Robert K. Merton-Social Theory and Social Structure

698 Pages·2007·2.79 MB·English

by  Robert K. Merton

Merton, Robert K. (1968) Social Theory and
Social Structure. New York: The Free Press
Table of contents in word
Merton, Robert K. (1968) Social Theory and Social Structure. New York: The Free Press1
Table of contents in word....................................................................................................1
Note on layout.....................................................................................................................2
SOCIAL THEORY AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE............................................................2
PREFACE TO THE 1968 ENLARGED EDITION...........................................................3
PREFACE TO THE 1957 REVISED EDITION................................................................5
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...................................................................................................6
CONTENTS -AN OVERVIEW..........................................................................................7
Part I ON THEORETIC SOCIAL THEORY AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE..................23
I ON THE HISTORY AND SYSTEMATICS OF SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY........23
II ON SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES OF THE MIDDLE RANGE............................59
III MANIFEST AND LATENT FUNCTIONSTOWARD THE CODIFICATION OF
FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS IN SOCIOLOGY FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS............92
iv THE BEARING OF SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY ON EMPIRICAL RESEARCH.158
V THE BEARING OF EMPIRICAL RESEARCH ON SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY174
Part II STUDIES IN SOCIAL AND CULTURAL STUCTURE INTRODUCTION....189
VI SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND ANOMIE..............................................................198
VII CONTINUITIES IN THE THEORY OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND ANOMIE227
VIII BUREAUCRATIC STRUCTURE AND PERSONALITY................................259
IX ROLE OF THE INTELLECTUAL IN PUBLIC BUREAUCRACY....................270
X CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE THEORY OF REFERENCE GROUP BEHAVIOR*287
XI CONTINUITIES IN THE THEORY OF REFERENCE GROUPS AND SOCIAL
STRUCTURE..............................................................................................................339
XII PATTERNS OF INFLUENCE: LOCAL AND COSMOPOLITAN INFLUENTIALS
.....................................................................................................................................441
Xlll THE SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY.............................................................473
Part III THE SOCIOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE AND MASS COMMUNICATIONS 487
XIV THE SOCIOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE............................................................502
XV KARL MANNHEIM AND THE SOCIOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE.................534
XVI STUDIES IN RADIO AND FILM PROPAGANDA*.......................................553
Part IV STUDIES IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF SCIENCE..............................................571
XVII SCIENCE AND THE SOCIAL ORDER..........................................................576
XVIII SCIENCE AND DEMOCRATIC SOCIAL STRUCTURE.............................588
XIX THE MACHINE, THE WORKER AND THE ENGINEER..............................599
XX PURITANISM, PIETISM AND SCIENCE.........................................................609
XXI SCIENCE AND ECONOMY OF 17th CENTURY ENGLAND.......................641
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.........................................................................................664
SUBJECT INDEX...........................................................................................................666
Note on layout
- the book is divided in four parts. the parts are heading level one. each part has several chapters,
which are level 2. exceptions are other sections such as index and table of contents, which are
also heading level 1.
- one figure deleted, noted by ((figure deleted))
SOCIAL THEORY AND SOCIAL
STRUCTURE
Copyright © 1968 and 1967 by Robert K. Merton
Copyright, 1957, by The Free Press, a Corporation
Copyright, 1949, by The Free Press
Printed in the United States of America
Printing History
((footnote))1949 Edition, six printings((/footnote))
((footnote))1957 Edition, twelve printings((/footnote))
((footnote))1968 Edition, first printing July, 1968((/footnote))
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photo-
copying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the Publisher.
The Free Press
A Division of Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.
((footnote))866 Third Avenue, New York, New York 10022((/footnote))
Collier Macmillan Canada, Ltd.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 68-28789
printing number
((footnote))13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20((/footnote))
To the Memory of Charles H. Hopkins, Friend, Teacher
PREFACE TO THE 1968 ENLARGED
EDITION
HIS NEW PRINTING is not a newly revised edition, only an enlarged one. The revised edition
of 1957 remains intact except that its short introduction has been greatly expanded to appear here
as Chapters I and II. The only other changes are technical and minor ones: the correction of
typographical errors and amended indexes of subjects and names.
