General Theory Of Action Research Articles

Talcott Parsons on building personality system theory via psychoanalysis.

This article examines Talcott Parsons's efforts at building the theory of personality system as a special case of his general theory of action and places those efforts in historical context. I demonstrate how, during the middle decades of the twentieth century, Parsons employed elements of classic Freudian thought to advance a new appreciation of the personality system and its relations to other action systems. I begin with an overview of the reception of psychoanalysis at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, the Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Harvard Department of Social Relations, showing how Parsons's thinking on the personality system cannot be understood apart from his association with these three institutions. I then turn to how Parsons endeavored to integrate his particular brand of sociology with his own interpretation of Freud's writings to explain how the personality system functions and develops. I conclude by showing that while Parsons's involvements with psychoanalysis became more intermittent after the mid-1950s, to the end of his life he remained steadfast in his enthusiasm for Freud's theory of personality. In short, Parsons always believed that for sociological theory to progress, it needed to engage with psychoanalysis.

Toward a General Theory of Action in Total War and Genocide: Evgeny Finkel on Choice and Survival during the Holocaust

Toward a General Theory of Action in Total War and Genocide: Evgeny Finkel on Choice and Survival during the Holocaust

Toward a General Theory of Action in Total War and Genocide: Evgeny Finkel on Choice and Survival during the Holocaust

Toward a General Theory of Action in Total War and Genocide: Evgeny Finkel on Choice and Survival during the Holocaust

The Artist as Prophet: Emerson's Thoughts on Art

This essay reclaims "Thoughts on Art" as Emerson's principal statement about art as part of a general theory of action and creation. It argues that Emerson viewed art as a question of degree, something more or less present in individual artworks. It explores the tension between Emerson's idea that art is created by Spirit and the fact that it is created by artists, and defends Emerson against the charge that, on his view, the artist deserves no credit for his work. Artistic talent and genius overcome obstacles posed by nature and further the artist's pursuit of self-knowledge.

Interrelationships of Personal Values: A Moderated Mediation Analysis Based on Gender and Age

The present study describes ten personal values expressed by men and women from two countries, and it explores the relationships between two opposing values, Achievement and Benevolence, specifying Stimulation as a mediator between them. It is further explored whether such a mediation model could be further qualified by age and Gender as moderators. The 40-item Portraits Values Questionnaire (PVQ), measuring ten basic values, was administered to 1,000 young adults from two countries. Hierarchical regression methods were applied to examine mediation and moderation mechanisms.Minor gender and country differences emerged for some of the ten basic values. An indirect relationship among the three selected values was identified. Stimulation was found to operate as a mediator between achievement and benevolence. A conditional process model was established with Gender moderating the Achievement – Stimulation path (men had a steeper slope than women), whereas age moderated the Stimulation – Benevolence path (younger individuals had a steeper slope than older ones). Gender also moderated the Achievement – Benevolence path (men had a steeper slope than women). For men, the association between achievement and stimulation was stronger than for women. For the younger persons, the association between stimulation and benevolence was stronger than for older ones. For women, the level of benevolence was independent of their achievement level. The present analyses shed new light on indirect and differential associations among personal values, adding a novel perspective to research on cognitive mechanisms involved in the ten basic values’ becoming.
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Doing Sociomateriality Research in Information Systems

This paper agrees with Mueller et al.'s (2016) view that researchers who want to adopt a sociomaterial approach often find themselves confused regarding research methods. However, it departs from Mueller's et al. suggestion to seek guidance from the structural-functionalist approach of Parsons' and Shils' (1951) General Theory of Action. The paper argues that finding a methodological framework for research following a sociomaterial approach has to be consistent with the philosophy, ontology and roots of this approach and that it is limiting to read the post-human approach of sociomateriality through a structural-functionalist lens. The paper briefly reviews the roots of the sociomaterial approach in sociology and information systems and offers a methodological guidance based on Actor Network Theory (ANT) and post ANT/Feminist lenses.

