ROBERT
MERTON
July 4, 1910 –
February 23, 2003
BIOGRAPHICAL BACKGROUND
•
Born Meyer R. Schkolnick in Philadelphia to working class Jewish Eastern
European immigrant parents.
•
A frequent visitor of the nearby Carnegie Library, The Academy of Music,
Central Library, and the Museum of the Arts.
•
Changed his name while working as an amateur magician in high school.
•
Began his sociological career at Temple University studying with George E.
Simpson and then under Pitrim A. Sorokin at Harvard.
•
Greatly influenced by Sorokin who chaired his dissertation committee,
along with Carle Zimmerman, George Sarton, and Talcott Parsons.
•
Dissertation was on the social history of the scientific development in
England in the seventeenth-century.
•
Merton’s second marriage was to fellow sociologist Harriet Zuckerman.
•
He had one son and two daughters, including Robert C. Merton, who won
the 1997 Nobel Prize in economics.
HONORS AND RECOGNITION
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Taught at Harvard, then as professor and chairman of the Department of
Sociology at Tulane University (1939).
1941- joined the faculty of Columbia University, became Giddings Professor
of Sociology in 1963.
1974 - achieved the highest rank at Columbia University as a University
Professor and later a Special Service Professor upon retirement in 1979.
One of the first sociologists elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
First American sociologist elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of
Sciences.
Member of the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of
Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Education, and Academica
Europaea .
1961 – received a Guggenheim fellowship
1983-88 – the first sociologist to be named a MacArthur Fellow
Awarded honorary degrees from over twenty institutions including Yale,
Harvard, Columbia, Chicago, and many universities abroad
1994 – received the U.S. National Medal of Science, the first sociologist to
receive this award
MERTON’S MAJOR PUBLICATIONS
Social Theory and Social Structure
(1949, 1957. 1968)
The Sociology of Science (1973)
Sociological Ambivalence (1976)
On the Shoulders of Giants:
A Shandea Postscript (1985)
The Travels and Adventures of
Serendipity: A Study in Sociological
Semantics and the Sociology of Science
(2004)
MERTON’S ORIGINATION of
“FRUITFUL AREAS OF INQUIRY”:
•middle-range theory
•unanticipated consequences of purposive social action
•the self-fulfilling prophecy [Thomas’ Theorem*]
•focused interview groups [focus groups]
•opportunity structure
•manifest and latent functions
•role-sets
•status-sets
•social dysfunctions (& social eufunctions)
•locals and cosmopolitans
•scientific paradigms
•the Matthew effect (eponymy) &
accumulation of advantage and disadvantage*
•self-exemplification of sociological ideas
•strategic research site
•reconceptualization [e.g., Durkheim’s anomie]
•serendipity pattern
MAJOR THEORIES
• Theories of the middle range
– “Fills in the blanks” between Abstracted Empiricism and Grand
(all-inclusive) Theory (C. Wright Mill’s terms).
– Influenced by Weber and Durkheim.
• Functional and Dysfunctional analysis
– Functionalism is central to interpreting data based upon
consequences for larger structures.
– Society is analyzed with reference to cultural and social structures
in regard to how well or badly they are integrated.
– Implies that all institutions are inherently serving for society,
emphasizing the importance and existence of dysfunctions.
– Approaches conflict theory.
– Can explain and discover alternatives to dysfunction only if the
dysfunctional aspects of institutions are recognized.
– Influenced by Durkheim and Parsons.
MAJOR THEORIES (continued)
• Manifest and latent functions
– Manifest functions: expected or observed consequences
– Latent functions: those that are not recognized or intended.
– Attention to latent functions increases understanding of the larger
society in going beyond individual motivation.
– Says that dysfunctions can also be manifest or latent
• Functional alternatives
– Societies must have certain characteristics to ensure survival
– Emphasizes that other institutions are able to fulfill the same functions
– Important because this “reduces the tendency of functionalism to
imply approval of the status quo”
MERTON’S CRITIQUE OF FUNCTIONALISM’S
FUNDAMENTAL PREMISES
• The premise of functional unity:
that all standardized social and cultural
beliefs and practices are functional for both
society as a whole as well as individuals in society.
• But this cannot be extended to complex societies.