At their first writing, the papers which make up this book were not intended as consecutive
chapters of a single volume. It would be idle to suggest, therefore, that the papers as now
arranged exhibit a natural pro-gression, leading with stem inevitability from one to the next. Yet I
am reluctant to believe that the book lacks altogether the graces of coherence, unity and
emphasis.
To make the coherence more easily visible, the book is divided into four major parts, the first
setting out a theoretical orientation in terms of which three arrays of sociological problems are
thereafter examined. Short introductions to each of these three substantive sections are in-tended
to make it unnecessary for the reader to find for himself a means of intellectual passage from one
part to the next.
In the interest of unity, the papers have been assembled with an eye to the gradual unfolding and
developing of two sociological concerns that pervade the whole of the book, concerns more fully
expressed in the perspective found in all chapters than in the particular subject-matter under
examination. These are the concern with the interplay of social theory and social research and the
concern with codifying both substantive theory and the procedures of sociological analysis, most
particularly of qualitative analysis.
It will be granted that these two interests do not suffer from exces-sive modesty of dimensions. In
fact, were I to hint that the essays do more than skirt the edges of these large and imperfectly
charted territories, the very excess of the claim would only emphasize the smallness of the yield.
But since the consolidation of theory and research and the
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codification of theory and method are the concerns threaded through the chapters of this book, a
few words about the theoretical orientation, as set out in Part I, are in order.
Chapter I states the case for the distinctive though interacting functions of histories of
sociological theory, on the one hand, and formulations of currently utilized theory, on the other.
We need hardly note that cur-rent theoretical sociology rests upon legacies from the past. But
there is some value, I believe, in examining the intellectual requirements for a genuine history of
sociological thought as more than a chronologically arranged series of synopses of sociological
doctrine, just as there is value in considering just how current sociological theory draws upon
antecedent theory.
Since a good deal of attention has been devoted to sociological theory of the middle range in the
past decade, there is reason to review its character and workings in the light of uses and criticisms
of this kind of theory that have developed during this time. Chapter II takes on this task.
Chapter III suggests a framework for the social theory described as functional analysis. It centers
on a paradigm that codifies the assumptions, concepts and procedures that have been implicit (
and occasionally, explicit) in functional interpretations that have been developed in the fields of
sociology, social psychology and social anthropology. If the large connotations of the word
discovery are abandoned, then it can be said that the elements of the paradigm have mainly been
discovered, not invented. They have been found partly by critically scrutinizing the re-searches
and theoretical discussions by scholars who use the functional orientation to the study of society,
and partly by reexamining my own studies of social structure.
The last two chapters in Part I summarize the kinds of reciprocal relations that now obtain in
sociological inquiry.
Chapter IV distinguishes the related but distinct kinds of inquiry that are encompassed by the
often vaguely used term sociological theory: methodology or the logic of procedure, general
orientations, analysis of concepts, ex post facto interpretations, empirical generalizations, and
theory in the strict sense. In examining the interconnections between these—the fact that they are
connected implies that they are also distinct—I emphasize the limitations as well as the functions
of general orientations in theory, with which sociology is more abundantly endowed than with
sets of empirically confirmed and specific uniformities derived from general theory. So, too, I
emphasize and try to characterize the importance as well as the halfway nature of the empirical
generalization. In that chapter, it is suggested that such disparate generalizations can be collated
and consolidated through a process of codification. They then become instances of a general rule.
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Chapter V examines the other part of this reciprocal relation between theory and research: the
diverse kinds of consequences of empirical re-search for the development of sociological theory.
Only those who merely read about empirical research rather than engage in it can continue to
believe that the exclusive or even primary function of research is to test preestablished
hypotheses. This represents an essential but narrow and far from exclusive function of research,
which plays a much more active role in the development of theory than is implied by this passive
one of confirmation. As the chapter states in detail, empirical research also initiates, reformulates,
refocusses and clarifies sociological theory. And in the measure that empirical inquiry thus
fructifies theory, it is evident that the theoretical sociologist who is remote from all re-search,
who learns of it only by hearsay as it were, runs the risk of be-ing insulated from the very
experience most likely to turn his attention to new and fruitful directions. His mind has not been
prepared by experience. He is removed from the often noted experience of serendipity, the
discovery through chance by a prepared mind of new findings that were not looked for. In noting
this, I take serendipity as a fact, not as a philosophy, of empirical investigation.
