Lessnoff(Author)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  CHAPTER 5 Functionalism and Explanation in Social Science

  The previous chapter considered explanation of social facts in relation to laws and generalizations, and to the intelligibility of action. I now wish to discuss the application to social science of so-called functional explanation. ‘Functionalism’ is an approach used in several social sciences, and ‘function’ is widely held to be an explanatory concept. This, however, is a controversial question and, as we shall see, a complex one. We must begin by making clear the meaning (or meanings) of ‘function’ and ‘Functionalism’.

  Functionalism in biology

  Functionalism in the social sciences rests on an analogy with biology, the science of organisms. These are entities with very special properties, which make the functionalist approach particularly suited to their study. In brief, they are living systems . As systems , they are wholes made up of interrelated parts; as living systems, they manifest certain characteristic activities of the organism as a whole and physiological processes carried on by its parts. These activities and processes enable the organism to persist as a unit over time, preserving its characteristic relation of parts and its characteristic activities and physiological processes - to remain, in other words, a living organism of a particular kind. Organisms are self-maintaining systems.

  With reference to such a system, a part of it, or a process carried on within it, may be said to have a function . Thus, the heart in mammals (or the heart-beat) has the function of making the blood circulate; the circulation of the blood also has a function, or rather several functions, for example, to carry oxygen and nutrients to the tissues; and these processes too have a function. So also do activities of the organism itself, such as eating when hungry. The function of anything is always an effect which it achieves or makes possible when the organism is operating normally, but not just any effect-the heartbeat makes a particular sound as well as making the blood circulate, but the former is not its function.1

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Introducing Sociological Theory

  • Darren O'Byrne(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Robert Merton , was quite radical in his quest to highlight inequalities in society. Instead, I mean ‘conservative’ in that as a perspective, Functionalism takes for granted that there is a ‘natural’ and ‘healthy’ state of society, and that as a result it cannot deal with difference, or with change. It was very much a product of the relative prosperity and stability people seemed to enjoy in Western societies in the 1950s, especially from the privileged perspective of primarily white, male, Western academics sitting in the ivory towers of elite universities, but by the 1960s social unrest, turbulence and conflict were much more apparent, so sociologists turned instead to conflict theory, Marxism and feminism, among others.

  By the 1970s, then, Functionalism was all but extinct. Some have tried to breathe new life into it – recent examples include Niklas Luhmann, a German who studied under Parsons, who has developed a complex approach called ‘systems theory’, and Jeffrey Alexander, an American who started the ‘neo-functionalist’ movement. However, these are too specific to be included here. But as students of sociology we should not ignore the importance of sociology to our discipline, or the contributions it has made. If we are to better understand sociological theory in all its forms, we could do worse than to begin with the functionalist model.

  The social system

  Let us take a step back for a while and return to this metaphor of society as a system, which is crucial to any functionalist approach in sociology. Make sure you are clear on what we mean by a system. Systems are defined as consisting of component parts which are intended to work together to help the broader system operate smoothly, although each part has a designated role or function to perform to that end. The example we have already used is that of the body. In order for the body to perform to its maximum capacity, to be in a fully ‘healthy’ state, the heart, the liver, the brain, the arms and legs and so on all need to be doing their jobs properly. If one of these component parts is faulty, the body is deemed to be less than fully healthy. Of course, some of these are more important than others. The heart, for example, is charged with the task of pumping blood around the body. If it stops doing that, the entire system breaks down. Failures elsewhere do not have such a critical role to play; there is therefore a natural hierarchy of component parts. The same can be said for all other systems. A computer is a system, a structure that is more than the sum of its parts, which include the hard drive, the monitor, the keyboard and the mouse. If the hard drive crashes, the damage done to my computer as a whole is far more significant than if my mouse is faulty. A car is also a system. For it to perform its task properly, the engine needs to be running smoothly, the wheels need to be turning, the steering wheel and brakes need to be operational, and so on.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  On the Logic of the Social Sciences

  • Jürgen Habermas, Shierry Weber Nicholsen, Jerry A. Stark(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Polity

    (Publisher)

