Action System

Sociological Thinkers Sociological Thinkers : Talcott Parsons

Action System

As mentioned earlier, action according to Parsons does not occur in isolation but occurs in constellations. These constellations constitute action systems. These systems of action have three models of organization, which Parsons describes as the personality system, the cultural system and the social system.

The personality system refers to those aspects to the human personality which affect the individual’s social functioning. The cultural system encompasses instead, the actual beliefs, concrete systems of values and symbolic means of communication. The social system, in this context, refers to the forms and modes of interaction between individuals and its organization.

A social system, according to Parsons, has the following characteristics:

It involves an interaction between two or more actors, and the interaction process is its main focus.
Interaction takes place in a situation, which implies other actors or alters. These alters are objects of emotion and value judgment and through them goals and means of action are achieved.
There exists in a social system collective goal orientation or common values and a consensus on expectations in normative and cognitive (intellectual) senses.

Talcott Parsons developed his social theory of action systems throughout his career. In “Action Systems and Social Systems,’’ his summary of that theory as he worked it between 1961 and 1971, two of the most distinctive features of Parsons’s social theory are illustrated. First, he understands the social system to be a distinct entity, different from but interdependent with three other action systems: culture, personality, and the behavioral organism.

Second, Parsons makes explicit reference to Durkheim in his view that social systems are sui generis things in which values serve to maintain the patterned integrity of the system.As mentioned earlier, action according to Parsons does not occur in isolation but occurs in constellations. These constellations constitute action systems. These systems of action have three models of organization, which Parsons describes as the personality system, the cultural system and the social system.

Social Action To Social System

As variously oriented actors (in terms of their configuration of motivational and value orientations) interact, they come to develop agreements and sustain patterns of interaction, which become “institutionalized.” Such institutionalized patterns can be, in Parsons’ view, conceptualized as a social system. Such a system represents an emergent phenomenon that requires its own conceptual edifice. Yet, Parsons recognizes that the actors who are incumbent in such status roles are motivationally and value oriented; and thus, as he does for patterns of interaction, the task now becomes one of conceptualizing these dimensions of action in systemic terms. The result is the conceptualization of action as composed of three “interpenetrating action systems”: the cultural, the social, and the personality. That is, the organization of unit acts into social systems requires a parallel conceptualization of motives and values that become, respectively, the personality and cultural systems. The goal of action theory now becomes understanding how institutionalized patterns of interaction (the social system) are circumscribed by complexes of values, beliefs, norms and other ideas (the cultural system) and by configurations of motives and role-playing skills (the cultural system). Later, Parsons adds the organismic (subsequently called behavioral) system.

In a social system roles are institutionalized. Institutionalization means that expectations from a specific role, its values and motivations orientations are integrated within the culture of a society. Society sets common standards for role expectations from its members, and when an actor imbibes these standards common to society in he orientations and performance of his/her roles, the roles are said to have been institutionalized.

The boundary of a social system determines which members are included and which others are excluded from the membership of the collectivity. All collectivities have membership boundaries (such as, among others, those based on kinship, qualifications or skills or faith). By boundary we mean the limits to which a social system functions as a distinct identity. A kinship system, as an example of a social system has its members and their roles and statuses determined by the cultural pattern found in that society.

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