Max Weber was right in subscribing to the view that one need not be Caesar in order to
understand Caesar. But there is a temptation for us theoretical sociologists to act sometimes as
though it is not necessary even to study Caesar in order to understand him. Yet we know that the
interplay of theory and research makes both for understanding of the specific case and expansion
of the general rule.
I am indebted to Barbara Bengen who applied her editorial talents to the first two chapters, to Dr.
Harriet A. Zuckerman who criticized an early draft of them, and to Mrs. Mary Miles who
converted a palimpsest into clear typescript. In preparing these introductory chapters, I was aided
by a grant from the National Science Foundation.
R. K. M. Hastings-on-Hudson, New York
March, 1968
PREFACE TO THE 1957 REVISED
EDITION
OMEWHAT MORE than a third of its contents is new to this edition. The principal changes
consist of four new chapters and of two bibliographic postscripts reviewing recent developments
in the subjects dealt with in the chapters to which they are appended. I have also tried to improve
the exposition at various places in the book by rewriting paragraphs that were not as clear as they
ought to have been and I have eliminated several insipid errors that ought never to have been
made.
Of the four chapters added to this edition, two come from published symposia, one of which is
out of print and the other of which is nearing that same state of exhaustion. "Patterns of
Influence: Local and Cosmopolitan Influentials," which first appeared in Communications
Research, 1948-49 (P. F. Lazarsfeld and F. N. Stanton, editors), is part of a continuing series of
studies by the Columbia University Bureau of Applied Social Research dealing with the role of
personal influence in society. This chapter introduces the concept of `the influential,' identifies
two distinctive types of influentials, the `local' and the `cosmopolitan,' and relates these types to
the structure of influence in the local community. The second of these chapters, "Contributions to
the Theory of Reference Group Behavior," was written in collaboration with Mrs. Alice S. Rossi
and was originally published in Continuities in Social Research (R. K. Merton and P. F.
Lazarsfeld, editors ). It draws upon the ample evidence provided by The American Soldier to
formulate certain conditions under which people orient themselves to the norms of various
groups, in particular the groups with which they are not affiliated.
The other two chapters added to this edition have not been published before. The first of these,
"Continuities in the Theory of Social Structure and Anomie," tries to consolidate recent empirical
and theoretical analyses of that breakdown of social norms which is described as anomie. The
second, "Continuities in the Theory of Reference Groups and Social Structure," tries to bring out
some of the specifically sociological, as dis-
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((xii))
tinct from the socio-psychological implications of current inquiries into reference-group
behavior. The intent is to examine some of the theoretical problems of social structure which
must be solved before further advances can be made in the sociological analysis of reference
groups.
The bibliographical postscripts are concerned briefly with functional analysis in sociology and, at
some length, with the role of Puritanism in the development of modem science.
I owe special thanks to Dr. Elinor Barber and Mrs. Marie Klink for help in reading proofs and to
Mrs. Bernice Zelditch for preparing the index. In revising this book, I have benefitted from a
small grant-in-aid provided by the Behavioral Sciences Program of the Ford Foundation as part
of its roster of grants without prior restrictions to a specified project.
R.K.M.
Hastings-on-Hudson, New York Thanksgiving Day, 1956
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
0 MAN KNOWS fully what has shaped his thinking. It is difficult for me to trace in detail the
provenience of the conceptions set forth in this book and to track down the reasons for their
progressive modification as I have worked with them over the years. Many social scientists have
contributed to the development of these conceptions and whenever the source is known, reference
is made in the numerous notes to the separate chapters. But among these, there are six to whom I
owe a special debt, though of varying degree and kind, and to them I want to pay tribute.
The earliest and greatest of these debts is slightly and too late acknowledged in the dedication of
this book to Charles H. Hopkins. Be-cause this man, the husband of my sister, lived, many lives
were deep-ened in human dignity. As long as any of us whose lives touched his still live, he will
live. It is with Iove and respect and gratitude that I dedicate this book to Hop, who learned for
himself that he might teach others.