  Merton and above all Parsons have gone on to elaborate the functionalist framework for social- scientific theories as such. 52 This development follows an internal logic, for as soon as we conceive social action to be intentional, gen- eral theories with elementaristic structures become unusable. 53 Only when social norms that institutionalize cultural patterns or values are understood as structures within self-regulating systems can social processeg! be analyzed on the basis of assumptions about the understandable empirical context of organized behavioral expectations. The functions that they then have in maintaining or changing a defined state of the system are an expression of the latently meaningful empirical context of the manifestly, that is, sub- jectively, meaningful actions of individuals and groups. Without a functionalist framework, assumptions about the empirical context of social norms would be possible only under the condition that the norms be expressed exclusively in variables of observable behavior, and thus that social action be reduced to behavior and stripped of its intentional conte~t. This would contradict our presupposition. Parsons conceives social systems as the functionalist context of institutions. In them, cultural values, which enter the system from above, as it were, are made binding for social action. The norma- tive validity of the roles and rules defined on the basis of the stock of 79 5 Three Forms of Functionalism cultural traditions is secured through their adequate integration with drive energies, which, along with personality traits, enter the system "from below." The institutions mediate action-orienting values with interpreted need-dispositions (value orientations with motivational forces or potency). Institutions are composed of roles and norms that are binding for groups and individuals.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Philosophy of Anthropology and Sociology

  A Volume in the Handbook of the Philosophy of Science Series

  • Dov M. Gabbay, Paul Thagard, John Woods(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • North Holland

    (Publisher)

  2 They advocate an alternative picture that focuses on piecemeal causal explanation which downplays the role of abstract theories and places tight constraints on successful models. Many defenders of functional explanation in some or the other form defend it on the grounds of its ability to provide theories, to unify and to model. Hence these issues are joined in any discussion of Functionalism. 2 HISTORY AND CONTROVERSIES No definitive history of Functionalism in the social sciences has been written. This deficit is perhaps due in part to two factors. First any such account would be nearly coextensive with much of the history of the social sciences in total. Moreover, from its inception, Functionalism has been ambivalent between two different claims (detailed in the next section) — namely, that society is composed of component parts with specific functions as opposed to the claim that there is some kind of 1 For further development of this debate, see the essays by Little and Zahle, in this volume. 2 See Kincaid [1996; 2004]. Functional Explanation and Evolutionary Social Science 215 selective mechanism ensuring that those social parts exist in order to serve their functions. Different social science traditions emphasize one or the other of these claims for different reasons at different times in their history, making a cohesive narrative difficult. In what follows I impose an order on this messy history. Most of the key founding figures in sociology and anthropology — Comte, Spencer, Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Radcliff-Brown, and Malinowski — espoused versions of Functionalism. Comte [1974], who coined the term sociology, had a fundamental interest in the foundations of social order combined with the com-mon 19 th century belief that useful analogies can be drawn between biological organisms and societies.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Points of View in the Modern History of Psychology

  • Claude E. Buxton(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Academic Press

    (Publisher)

  4 Early Sources and Basic Conceptions of Functionalism CLAUDE E. BUXTON INTRODUCTION Like many other terms that have been adopted by psychology from mathematics or the sciences, Functionalism is not a very precise expres-sion. It is now common in many fields of study or expression (e.g., sociology, architecture), but in psychology it was used in the early 1900s as a descriptive label for the point of view of certain psychologists and philosophers at the University of Chicago. The intellectual origins or roots of this viewpoint can be traced to earlier ideas in the United States and western Europe. In this chapter we examine early Functionalism or the precursors of Functionalism, while the following chapter deals with American Functionalism. Each chapter covers a period of approximately a half century, before and after 1890, respectively. A more informative definition of Functionalism is contextual (Hempel, 1966; Mandler & Kessen, 1959): Its meaning is determined by associating it with terms that are already part of our psychological vocabulary. Con-sider the definition, Functionalism is, in part, the view that actions are oriented toward goals. Add to that statement several others, some overlapping but different from each other, such as In the view of func-tionalists, behavior is adaptive. Taken together, the statements become POINTS OF VIEW IN THE MODERN HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY 85 Copyright © 1985 by Academic Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ISBN 0-12-148510-2 86 Claude Ε. Buxton a contextual definition of Functionalism. There is no effort to point to the essence or the inherent meaning of a word thus defined. Rather, there is only a set of ways in which the word is used (Functionalism is the view that. . . ) and which thereby constitute its meaning.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Substance Use and Abuse

