Social Control-Talcott Parsons
Talcott parson discussed about “Social Control” in his book “Social System” (1951)The theory of social control takes into consideration those mechanisms which counteract those deviant behaviour tendencies, which tend to destroy the integrity and orderliness of the social system. The mechanism of social control maintain “the stable equilibrium of the interactive process”, and how this state of equilibrium is attained and maintained, is the fundamental point of reference for the analysis of social control. This does not, however, mean thus there is any perfect society in which a state of perfect equilibrium prevails, “In empirical fact no social system is perfectly equilibrated and integrated. Deviant behaviour tendencies are always in operation, and form part of a social system. According to Parsons, “the most fundamental mechanisms of social control are to be found in the normal processes of interaction in an institutionally integrated social system.””
Parsons further states, “The central phenomena are to be found in the institutional integration of motivation and the reciprocal reinforcement of the attitudes and actions of the different individual actors involved in an institutionalized social structure . institutionalization has integrative functions on various levels, both with reference to the different roles in which any one actor is involved, and to the co-ordination of the behaviour of different individuals.” An individual neither performs one similar activities of others. There are wide variations in both the cases. Social life involves a wide variety of different activities and divergent social relationships. “One of the primary functions of institutionalization is to help order these different activities and relationships, silently co-ordinated system, to be manageable by the actor, and to minimize conflicts on the social level.” This orderliness is achieved in Two ways:
Firstly, there is the institutionalization of a “time schedule”, which fixes a particular time for a particular activity, i.e., different activities are to be performed at different times. Thus, we have Sundays and holidays for rest; and fixed hours of work when our aside of different times for different activities minimize the chances of conflicts. “The fact that there is a time for each of many different activities—and also a place-keeps the claims of each from interfering with those of others.” It is, in fact, difficult to see how a modern complex society could function efficiently and harmoniously without such arrangement of time schedule.
Secondly, there is the fixation of “institutionalized priorities”. In a relatively tree and mobile society, people are called upon to face many diverged situations with ever conflicting demands. And when they try to fulfil these demands, the chances of serious conflicts are almost certain. “This can minimized if there is legitimized priority scale so that in choosing one obligation above the other the individual can in general be backed by the sentiments of a common value system.”When there is no fixation of such a priority scale, people fail to systematize their behaviour in the face of conflicting demands, and a state of confusion and chaos prevails. But, if there are institutionalized priorities, perform first, and which one must be given the second choice. For example, a doctor is having an ailing wife and his presence at home to attend her is necessary. It is his duty to do so. But if, at that time, he is called upon to visit another corner of the city to attend an Should he neglect his patient and attend his wife, or should he leave his wife uncared for and rush to attend the patient ? The institutionalized priority, in such cases, is in favour of the patient. As per prevailing social values, the doctor is expected to attend his patient first. And, therefore, if he does so, he successfully faces a situation where conflicting demands have been made upon him. Institutionalized priorities are, thus. a defence against many odd situations which a man is called upon to face in his daily social life. The functions of institutionalization, as narrated above, are not the mechanism of social control, though they form the basis of such control.
The process of social control is a continual process which is ever going normal course of social interactions within an institutionalized framework. Actors are continually doing and saying things which are not in harmony with social codes or institutionalized behaviour pattern. Also there are others in the situation who try to correct these minor deviances and to bring the deviant back “into line”, “by tactfully disagreeing with him, by a silence which underlines the fact that what he said was not acceptable, or very often by humour as tension-release, as a result of which he comes to see himself more nearly as others see him.” These are minor control mechanisms, but they talk in regulating human conduct. In other words, the institutionalized behaviour patterns are partly the result of such minor controls. They are, on a certain level, the most fundamental mechanisms of all, and only when they breakdown does it becomes necessary for more elaborate and specialized mechanisms to come into play. Such mechanisms fail only when people are called upon to face more serious strains.
The uncertainly of situation does not allow proper adjustment, and disruptive consequences follow. In the field of religion, face such situations. “Ritual on such occasions serves to organize the reaction system in a positive manner, and to put a check on the disruptive tendencies A ritual provides emotional tendencies; and, thus, helps him in the act of adjustment. Because the rituals are backed by common approvals, they tend to control and harmonize human behaviour as per communally prescribed ways.
