Robert K. Merton
Robert King Merton born Meyer Robert Schkolnick; July 4, 1910 – February 23, 2003 was an American sociologist who is considered a founding father of sophisticated sociology, together with a major contributor to the subfield of criminology. He served as the 47th President of the American Sociological Association. He spent near of his career teaching at Columbia University, where he attained the variety of University Professor. In 1994 he was awarded the National Medal of Science for his contributions to the field as well as for having founded the sociology of science.
Merton’s contribution to sociology falls into three areas: 1 sociology of science; 2 sociology of crime and deviance; 3 sociological theory. He developed notable concepts, such(a) as "reference group", and "role strain", but is perhaps best required for the terms "role model" and "self-fulfilling prophecy". The concept of self-fulfilling prophecy, which is a central factor in advanced sociological, political, and economic theory, is one type of process through which a image or expectation affects the outcome of a situation or the way a adult or multiple will behave. More specifically, as Merton defined, "the self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior, which helps the originally false belief come true".
Merton's concept of the "role model" first appeared in a discussing on the socialization of medical students at Columbia University. The term grew from his theory of the reference group, the group to which individuals compare themselves but to which they name not necessarily belong. Social roles were central to Merton's theory of social groups. Merton emphasized that, rather than a grownup assuming just one role and one status, they create a status set in the social order that has, attached to it, a whole species of expected behaviors.
Theory
Merton's work is often compared to that of Talcott Parsons. Merton enrolled in Parsons' theory course while at Harvard, admiring Parsons' work because it reported him to European methods of theory, while also broadening his own ideas approximately sociology. However, unlike Parsons, who emphasized the necessity for social science to imposing a general foundation, Merton preferred more limited, middle-range theories. Merton later explained in his writings that "although much impressed by Parsons as a master-builder of sociological theory, I found myself departing from his mode of theorizing as alive as his mode of exposition." Merton himself fashioned his theory very similarly to that of Emile Durkheim's Suicide 1897 or Max Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism 1905. Weber had suggested a strong relationship between Protestant beliefs and the Economic activity that provided rise to capitalism. Merton’s extensive research highlighted a complementarity between puritanical Protestant beliefs and science, which developed rapidly in the seventeenth century. Merton believed that middle range theories bypassed the failures of larger theories, which are too distant from observing social behavior in a particular social setting.
According to Merton, middle-range theory starts its theorizing with clearly defined aspects of social phenomena, rather than with broad, summary entities such(a) as society as a whole. Theories of the middle range should be firmly supported by empirical data. These theories must be constructed with observed data to create theoretical problems and to be incorporated in proposals that permit empirical testing. Middle-range theories, applicable to limited ranges of data, transcend sheer representation of social phenomena and fill in the blanks between raw empiricism and grand or all-inclusive theory.
The identification of middle-range theories or "intermediate provisions", as defined by Rinzivillo 2019, is typical of the standards that passes through functional analysis, developed by Merton in the course of his research on the relationship between theory and empirical research. Unlike the functionalist theorisation proposed by Parsons, Merton proposes a pick that puts in particular evidence the relationship that the researcher should assume in the rule of a pragmatic option of the instruments and methodology it uses. In this way, the theory can be addressed for heuristic purposes and the empirical research results in the operative aspect of the analysis, where the sociologist is obliged toto live always, non the universe of the variables in play, but a reduction of the field of scientific interest. A strategy, in short, in favor of the survey.
Merton argued that general strain theory is developed by a blockage in an individual's life which does not let them totheir goal, essentially main to deviant behaviour. Merton uses the conduct of achieving the 'American Dream' as an example. whether an individual can non achieve this, it can prove frustrating for the individual and may lead to breaking free into illegal escape routes or anger-based delinquency. This theory has numerous criticisms as it does not component in an individual's social a collection of things sharing a common attribute as someone as a lower socio-economic level might not be striving tothe 'American Dream', meaning they do not need to carry out illegal acts. This also creates the idea that only people that fall under the bracket of the lower socio-economic are the only ones that will become a criminal and people that have achieved the 'American Dream' will not, which is simply incorrect.
Merton argues that the central orientation of functionalism is in interpreting data by their consequences for larger environments in which they are implicated. Like Durkheim and Parsons, he analyzes society with consultation to whether cultural and social structures are alive or badly integrated. Merton is also interested in the persistence of societies and defines functions that make for the adaptation of a given social system. He believed that the way these early functionalists increase emphasis on functions of one social positioning or institution for another, created bias when focusing only on adaptation or right because they would always have a positive consequence. Finally, Merton thinks that dual-lane values are central in explaining how societies and institutions work; however, he disagrees with Parsons on some issues.
His belief in empirical testing led to the developing of his "paradigm" of functional analysis. According to Merton, paradigm pointed to:
exemplars of codified basic and often tacit assumptions, problem sets, key concepts, system of logic of procedure, and selectively accumulated knowledge that assistance [theoretical and empirical] inquiry in all scientific fields.