• The premise of universal functionalism:
that all standardized social and cultural
structures and forms have a positive function.
• But not every part of society is positive.
• The premise of functional indispensability:
that the standardized parts of society have
positive functions, and also represent
indispensable parts of the working whole,
which leads to that structures and functions
are functionally necessary for society.
• But there are always various alternative structures.
CONCEPT OF DYSFUNCTION
What are Dysfunctions?
• Defined as the consequences of a social practice or behavior
pattern that undermines the stability of a social system.
• Merton paid especial attention to their existence.
• Important to be alert to and pay attention to the dysfunctional
aspects of social practices and institutions.
• Noticing dysfunctional aspects of society helps to explain the
development and persistence of alternatives, often initially seen
as problematical and or deviant.
MERTON’S MIDDLE RANGE THEORIES
“…stepping stones in the middle distance…
Merton: located between “minor but necessary working hypotheses… and
the all inclusive systematic efforts to develop a unified theory that attempts
to explain all…”
C. Wright Mills: located between “Abstracted Empiricism” and “Grand
Theory”
• Consisting of limited assumptions → specific hypotheses →
empirically confirmed
• Capable of being combined with other middle range theories
to build a wider network
• Can be generalized and applied to different situations
• Can fit in easily into different systems of theory
• Will typically be in harmony with the perspectives and
methods of the classical theorists
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES
OF THE MIDDLE RANGE
• Sociological Theory in general refers to logically
interconnected sets of propositions from which
empirical uniformities can be derived.
• Theories of the middle range-lie between the minor
but necessary working hypotheses that evolve
in abundance during day-to-day research and
the all-inclusive systematic efforts to develop a
unified theory that will explain all the observed
uniformities of social behavior, social organization,
and social change
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES
OF THE MIDDLE RANGE
• Theories of the Middle Range are principally used in
sociology to guide specific empirical inquiries.
• Such theories are more than simply empirical
generalizations - isolated propositions that
summarize the observed uniformities of
relationships between two or more variables.
ANOMIE: MERTON’S
RECONCEPTUALIZATION
• Re-conceptualizes Durkheim's concept of Anomie.
• Not necessarily an overall, or even localized breakdown in
the normative structure.
• The cultural system and social structure of society is
basically intact, workable, functional.
• In fact, to a certain extent, deviance represents the
functionality of the system as an expression of functional
alternatives.
• Basic Premise: A disjuncture within the cultural system
between the Goals (values) which define our lives and the
culturally determined, institutionalized, legitimate
Means (norms) for achieving them.
SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND ANOMIE
• Merton argues that deviance results from the culture
and structure of society itself. He begins from the
standard functionalist position of value consensus –
that is, all members of society share the same values.
• Since members of society are placed in different
positions in the social structure (e.g. they differ in
terms of class position), they do not have the same
opportunity of realizing the shared values. This
situation can generate deviance.
CULTURAL GOALS
AND INSTITUTIONALIZED MEANS
• Members of American society share the major values of American
culture, particularly the goal of success, largely measured in terms
of wealth and material possessions.
• In America the accepted ways of achieving success are through
education, talent, hard work, drive, determination and ambition.
• In a balanced society an equal emphasis is placed upon both
cultural goals and institutionalized means, and members are
satisfied with both. In American society great importance is
attached to success; less is attached to how you achieve success.
• Therefore, there is a tendency to “reject the rules of the game” and
strive for success by any means necessary. In this situation where
“anything goes,” norms no longer direct behaviour, and deviance is
tolerated if not encouraged.
PARSONS’ VOLUNTARISTIC UNIT ACT:
(Adopted by Merton)
“ENVIRONMENTAL”
CONDITIONS
THE
ACTOR
THE NORMATIVE ORDER
GOALS
ENDS
SELF
EGO
NEED
DISPOSITIONS
MOTIVATIONS
(psychodynamic)
-----------------
•Cognitive
•Appreciative
•Evaluative
“AVAILABLE”
MEANS
VALUE
ORIENTATIONS
(cultural frameworks)
--------------------------
•Cognitive Significance
•Expressive Symbolism
•Moral Standards
Merton’s Typology of Individual Adaptation
explanation of deviant behavior
Modes of
Adaptation
Conformity
Innovation
Ritualism
Retreatism
Rebellion
Institutionalized
Means
+
+
-/+
Cultural
Goals
+
+
-/+
+ = acceptance
- = rejection
+/- = rejection of current values, replacement with others
CONFORMITY
• Social order is maintained because modal behavior of
members represent the cultural patterns, even if they
are secularly changing.