Besides rituals, Parsons also mentions other “secondary institutions” are mechanisms of control. He cites the example of the American youth culture. It controls and regulates the behaviour of the youths, and integrates youth culture with major institutional structures, mainly in the field of formal education. This reduces the chances of conflict to a very great extent n Finally, there are certain “self-liquidating features” of the youth culture. “Ina variety of ways, through the experience of youth culture activities and relationships, the individual in the optimum case goes through a process of emotional development to the point where he ceases to need youth culture and “graduates” into full adult status.”
Parsons also mentions insulation and isolating as other mechanisms of social control. “The insulation mechanisms……………. be interpreted as having the function of preventing potentially conflicting elements in the culture and social structure from coming into the kind of contact which would be likely to lead to open conflict or to exacerbate it-conflict is kept relatively latent. These apply in so far as a The mechanisms which may be summed up as isolating, on the other hand have the function of forestalling even this structuring, and the development of appropriate cultural patterns around which it could be built.”0 Through the mechanism of isolating, certain appropriate cultural patterns are isolated and preserved for the guidance of the members in so far as the general organization and the maintenance of a harmonious social structure is concerned. And through the mechanism of insulation, disruptive forces are social structure is defended.
Parsons concludes by observing, “Every social system has, in addition to the obvious rewards for confirmative and punishments for deviant behaviour, a complex system of unplanned and largely unconscious mechanisms which serves to counteract deviant tendencies. Very broadly these may be divided into the three classes of : (a) those which tend to “nip in the bud” tendencies to development of compulsively deviant motivation before they reach the vicious circle stage, (b) those which insulate the bearers of such motivation from influence on others, and (c) the “secondary defences” which are able to varying degree to reverse the vicious circle processes.
Cybernetic Hierarchy of Control
The cybernetic hierarchy of control is a conceptual scheme of Parsons for classifying the locus of social change. The information energy interchanges among action systems, according to him, provide the potential for change within or between the action systems. “One source of change may be excesses in either information or energy in the exchange among action systems, which, in turn, alter the informational or systems and within any system”. At the end of 1950s, Parsons tried to make interrelationships among four distinct actions system: culture, social, personality, and organism.
The social system is the integrative sub system of action in general. The other three systems, i.e., culture, personality, and organism, constitute the social system. Parsons believes that all action systems have its constituent subsystems. In this context, Loomis has effectively summarised the relationship between the systems and sub-systems of Parsons as follows:
Organisation and control are exhibited by one ordering levels of the four systems. The psychological system organises and controls the organism (in its behavioural aspects); the social system organises and controls the psychological system and the cultural system performs similarly in respect to the social system. By an ordering of the levels, sets of conditions basic to the cultural system, psychological systems a set of conditions on which the social systems depend, and the organism provides the conditions underlying the psychological system. There are characteristic interchanges among the four systems. The organism, for example, provides the personality system with inputs of motivational energy part of which is fed back to the organism in the form of control that increases the performance potential of the organism. Between the psychological and cultural systems a mutually integrative interchange takes place in which the psychological system is provided with legitimating by cultural components by which its functioning is made subject to normative patterns. Culture is provided with a “motivational commitment” by the psychological system which transcends an understanding of the norm to become a total internalisation of it, so that the norm becomes a part of an integral regulatory mechanism which is part of the personality system itself.
The overall action system and each of the subsystems fulfilling one of the four system functional requirements-adaptation, goal attainment, integration, and latency-are described by Turner as follows:
The organism is considered to be the subsystem having the most consequences for resolving adaptive problems, since it is ultimately through this system that environmental resources are made available to the other action subsystems. As the goal seeking and decision making system, personality is considered to have primary consequences for resolving goal-attainment problems. As an organised network of status-norms integrating the patterns of the cultural system and the needs of personality systems, the social system is viewed as the major integrative subsystem of the general action system. As the repository of symbolic content of interaction, the cultural system is considered to have primary consequences for managing tensions of actors and assuring that the proper symbolic resources are available to assure the maintenance of institutional patterns (Latency).