To my good friend, George Eaton Simpson, now of Oberlin College, I am grateful for having
taken a brash sophomore in hand to make him see the intellectual excitement of studying the
operation of systems of social relations, I could not easily have had a more propitious
introduction to sociology.
Before he became absorbed in the study of historical movements on the grand scale as
represented in his Social and Cultural Dynamics, Pitirim A. Sorokin helped me to escape from
the provincialism of think-ing that effective studies of society were confined within American
borders and from the slum-encouraged provincialism of thinking that the primary subject-matter
of sociology was centered in such peripheral problems of social life as divorce and juvenile
delinquency. I gladly acknowledge this honest debt, still not discharged.
To George Sarton, most esteemed among historians of science, I am thankful for friendship as
well as guidance, and for the privilege of hav-ing been allowed to work the greater part of two
years in his famed workshop at Harvard Library 189. Some small sign of his stimulus will be
found in Chapter I of this book devoted to the requirements for a
history of sociological theory and in Part IV devoted to studies in the sociology of science.
Those who read the following pages will soon recognize the great debt I owe to my teacher and
friend, Talcott Parsons, who so early in his teaching career conveyed his enthusiasm for
analytical theory to so many. The measure of his calibre as a teacher is found in his having stirred
up intellectual enthusiasm rather than creating obedient disciples. In the intellectual intimacy
afforded by the small graduate department of sociology at Harvard in the early 1930s, it was
possible for a graduate student like myself to have close and continued working relations with an
instructor like Dr. Parsons. It was indeed a collegium, today not readily found in departments
numbering many score of graduate stu-dents and a small, hard-driven group of professors.
In recent years, while we have worked in double harness in the Columbia University Bureau of
Applied Social Research, I have learned most from Paul F. Lazarsfeld. Since it is evident from
our countless conversations that he has no conception of the full extent of my intellectual
obligation to him, I am especially happy to have this occasion for forcing it upon his attention in
public. Not least valuable to me has been his sceptical curiosity which has compelled me to
articulate more fully than I might otherwise have done my reasons for considering functional
analysis the presently most promising, though not the only, theoretical orientation to a wide range
of problems in human society. And above all, he has, through his own example, reinforced in me
the conviction that the great difference between social science and sociological dilettantism
resides in the systematic and serious, that is to say, the intellectually responsible and austere,
pursuit of what is first entertained as an interesting idea. That, I take it, is what Whitehead also
means by the closing lines of the passage in the epigraph to this book.
There are four others who need little acknowledgment; one, because all who know me know my
great obligation to her; the other three, be-cause they will in due course discover for themselves
the precise nature of my considerable obligation to them.
CONTENTS -AN OVERVIEW
PACE
Preface to the 1968 Enlarged Edition vii
Preface to the 1957 Revised Edition xi
Acknowledgments xiii
PART I
On Theoretical Sociology
I. On the History and Systematics of 1
Sociological Theory
II. On Sociological Theories of the Middle Range 39
III. Manifest and Latent Functions 73
IV. The Bearing of Sociological Theory on 139
Empirical Research
V. The Bearing of Empirical Research on 156
Sociological Theory
PART II 175
Studies in Social and Cultural Structure
Introduction
VI. Social Structure and Anomie 185
VII. Continuities in the Theory of Social 215
Structure and Anomie
VIII. Bureaucratic Structure and Personality 249
IX. Role of the Intellectual in Public Bureaucracy 261
X. Contributions to the Theory of Reference 279
Group Behavior WITH ALICE S. ROSSI)
XI. Continuities in the Theory of Reference 335
Groups and Social Structure
xv
XII. Patterns of Influence : Local and 441
Cosmopolitan Influentials
XIII. The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy 475
PART III 493
The Sociology of Knowledge and Mass Communications
Introduction
XIV. The Sociology of Knowledge 510
XV. Karl Mannheim and the Sociology of 543
Knowledge
XVI. Studies in Radio and Film Propaganda 563
WITH PAUL F. LAZARSFELD 585
PART IV
Studies in the Sociology of Science
Introduction
XVII. Science and the Social Order 591
XVIII. Science and Democratic Social Structure 604
XIX. The Machine, the Worker, and the Engineer 616
XX. Puritanism, Pietism, and Science 628
XXI. Science and Economy of 17th Century England 661