• Behavior  basic values  society
– Society does NOT exist if there is no “deposit of
values” shared by interacting individuals.
• These values are the most common and widely diffused.
• They keep society “rolling”
CONFORMITY
Members of society conform both to the goals
of success and the normative means of
reaching them. They strive for
success by means of accepted
norms and channels.
INNOVATION
• Emphasis on success-goal  “wealth and power”
• “occurs when the individual has assimilated the
cultural emphasis upon the Goal without equally
internalizing the institutional Norms governing
ways and means for its attainment.”
• Drives both: business-like striving on one side of
mores and sharp “creative” practices on the other
side of the mores….
INNOVATION
This response rejects the normative means
of achieving success and turns to deviant
means, always questionable, often criminal.
"Bernie" Madoff: former stockbroker,
investment advisor, financier, and the
former non-executive chairman of
the NASDAQ stock market, and the
convicted operator of the Ponzi scheme considered to be
the largest financial fraud – $18 billion – in in U.S. history!
RITUALISM
• Scaling down/abandoning cultural goals for personal
aspirations.
– Although attempting not to accept cultural
influences, abiding by institutional norms.
• Not generally considered to represent a social problem.
• Fairly frequent because dependent upon individua lack
of achievement or ambition.
• Ritualist: familiar and instructive comments:
- “I’m satisfied with what I’ve got.”
- “Don’t aim high and you won’t be disappointed.”
- “I just work here; I don’t make the rules.”
RITUALISM
• Serves as a private escape:
– Avoids dangers and frustrations of cultural norms.
– Holds on to safe routines and institutional norms.
• Often found in the Lower-Middle Class, when
– Parents exert pressure to children about moral
mandates of society.
– Upward social mobility not easy to obtain.
RITUALISM
Ritualism: those who select
this alternative are deviant
because they have largely
abandoned the commonly
held cultural goals of success.
RETREATISM
• May be least common form of adaptation
• “in the society but not of it”
– outcasts, vagabonds, chronic drunkards, drug
addicts, street people, etc.
• Individuals have assimilated standards of both
cultural goals and institutional means  but
they not accessible  individual is shut off.
• Escape mechanisms: defeatism, quietism,
resignation, detachment.
RETREATISM
• Solution for deviant person:
abandon both goals and means and become asocial.
• Condemned because represents a “non-productive
liability.”
• Positive side – minimal frustrations while seeking
unattainable rewards.
• Negative side – socially disinherited.
• Adaptations are largely private and isolated.
RETREATISM
Applies to ‘psychotics, autistics,
pariahs, outcasts, vagrants,
vagabonds, tramps, drug addicts
and chronic drunkards.’ They have
internalized both the cultural goals
and the institutionalized means, yet
are unable to achieve success, and
so withdraw.
REBELLION
• Collective adaptation.
– Involves genuine transvaluation.
– Experience of frustration leads to full
denunciation of previously prized values.
• Key difference: resentment condemns the object
being craved; rebellion condemns craving.
• More likely to occur if the institutional system is a
barrier to satisfying goals.
• Goal is to stay a part of society, but transition to an
alternative social group.
REBELLION
It is a rejection of both the success goals and the
institutionalized means, and it replaces them with
different goals and means.
REBELLION
UNANTICIPATED CONSEQUENCES
OF PURPOSIVE SOCIAL ACTION
• Crucial innovation to the field of Sociology to look at
unanticipated consequences.
• Social actions have both intended and unintended
consequences.
• Requires sociological analysis to discover.
• Can be both negative and beneficial.
Example:
Aspirin, used most
commonly as pain reliever
Unanticipated consequence:
aspirin is also an anticoagulant which can help
reduce the risk of a heartattack.
ANOTHER EXAMPLE:
Beneficial Consequence
In WW II, many battles took
place on or near the shore.
Artillery on land firing at a
battleship at sea with the
intention of sinking the ship.