In the overall action system, each action system (ie., organism, personality or cultural) devotes as a subsystems of social system. In the hierarchy of informational control, according to Parsons, one subsystem makes an effect on the other. “What emerges in a hierarchy of informational controls, with culture informational circumscribing the social system, social structure information ally regulating the personality system, and personality information ally regulating the organic system.”
For instance, cultural based value orientations would control the norms of the social system, in turn, these norms would control the motives and decision-making processes in the personality system and finally these features of the personality system would affect the biochemical process in the organism. The entire scheme of Parsons’ “cybernetic hierarchy” is explained by Turner in the following words:
…each system in the hierarchy is also viewed as “energy conditions” necessary for action at the next higher system. That is, the organism provides the energy necessary for the personality system, the personality system provides the energy conditions for the social system, and the organisation of personality systems into a social system provides the conditions necessary for a cultural system. Thus, the input-output relations among action systems are energy. Systems high in information circumscribe the utilisation of energy at the next lower system level, while each lower system provides the conditions and facilities necessary for action in the next higher system. This scheme has been termed as “cybernetic hierarchy”
The entire scheme of the cybernetic hierarchy of control can be represented diagrammatically providing the reciprocal, with systems exchanging information and as follows :
The Cybernetic Hierarchy Control Function System Controlling Subsystem Interrelations
Latency Cultural System Cultural value InformationalControls
Integration Social System Collectivity ¯
Goal attainment Personality system Polity EnergeticConditions
Adaptation Organismic System Economy
Thus, Parsons has given emphasis on the intra and inter systematic relationship of the four action systems. In his analysis, information is consistent with the development of the idea of a cybernetic hierarchy of controls. This cybernetic hierarchy of control has been applied by Parsons in the generalised media of exchange. Although, Parsons has not clearly described the nature of these media, however, he tries to make a link between the basic types of media, or information to the cybernetic hierarchy of control.
The Concept of Anomie
Hegal, Marx, Durkheim have Discussed about “Anomie” before Talcott Parsons. He has presented his views about the concept of “anomie in his book entitled “The Social System” (1951). According to him, anomie is “the absence of structured complementarily of the inter-action process, or, what is the same thing, the complete breakdown of normative order.” This can be explained as follows:
In order to achieve certain social goals, an individual as an actor has to perform certain actions in social situation in relation to other actors. This interaction process is regulated and controlled by cultural norms of that socially, When this mutual reciprocity of relations between the different individual actors is distorted and jeopardized and when the cultural norms or normative longer able to regulate and control their behaviour, the state of order is no anomie prevails.
According to Parsons, anomie is the ‘polar antithesis of full institutionalization’ of a set of ‘role-expectations’ (i.e., standards for the behaviour of the actor) and of the corresponding ‘sanctions’ (ie., reactions of others We cannot expect that in a society all the roles of catch of the actors will be perfectly in accordance with the approved or accepted social norms and ideals. Similarly, we cannot also expect that there would be perfect equilibrium between the goals and actions of all the actors. Consequently. there are occasions when the behaviour and of the actions actor are listed norms and ideals. That is, the role of the actor is not in accordance with the expectations of the society and as such do not enjoy the sanction of others. This is the state of ‘anomie’.
Parsons has also stated that sometimes it so happens that the institutionalized time schedule (i.., determination or fixation of a particular time for a specific action) and the institutionalized priorities (i.e., which of the actions is to be performed first) are not properly defined. Therefore, it becomes very difficult for the individual actors to adjust in case of very conflicting and uncertain situations. Consequently, behaviour of the actors becomes anomie.
According to Parsons, the state of anomie prevails when many of the actors exhibit “a motivated tendency to behave in contravention of one or more institutionalized normative patterns” thereby “disturbing the equilibrium of the interactive process.” “The fact remains that all social action is normatively oriented, and that the value-orientations embodied in these norms must to a degree be common to the actors in an institutionally integrated interactive system.” When this is not the case, it is to the state of anomie, concludes Parsons.