  Sociological Perspectives

  • Victor N. Shaw(Author)
  • 2002(Publication Date)
  • Praeger

    (Publisher)

  It is historically discriminative and logically implausible to just view substance and substance use as marginal, random, deviant, and irrational side products of a generally substantive, consistent, normal, and rational human evolutionary process. Definition The functionalist perspective has been marked by its conventional ap- proach or conservative agenda to the study of conforming practices. Applied to substance use, however, it represents a reversal of the conven- tional or conservative attitude toward the issue. In fact, it sounds far more than liberal when it assumes and is poised to explore various functions substance use serves for individuals and larger economic, political, cul- tural, and social systems. A more theoretical, systemic, or epistemological portrayal does not seem to dim much of its unconventional overtone or overture when the functionalist perspective is defined as an approach that examines substance and substance use as prevalent and persistent social phenomena, as functional and integral parts of human life, and as neces- sary and universal elements in natural adaptation and cultural creation by mankind. No matter how it sounds to the general public, the functionalist per- spective looks for every function that substance use contributes to human 80 Substance Use and Abuse beings and their social life. Functions are broadly perceived as beneficial, facilitative, or promotional to specific mental or physical activities in terms of frequency, intensity, duration, performance, or result, as well as to specific social processes or institutions with respect to scale, scope, main- tenance, effectiveness, efficiency, and consequence. The functionalist per- spective will surely shed critical light on and offer unique insights about substance, substance use, and substance users as it attempts to pull the whole issue out of the attic and garret of the socially negative.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  History and Theory in Anthropology

  • Alan Barnard(Author)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  5 Functionalism and Structural-Functionalism The terms ‘functionalist’ and ‘structural-functionalist’ and their corres- ponding ‘isms’ are now quite stable in their meanings. However, this was not always the case. Before looking at the theories, a brief tour of the changing nuances of the terms is in order. ‘Functionalism’ is a broad term. In its widest sense, it includes both Functionalism (narrowly defined) and structural-Functionalism. I use it mainly in the narrower sense, that is, to refer to ideas associated with Bronislaw Malinowski and his followers, notably Sir Raymond Firth. It is the perspective concerned with actions among individuals, the con- straints imposed by social institutions on individuals, and relations between the needs of an individual and the satisfaction of those needs through cultural and social frameworks. ‘Structural-Functionalism’ tends to be concerned less with individual action or needs, and more with the place of individuals in the social order, or indeed with the construction of the social order itself. Typically, the latter term identifies the work of A. R. Radcliffe-Brown and his followers. In Britain these included Sir Edward Evans-Pritchard (in his early work), Isaac Schapera, Meyer Fortes, and Jack Goody (Sir John Rankine Goody), among many others. Yet the boundary between structural-Functionalism and Functionalism was never rigid. Some of Radcliffe-Brown’s followers did not mind the term ‘functionalist’; others took to the labels ‘structural-functionalist’ or ‘structuralist’ (to distinguish their work from that of Malinowski). Furthermore, the term ‘British structuralist’ was heard in the 1950s to distinguish Radcliffe-Brownianism from Lévi-Straussianism or ‘French structuralism’ (see Chapter 9). Confusingly, when in the early 1960s a new generation of British anthropologists turned to Lévi-Strauss, they assumed the label ‘British structuralist’ for themselves.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  A History of Modern Psychology

  • Duane Schultz(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Academic Press

    (Publisher)