The sinking battleships created a
permanent home to the creatures of
the sea as it acted as an artificial
coral reef.
Negative Consequence
The oil from the battleships pollute
the ocean water. This can lead to
environmental hazards and to the
death of many species.
DISTINGUISHING
MANIFEST AND LATENT FUNCTIONS
• There is often confusion between the conscious
motivations of social behavior and its objective
consequences.
• Difference between motives and functions:
– Manifest Functions: intended and objective
consequences for a specified unit (person,
subgroup, social or cultural system) which
contribute to its adjustment or adaptation.
– Latent Functions: unintended and unrecognized
consequences.
HEURISTIC PURPOSES
OF THE DISTINCTION
• Clarifies the analysis of seemingly irrational data:
– When group behavior does not attain its supposed
purpose, there is an inclination to attribute its occurrence
to lack of intelligence, innocence, naiveté.
– Concept of latent functions extends beyond whether or not
behavior attained its purpose.
– Directs attention towards individual personalities
involved in behavior, and the persistence and continuity
of the larger group.
EXAMPLES
#1. Hopi rain dance does not produce rainfall, so it is
labeled as superstitious and the Hopi people are
viewed as ignorant or primitive.
However, the Hopi rain dance ceremonial has nonpurposed, latent functions - reinforces group identity,
reaffirms group norms, provides a communal
experience of the Sacred with all that implies.
#2. As recently as the 1980’s the average birth rate in the
India was 4.6 children per family, resulting in an
apparent national overpopulation and so was seen
as irrational and counter-productive to social
development.
What’s a functional explanation…?
A functional explanation…
In the 1980’s the average Indian male could expect a number of
years of unemployment when he got older. India had no social
security program and the typical worker did not earn enough to
save for these unemployed years. His only hope, then was to be
provided for by his children. It took an average of 1.1 wage
earners to support one unemployed adult at minimum
subsistence, but because it takes two to produce a child, each
family needed at least 2.2 wage-earning children. Because half
the children born were female, and females were essentially
unemployable in India at the time, 4.4 children were required. To
cover infant and child mortality, this number had to be adjusted
upward to 4.6 children. Clearly, nobody was figuring this out on
an explicit basis. It represents a dramatic example of a latent
social phenomenon, both functional and dysfunctional.
IMPACT OF MERTON’S THEORY
• If confined to the study of manifest functions:
– the sociologist will be concerned with determining
whether a practice instituted for a particular purpose
does, in fact, achieve this purpose.
• Once expanded to the study of latent functions:
– the sociologist will examine familiar (or planned)
social practices to determine the latent, unrecognized,
functions and make distinctive intellectual
contributions
IMPACT OF MERTON’S THEORY
• Findings concerning latent functions represent an
increment in knowledge because they describe
practices and beliefs in terms which are not common
knowledge.
• They preclude the substitution of naïve moral judgments
for thoughtful sociological analysis.
• Naïve moral judgments in society usually result
from the manifest consequences of a social practice or
code of behavior not critically examined.
IMPACT OF MERTON’S THEORY
• Analysis in terms of latent functions, then, often
runs counter to the prevailing moral evaluations.
• Considered from the functional viewpoint:
– Persistent social patterns and social structures
perform positive functions which, at the time, are
not adequately fulfilled by other existing patterns
and structures.
– Publicly criticized behaviors and organizations –
often defined as deviant – are, under present
conditions, very likely satisfying basic and
important latent functions.
MULTIPLE VARIABLES
TO CONSIDER SIMULTANEOUSLY
STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONAL CATEGORIES
(ala Robert Merton)
Manifest or Latent
Intended or Unintended
Group Level or Individual Level
Eufunctional or Dysfunctional
MERTON’S GENERAL PARADIGM OF
SOCIOLOGICAL / STRUCTURAL
AMBIVALENCE:
STRUCTURALLY CREATED STRAIN
“opposing normative tendencies
in the social definition of a
role or status”
Individuals as
Status-Occupants
status-sets
role-sets
norm-clusters
SOCIOLOGY: ASOCIOLOGYSSS
SYSTEMATIC APPROACH
MERTON’S SEQUENCE
GROUP
MEMBERSHIP
GROUP
MEMBERSHIP
GROUP
MEMBERSHIP
GROUP
MEMBERSHIP
GROUP
MEMBERSHIP
STATUS-SET
STATUS(ES) =
ROLE-SET =
ROLE(S)
NORM-SET =
NORMS
ROBERT MERTON’S
ROLE-SET, STATUS-SET
THEORY
THE PARADIGM IN GENERAL:
In its most extended form:
Incompatible normative expectations of attitudes,
beliefs, and behavior are assigned to a status or to
a set of statuses.
