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Book No. – 24 (Sociology)
Book Name – The Social System
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1. THE SOCIALIZATION OF THE CHILD AND THE INTERNALIZATION OF SOCIAL VALUE-ORIENTATIONS
2 BASIC PERSONALITY STRUCTURE MODAL CLUSTERING AND DIVERSITY
3. THE SITUATIONAL ROLE-SPECIFICATION OF ORIENTATIONS
4. AN EXAMPLE: THE “PROFIT MOTIVE
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The Learning of Social Role-Expectations and the Mechanisms of Socialization of Motivation
Chapter – 6
Table of Contents
- The social system is a system of interdependent action processes that involves changes from one state to another.
- The previous chapters have abstracted certain aspects of the social system, and now it’s necessary to focus on the process aspect within the system itself.
- The concept of mechanism is important, used in a way similar to its use in physiology and personality psychology.
- A process refers to any mode in which a given state of a system changes into another, with laws governing these processes stated in terms of interrelations between relevant variables.
- Sometimes, laws governing a process are incompletely known or not known at all, but empirical generalizations can still be made.
- A scientist isolates specific processes or classes of processes and treats them as systems. Sometimes, processes are treated as part of a larger system, and when interest is focused on alternative outcomes and their significance to the larger system, it is called a mechanism.
- The laws of motivational process are not relative, but mechanisms of motivation are relative, as they are formulated with reference to a particular class of system.
- Personality systems and social systems have different mechanisms. Generalized laws of motivational processes from psychology are applicable to social systems, but mechanisms of personality cannot be directly applied to social processes.
- Social systems do not “repress,” “project,” or have “dominant” or “submissive” tendencies; these are mechanisms of personality. However, the motivational processes involved in these mechanisms also operate in social systems.
- Motivation always operates in individual actors, and when we refer to the “motivation” of a collectivity, we are speaking about the uniformities in the motivations of its members.
- Criteria of relevance are necessary to select the relevant uniformities and patterns of organization of motivations, often not provided in generalized knowledge of motivational processes.
- To make this specification, it is crucial to systematically identify the consequences of alternative outcomes for the social system. This necessity gives structural analysis a priority over dynamic or motivational analysis in understanding social systems.
- Without structural analysis, it is difficult to begin dynamic conceptualization and judge the relevance of motivational processes to the social system.
- The first task is to classify motivational mechanisms of the social system and relate them to the mechanisms of personality.
- Mechanisms of the personality system are classified into three categories: learning, defense, and adjustment.
- Learning is the process of acquiring new elements of action-orientation, such as values, goals, and cognitive orientations, and continues throughout life.
- Defense mechanisms address conflicts within the personality, such as conflicts between needs and sub-systems. When conflicts are resolved, defense mechanisms merge into learning mechanisms.
- Adjustment mechanisms help the individual actor deal with strains and conflicts in relations to objects and situations, such as the threat of losing an attachment object or frustration in goal attainment. When resolved, adjustment mechanisms merge into learning.
- The classification assumes that learning is the process of change within the personality system, and defense and adjustment are equilibrating processes that counteract tendencies to change.
- There is no class of mechanisms for maintaining a stable motivational process; it is assumed that once a motivational process is stabilized, it continues unless altered.
- This assumption is similar to the Newtonian law of inertia, where the focus is on what makes bodies change motion, not on maintaining motion.
- The motivational counterpart in social and personality systems is that change in intensity or direction of action is what poses the problem in dynamics of action theory.
- For both social and personality systems, the focus is on changes in states of the system where there are known tendencies to alter these states.
- The application of this principle means that the problems of the mechanisms of the social system arise where tendencies to alter established states of the social system are observed.
- The central question is: what constitutes an established state of a social system or relevant sub-system?
- An established state of a social system is a process of complementary interaction between individual actors, where each conforms to the expectations of the other(s), and their reactions positively reinforce the other’s need-dispositions, fulfilling their expectations.
- The maintenance of the complementarity of role-expectations, once established, is assumed to be the first law of social process.
- No special mechanisms are needed to explain the maintenance of complementary interaction-orientation.
- Tendencies to deviate from this equilibrium can arise from two main factors:
- The orientations an actor implements in complementary interactions are learned and not inborn. Before learning a role-orientation, an actor might disrupt the equilibrium of interaction.
- Socialization is the process of learning the orientations necessary for adequate functioning in a role.
- Socialization mechanisms are the motivational processes that support the normal functioning of the social system.
- However, the socialization process is not limited to learning role-orientations; changes within individual personalities and situational changes can disrupt equilibrium.
- Deviance refers to tendencies to depart from conformity with the common standards set by the role expectations, even if the actor has had a full opportunity to learn the requisite orientations.
- Tendencies to deviance present problems of control for the social system, as deviance beyond certain limits can disintegrate the system.
- The second class of mechanisms is social control mechanisms, which are motivational processes that counteract tendencies to deviate from fulfilling role-expectations.
- A social control mechanism is a reequilibrating process in one or more actors, encouraging actors to abandon deviance and resume conformity.
- Mechanisms of social control involve elements of defense and adjustment from the personality system but are not the same; they are mechanisms of the social system.
- Mechanisms of social control are more closely related to personality adjustment mechanisms as both arise from interrelations with social objects, addressing problems of adjustment and control.
- Functionally, social control mechanisms are more analogous to defense mechanisms, as both maintain internal integration and check disruptive tendencies within a system.
- Socialization and social control mechanisms are related to allocative processes in the social system, specifically the allocation of personnel between roles.
- Allocation is viewed in terms of its functional significance to the system, while socialization is seen in terms of the motivation of individual actors.
- Socialization involves learning to make decisions between alternative roles available to the individual in the social system, and these decisions reflect the value-orientations acquired through socialization.
- Allocation of facilities and rewards is viewed from the motivational perspective as a process of acquiring and losing valued object-relations by individual actors, affecting their income or situational adjustments.
- These adjustments may be learned through socialization mechanisms or may lead to deviance, requiring the operation of social control mechanisms.