The Nature of Social Institutions

Abstract

THE term has commonly been used in sociology and social psychology to refer to certain aggregations of people. Thus, a state or a social club or a church is described as an institution. It is the thesis of this paper that the people who are connected with an institution are, for purposes of scientific analysis, of minor importance. Complete analysis of any group of people shows the existence of certain fundamental psychological entities, such as language, public opinion, and fashion, which hold the group together. It is these basal psychological entities which are the true social institutions. They are as real as any objects in the physical world. They have natures which can be studied and can be described in terms of the laws of their own unique beings. The position taken in this paper can be expressed more concretely by saying that it is of no scientific importance whatsoever that John Smith is a member of a certain social group or of a certain church. The essential fact about the social group or the church is a body of beliefs and a body of established modes of behavior. The beliefs and established modes of behavior can be thought of as a psychological pattern quite independent of any individual. This psychological pattern must have a certain internal consistency or the institution cannot survive. Thus, an ecclesiastical organization which prescribes that its members submit themselves to certain ritualistic ceremonies must provide the ceremonies. Furthermore, its exercises over its members an influence which produces sectarian exclusiveness and repels all who do not submit to the prescribed ritualistic ceremonies. The coming or going of one or more members is an incidental occurrence. The institution can survive as a historical entity even if its whole membership disappears. To speak of the group of people as constituting the institution is to confuse a secondary, resultant fact with the institution's essential reality. The people who accept the beliefs and modes of behavior which constitute the essentials of an institution are not the only objective realities which exhibit the vitality of the institution. Asocial group has a constitution; a church has a creed. Both the social group and the church have fixed times and places for the assembling of their members and for the performance of other characteristic functions. It would be quite as proper to say that the reality of a church consists in the edifice in which its members meet or in the book in which its creed is printed as to say that its reality consists in its members. The fact is that