In its most restricted form:
Incompatible normative expectations are
incorporated within a single role of a single status.
SPECIFIC CONFLICTS & CONTRADICTIONS
• Conflict among statuses within a status-set:
a pattern of conflict of interests or of values
within the status-set.
• Conflict between several roles associated with a
particular status.
• Contradictions among general cultural values
held by all members of society, i.e., not specific
to a particular status.
SPECIFIC CONFLICTS & CONTRADICTIONS
• Conflict or disjunction between culturally
prescribed aspirations and socially structured
avenues for realizing these aspirations (the
opportunity structure).
• Contradiction or conflict between cross-cultural
statuses.
• Contradiction or conflict between reference group
anchors or identifications.
ROLE-SET THEORY
• Begins with the concept that each social status involves
not a single associated role, but an array of roles (a roleset).
• Example: A medical student plays not only the role of
student vis-à-vis the correlative status of his teachers
but also an array of other roles relating diversely to
others in the system: other medical students, physicians,
nurses, social workers, medical technicians, non-medical
students, university administrative personnel, and the
like.
ROLE-SET THEORY
• Role-Set theory raises the general problem of identifying
the social mechanisms which create and alleviate
conflict.
• Illustrates another aspect of sociological theories of
the middle range.
• Largely consistent with a variety of schools of
sociological theory: Marxist theory, structural
functional analysis, social behaviorism, Sorokin’s
integral sociology, and Parson’s s theory of action.
ROLE-SET THEORY
• There is always a potential for differing expectations
among those in a role-set as to what is appropriate
conduct for a status-occupant given that other members
of a role-set hold various social positions differing from
those of the status-occupant in question.
• This gives rise to a double question: What social
mechanisms, if any, operate to counteract the potential
instability of role-sets and, correlatively, under which
circumstances do these social mechanisms fail to
operate, with resulting inefficiency, confusion, and
conflict?
Obligations and Responsibilities
Normative Expectations (Rules)
SOCIAL STATUS
Cognitive Attributes: Beliefs, Values,
Motivations and Attitudes
Interests
Power & Authority
Social Capital
Obligations and Responsibilities
What am I supposed to do?
Where do these come from?
SOCIAL STATUS
How do they change over historical
time? – e.g., fathers and parenting.
Individuals who occupy a given status
must take these into account.
The extent to which individuals who
occupy a given status live up to the
responsibilities and obligations that
are called for varies.
Normative Expectations (Rules)
How am I supposed to do all this?
Guidelines, rules for social conduct.
They indicate how one “ought” to act or
behave in social settings:
SOCIAL STATUS
Prescribed - Proscribed
Permitted - Preferred
Norms vary from one culture to another.
Norms vary from one sub-culture to another.
Norms vary over historical time.
Normative Expectations (Rules)
How am I supposed to do all this?
Do not confuse “norms” with actual
action or behavior.
SOCIAL STATUS
The extent to which people consider
norms legitimate varies.
The extent to which people comply with
norms varies.
Norms vary in their importance:
Folkways - norms for routine or casual interactions
Mores - norms derived from moral values
Taboos - norms that place behavior out of bounds
Laws - norms that are codified and are sanctioned
Obligations and Responsibilities
[What am I supposed to do?]
Normative Expectations (Rules)
[How am I supposed to do all this?]
SOCIAL STATUS
Cognitive Attributes: Beliefs, Values,
Motivations and Attitudes
Mutually reinforcing and reciprocal
Expectations.
Whether we recognize it or not, we
possess a vast storehouse of “social
knowledge” and, to varying degrees,
know what is expected of us & what
to expect of others.
S
T
A
B
I
L
I
T
Y
Interests
Conflict is built into society
SOCIAL STATUS
Conflict is built into the very fabric of
society. It is as normal - and healthy - as
the air we breathe and usually occurs
in socially patterned ways.