  3. Functional psychology is the psychology of psychophysical relations concerned with the total relationship of the organism to the environment. Thus, Functionalism includes all mind-body functions. This point leaves open the study of nonconscious or habitual behavior. Functionalism as-sumes some sort of interrelationship between the mental and the physical, an interplay of the same sort as occurs in the relation between forces in the physical world. Functionalism finds no real palpable distinction between the mind and the body, considering them not as two diflFerent entities but as belonging to the same order, and assuming an easy transfer from one to the other. AngelPs address was given at a time when the spirit of Functionalism was already an established force that had attained considerable popularity and influence. Angelí shaped this force into an active, prominent enterprise with a laboratory, a body of research data, a vital and enthusiastic staff of teachers, and a core of graduate students. In guiding Functionalism to the status of a formal school, he gave it the focus and formalization necessary to make it effective. As mentioned earher, Angelí insisted that Functionalism did not really constitute a school and should not be identified exclusively with the psychology taught at Chicago. He believed that the movement was much too broad in scope to be encompassed adequately within the framework of any one school. Despite Angell's protestations, the school of function-alism flourished and was definitely associated with the kind of psychology practiced at Chicago. Harvey A. Carr (1873-1954) The work of Carr represents Functionalism when it ceased to be a crusade against structuralism, but had become a recognized system in its own right. Carr received his doctorate at Chicago in 1905 and suc-ceeded Angelí as chairman of the psychology department from 1919 to 1938, awarding some 150 doctorates during that time.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  A History of Modern Psychology

  • Duane Schultz(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Academic Press

    (Publisher)

  Functionalism: FORMAL DEVELOPMENT THE FOUNDING OF Functionalism In Chapters 6 and 7 we discussed the major themes of the functionalist movement and how they evolved from the work of Darwin and Galton. Functionalism is concerned with the operation and processes of conscious phenomena rather than with their structure. Its interest is the utility or purpose of mental processes to the living organism in its continuing attempt to adapt to the environment. Mental processes are regarded as activities leading to practical consequences, not as elements in some kind of compo-sition. Functionalism's practical cast inevitably led to an interest in the application of science to the affairs of the world. Thus, applied psychology, disdained by Wundt and Titchener, was accepted and practiced by the functionalists. These themes of Functionalism were developed in the laboratory and in the real world by American psychologists such as Hall, Cattell, and James. They shaped this new movement from the works of Darwin, Galton, and, to some extent, Wundt without feeling the need to formalize it, to make of it a firm doctrine. Although there was no formal school of Functionalism by the end of the nineteenth century, functionalist ideas had permeated American psychology. How did this general attitude or approach, loosely structured around several universities and individuals, take on the characteristics of a formal school of thought? The scholars associated with the founding of Functionalism were not ambitious to start a new school of psychology in the sense that Wundt had been. They did protest against the strictures of structuralism, but they did not aim to replace it with another ism characterized by the rigidity and narrowness formalization usually entails. The formalization of their move-ment of protest—the founding of Functionalism—was partly imposed on them by E.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Handbook of Behaviorism

  • William O'Donohue, Richard Kitchener(Authors)
  • 1998(Publication Date)
  • Academic Press

    (Publisher)

  The goa l of psychological scientists with a functional contextual perspective is the devel-opment of an organized system of empirically-based concepts and rules that al -low behavioral phenomena to be predicted and influenced with precision, depth , and scope (Biglan & Hayes, 1996) . The term influence is substituted for contro l to avoid the misunderstanding that an absence of variability or absolute elimina-tion of confounding variables (two other senses of the word control) is necessar-ily the goal of intervention (Biglan & Hayes, 1995) . In addition, the goal is pre -diction and influence : one goal, not two . This goal is not the purpose of scienc e as an abstraction, it is the goal of particular scientists doing science . Other goal s in science are possible, and analyses that are directed toward different goal s could look quite different . Functional contextualism seeks analyses that achieve prediction and influence 1 1 CONTEXTUAL BEHAVIORISM 30 7 with precision (a restricted set of constructs apply to any particular event), scop e (a wide number of events can be analyzed with these constructs), and depth (an-alytic constructs at the psychological level cohere with those at other levels) . The goal of prediction and influence provides a specific kind of utility or suc-cessful working . Specifically, prediction and influence is accomplished when a n analysis (a) identifies contextual features that permit the prediction of the behav-ior of interest, and (b) demonstrates that the manipulation of these contextua l features affects the probability of occurrence of this behavior . Functional contextualism is an explicitly empirical philosophy . Although th e functional contextualist readily admits that it is impossible to escape the effect s of personal history and that no interpretation is ultimate or final, she or he i s committed to the goal of finding principles that effectively guide the actions o f other analysts .

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book