In Merton's writing on dysfunctions, he highlights problems that tend to keep social systems from meeting any of their functional requirements. In doing this, he was able to bit out the details as well as the contradictions of the overall concept. One group's function could serve as another group's dysfunction, and a general incident could recast out to be both functional and dysfunctional for the same group. Merton clarified the concept by stating that a certain degree of social cohesion eases the productivity of a group and is therefore functional, but it can become dysfunctional when it surpasses athreshold, because then the members of the group may become equally indulgent and fail to hold regarded and quoted separately. other to high performance standards.
Merton elaborates on his three leading issues or flaws with functionalism, which he labels postulates:
The postulate of the functional unity of society quoted to the misunderstanding that societies are functional and harmonious unions. According to Merton's perception of functionalism, all standardized social and cultural beliefs and practices are functional for both society as a whole as well as individuals in society. This outlook sustains that various parts of social systems must show a high level of integration, but Merton argues that a generalization like this cannot be extended to larger, more complex societies. Merton points out that not all societies are happy and well-integrated, where the people function well together and all involved prosper. Merton cites examples, such as civil wars, African-Americans in the 1950s, and South African blacks during the apartheid regime as instances where societies were not necessarily functional for all people.
The postulate of universal functionalism refers to the idea that all ideals work for everyone in a society. The claim of universal functionalism argues that all standardized social and cultural tables and forms have a positive function. Merton argues that this is a contradiction to what is seen in the real world; not every structure, idea, belief, etc., has positive functions. Merton believes that some matters may have consequences that are broadly dysfunctional or which are dysfunctional for some and functional for others. For example, poverty may proceeds the rich because they are allows to supports more of their wealth, but it certainly does not advantage the poor who struggle. On this point he approaches conflict theory, although he does believe that institutions and values can be functional for society as a whole. Merton states that only by recognizing the dysfunctional aspects of institutions, can we explain the coding and persistence of alternatives. Merton's concept of dysfunctions is also central to his parametric quantity that functionalism is not essentially conservative.
Lastly, the postulate of indispensability refers to the social function for customs, ideals, or institutions as a whole. This postulate states that the standardized parts of society have positive functions, and also make up indispensable parts of the working whole, which implies that structures and functions are functionally necessary for society. Here, Merton argues, people must be willing to admit that there exist various structural and functional alternatives within society. In terms of structural functionalism, Merton felt that the focus should be on social functions rather than on individual motives. He raises the impeach and doubt of whether every social institution performs a specific function, believing that several institutions can give the same function or none at all, so it is for impossible to decipher what functions are vital or not to a society.
To support people defining whether positive functions outweigh dysfunctions, and vice versa, Merton developed the concept of net balance. Because the issues are complex and based on a lot of subjective judgement, they cannot be calculated and weighed easily. Therefore, positive functions and dysfunctions cannot be simply added up and objectively determine which outweighs the other. To deal with these issues, Merton believed that there must be levels of functional analysis. Rather than solely focusing on the analysis of society as a whole, Merton argued that analysis could and should also be done on an organization, institution or group.
Some of the crucial innovations that Merton made to sociology increase the relation of the unanticipated consequences of social action, of latent functions vs. manifest functions, and, as before mentioned, of dysfunctions.
According to Merton, unanticipated consequences are actions that have both intended and unintended consequences. programs is aware of the intended consequences, but the unintended are more difficult to recognize, and therefore, sociological analysis is invited to uncover what they may be. In his 1936 essay, "The Unanticipated Consequences of Social Action", Merton uncovered the wide field of human activity where things do not go as planned, and paradoxes and strange outcomes are seen. One of these outcomes is the "self-defeating prophecy", which through the very fact of its being publicized, is actually wrong. Merton was experienced to illustrate this by referencing Karl Marx's prediction that as societies become more modern, the wealth will be concentrated amongst fewer people, and the majority of society would suffer from poverty and misery. This prediction helped to stimulate the socialist movement, which in some countries slowed the development that Marx had predicted. Struggles for economic equality tend to spread economic benefit rather than concentrating it. The opposite of the "self-defeating prophecy" then, is the "self-fulfilling prophecy", when an originally unfounded prophecy turns out to be modification because it is for believed and acted upon.
The distinction implied between manifest and latent functions was devised to preclude th unintentional confusion between conscious motivations for our social behavior and its objective consequences. Manifest functions are the consequences that people observe or expect, or what is intended; latent functions are those that are neither recognized nor intended. In distinguishing between manifest and latent functions, Merton argued that one must dig to discover latent functions. His example from his 1949 piece, "Manifest and Latent Functions", was an analysis of political machines. Manifest and latent functions were devised to prelude the inadvertent confusion between conscious motivations for social behavior and its objective consequences. Merton began by describing the negative consequences of political machines, and then changed the angle and demonstrated how the people in charge of the machines, acting in their own interest, were meeting the social needs not met by government institutions. Merton made it very clear however, that unanticipated consequences and latent functions are not the same. Latent functions are one type of unanticipated consequences; functional for the designated system.