By virtue of occupying different
Positions, people will have different sets of
LEGITIMATE interests, values and
attitudes.
Thus a great deal of conflict in society is structured: it is the
result of people – status-occupants – trying to live up to the
expectations placed upon them.
Interests
Conflict is built into society
If conflict is built into the very fabric of
society, how is it managed?
SOCIAL STATUS
What are the patterns and functions of
conflict?
How are conflicts – whether legitimate or
not – resolved?
Power & Authority
Both are necessary for society
Power: the capacity to impose one’s will
over others, even against the resistance
of others; coercion.
SOCIAL STATUS
Authority: the capacity to have others
comply with your wishes - even if they
would prefer not to - because they
recognize the legitimacy of the request.
Power and authority are usually not individual attributes, they
are located in the positions people occupy; i.e., U.S. President.
The extent to which power and authority
are exercised by status-occupants varies.
Power & Authority
Both are necessary for society
Power and authority are not equally
distributed in all social statuses:
SOCIAL STATUS
employer - employee
male - female
professor - student
dean - professor
wealthy - poor
white - non-white
As a result, we should expect to find different outcomes in
society, as indeed we do:
racial disparities in criminal sentencing
unequal pay for men and women
Social Capital
Access to Opportunities and Resources
Inequality is built into society
“Central or Controlling Statuses”
SOCIAL STATUS
Different statuses provide occupants
different degrees of access to resources
and opportunities - some more, some
less. Examples:
the double standard
the opportunity structure
the glass ceiling
Status-sets
MASTER AND DOMINANT STATUSES
Master Status: that status within an individual’s
status-set that has special importance for social identity,
often shaping a person’s entire life.
Dominant Status: that status within an individual’s
status-set that is given priority when the behavioral
expectations associated with two or more statuses
come into conflict.
Salient Status: that status within an individual’s status-set
that is elicited in a particular situation.
MASTER STATUSES
MULTIPLE STATUSES
THE STATUE WITHIN:
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
François Jacob
(1920 – 2013)
In the following excerpt, Professor
of Medicine François Jacob and Nobel
Prize Laureate reflects on what has
been an obviously dramatic life.
I have portrayed his “series of selves” as a series of statuses which he
has occupied and/or transitioned through in his life sequence….
 I see my life less as continuity than as a series of different selves – I
might almost say strangers.
 At the end of the line, I see the little boy, the only child, cajoled by a
sweet mother, spoiled by all, playing (too often alone) while
mouthing words that he tries out and twists ad infinitum.
Then comes the adolescent, swollen with vanity, full of ambition, a
shade backward with girls.
 Then, the medical student preparing to become a surgeon.
 The fighting man of the Free French forces, thrown across North
Africa with an infantry battalion from Chad.
 The wreck of a man, lacerated by grenades, who returns to Paris
and make a stab at 10 different professions.
 The beginner at the Pasteur Institute, discovering in awe the world
of research and biology.
All this gang marching in single file….
François Jacob…
I have trouble imaging that, when the name Francois
Jacob is called, all these selves can leap up and answer,
“Present!”
When I come across my name in a report card, a military
document, or an old newspaper article, it seems to refer to
fellows who happen to have the same name as I. Would I
recognize them if I passed them on the street?
Like the bird contemplating the shell it has just broken
out of, and saying, “Me? In there? Never!”
Status-sets
“identities”
Father
Husband
Age:
54
Race:
“White”
Professor
Executive
Director
Friend
Status-Activation & “Salient Statuses”
Since individuals occupy multiple statuses, which
specific status becomes activated at any given time?
How is this “socially negotiated” by partners in
interactions? How are discrepant activations resolved?
Status-sets
“identities”
Father
Husband
Age:
54
Race:
“White”
Professor
Executive
Director
Friend
Since individuals occupy multiple statuses they are
subject to cross-pressures: expectations to comply
with contending expectations of different statuses.
Status-consistency
to what extent are the beliefs, values
attitudes, interests and social standing
attached to different statuses in an
individual’s status-set consistent?
…and then how are the inevitable
inconsistencies that arise managed?
Status-sets
Status-conflict; Status-strain
Father
Husband
Age:
54
Race:
“White”
Professor
Executive
Director
Friend
Conflict: living up to the demands and obligations of one
status precludes fulfilling the demands and obligations
of another status.
Strain: fulfilling all of the various status demands and
obligations, but at less than peak effectiveness –
having to prioritize, make trade offs, cut corners.
Status-conflict or
Status-strain
Role-conflict or
Role-strain
Role-set of the status of “Professor”
Professor
Students
Colleagues
Deans
Support
Staff
(each with a variable “person-set)
Community
MULTIPLE STATUSES
FAT PENCIL MODEL
INDIVIDUAL STATUS-SET
SPECIFIC ROLE-SET
SELF
IMAGE
COUNTER ROLES
MULTIPLE STATUSES
IF YOU CAN IDENTIFY
YOUR COUNTER ROLE
OCCUPANTS THEY WILL
LEAD YOU TO YOUR ROLE-SET.
JANE DOE’S STATUS SET
ROLE-SET CHARACTERISTICS
• Size or Volume – the number of roles in the role-set.
• Elasticity – the degree to which the role can be readily expanded.
• Visibility – the degree to which the whole set of roles can be seen
by other role occupants.
• Prior Assignment (Priority) – the order in which the roles have
accumulated in the role-set.
• Consistency – the degree to which the roles require divergent
activities.
• Differential Involvement (Role Distance) – the degree to which the
role occupant is invested in and/or identified with the role.
STATUS-SET CHARACTERISTICS
Aggregative:
• Size – the number of statuses held by an individual.
• Variability – the degree to which they are different from each
other.
• Empirical Duration (newness, recentcy) – sequence in which
acquired.
• Expected Duration – how long the status will last.
• Rank Consistency (congruency) – degree to which the statuses
are of similar social rank.
STATUS-SET CHARACTERISTICS
Emergent:
• Social or Structural Differentiation – the degree to which statuses
vary from one another.
• Integration (substantive consistency, modal frequency) – the degree
to which the required status activities do not conflict with one another.
• Visibility (identifiability) – the degree to which they can be seen by
other status occupants.
• Hierarchical Sequence – rank order within the status-set itself.
• Dominance (primacy) – which status takes priority over others.
• Centrality/Controlling (access) – degree to which a status controls
access to other statuses.
• Salient (activated) – a particular status precipitated due to interaction
in a specific context.
STATUS-SET CHARACTERISTICS
● Person-Set: The number of persons with whom interaction occurs
in a specific status.
● Cross-cutting Statuses: Statuses which are identical with other
persons’ status sets.
● Cue-emitting: Self-presentations which provide role and/or
status information to others.
● Cue-searching: Gathering role and/or status information from
the self-presentation of others
● Status Judges: Status positions whose occupants determine entry
or exit to specific statuses
TWO DIFFERENT TYPES OF SOCIETY,
TWO DIFFERENT STATUS SETS
GESELLSCHAFT
STATUS-SET
different
different
different
different
different
different
different
different
different
GEMEINSCHAFT
STATUS-SET
different
66.7%
IN COMMON
IN COMMON
IN COMMON
IN COMMON
different
23.5%
IN COMMON
IN COMMON
IN COMMON
IN COMMON
different
different
different
different
THERE ARE RELATIVELY FEW
STATUSES IN A GEMEINSCHAFT
SOCIETY, AND MOST OF THEM
ARE HELD IN COMMON
THERE ARE MANY MORE
STATUSES IN A GESELLSCHAFT
SOCIETY, AND RELATIVELY FEW
ARE HELD IN COMMON
CROSS-CUTTING STATUSES
Engineer
Male
Single
Democrat
Unitarian
Euro-American
Homosexual
Rotary Member
Renter
Childless
Engineer
Male
Single
Democrat
Baptist
African American
Heterosexual
Rotary Member
Renter
Childless
Engineer
Male
Single
Democrat
Unitarian
African American
Homosexual
Rotary Member
Renter
Childless
Social Worker
Female
Married
Home Owner
Parent
Republican
Baptist
Euro-American
Heterosexual
Social Worker
Female
Married
Home Owner
Parent
Democrat
Baptist
African American
Heterosexual
Social Worker
Female
Married
Home Owner
Parent
Republican
Baptist
African American
Heterosexual