Comparison of the Influence of the Chinese Lobby and the Israeli Lobby in the United States

The article is about how pro-Israel and pro-China interest groups try to lobby on the ground of Capitol, White House and executive branch. The study of the lobbying results is based on «General theory of action» T. Parsons. It is concluded that for lobbying interests the main point will be the representation of the interests in the political and public spaces and the creating of advocacy and lobbying infrastructure. The ability of the Israeli lobby to achieve the goal can be explained, firstly, by political inclusion in the decision-making process, and, secondly, by almost axiomatic representation Israel interests through the national interests of the United States. The Israeli lobby can be considered as the religious lobby. It can use the possibilities of Jewish religious organizations in grass root action. Also this gives the opportunity to avoid the requirements of the LDA. From the point of view of the theory of Talcott Parsons, the success of the Israeli lobby is the cause of the action of a large number of actors that may form in large groups. Another advantage of the Israeli lobby is the ability of its members to get relevant information about the current situation in different spheres of political life in the U.S. The objective of the present study was to reveal the ways in which China lobby succeeds. The influence of China lobby on decision-making process in the United States can be explained through strong economic ties between American corporations and the Chinese market. When lobbying China uses numerous Chinese Diaspora in many States, as well as trying to interest of the former high-ranking American officials, granting them special privileges for doing business in China. In comparison to the Israeli lobby, the Chinese lobby has weaknesses. Chinese interest groups are not included in the political system of the USA and this is the disadvantage of the Chinese way of lobbying. Unlike Israel lobby Chinese one is external. The interests of the chinese pressure groups do not coincide with American national interests. Their actors are not rooted in the American political system.

Do I Qualify for a Love Relationship? Social Norms and Long-Distance Relationships in Post-Soviet Latvia

Not all couples live together; some partners live far from each other, causing potential challenges to relationship maintenance in terms of keeping the relationship ongoing. In the present study, complications in relationship maintenance experienced by heterosexual long-distance partners in post-Soviet Latvia are analysed. The complications are examined in the light of social norms as conceptualized by Parsons and Shils (Toward a general theory of action. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1962) in their notion of dominant value orientations. The article suggests that the norm conflicts experienced by the long-distance partners are illustrative of the value transitions in societies undergoing rapid social change, such as in Latvia. The analysis is based on 19 in-depth interviews with individuals with long-distance relationship (LDR) experience. The social norms complicating or hindering LDR maintenance were found to be generation-specific and gender-specific. The interviewees born and raised in Soviet Latvia referred to collective-oriented norms while the interviewees born in the independent neo-liberal Latvia referred to their own interests that complicated their LDR maintenance.

Soziologische Gerechtigkeitsanalyse. Überlegungen zur theoretischen Fundierung eines Forschungsfeldes

Abstract During the last years the focus of sociological justice research has been on the measurement of justice attitudes of the people outside the laboratory via large scale and internationally comparative surveys. Within these surveys one attempt has been to identify the social determinants and the consequences of individual justice attitudes. However, the theoretical foundation of this research within exiting sociological theories and concepts has been neglected. Therefore, the sociological justice research is so far not able to provide theoretically sound answers to at least two questions: (1) why do people think justice is important, and (2) what are the reasons for substantively different justice attitudes? By using the theory of social production functions and the goal-framing theory this contribution tries to overcome this shortcoming and suggests an explanation why justice is seen as a desirable goal and why norms of justice are in the very own interest of the individual. Assumptions are derived under which conditions individuals declare themselves in favor of a specific principle of justice to solve conflicts of allocation and distribution. The aim of this paper is to derive theoretically substantive and empirically testable predictions based on a general theory of action and thus to contribute to a stronger theoretical foundation of sociological justice research.

Tradition in the Work of Shils and Polanyi

Tradition in the Work of Shils and Polanyi

A Semantical Account of Progression in the Presence of Uncertainty

Building on a general theory of action by Reiter and his colleagues, Bacchus et al. give an account for formalizing degrees of belief and noisy actions in the situation calculus. Unfortunately, there is no clear solution to the projection problem for the formalism. And, while the model has epistemic features, it is not obvious what the agent's knowledge base should look like. Also, reasoning about uncertainty essentially resorts to second-order logic. In recent work, Gabaldon and Lakemeyer remedy these shortcomings somewhat, but here too the utility seems to be restricted to queries (with action operators) about the initial theory. In this paper, we propose a fresh amalgamation of a modal fragment of the situation calculus and uncertainty, where the idea will be to update the initial knowledge base, containing both ordinary and (certain kinds of) probabilistic beliefs, when noisy actions are performed. We show that the new semantics has the right properties, and study a special case where updating probabilistic beliefs is computable. Our ideas are closely related to the Lin and Reiter notion of progression.

The Study of Religion in the University: Beyond Scientific and Humanistic Approaches

This essay considers an exchange between ‘‘new secular’’ theologians in the US and a Canadian proponent of the scientific study of religion, about humanistic and scientific values in the academic study of religion, in relation to the character of contemporary universities and the scope of the humanities. It suggests that the humanistic study of religion is culturally normal in North American higher education and educationally important, but is limited as a program for the study of religion as social reality. The essay argues that systematic, integrated study of religions, incorporating contemporary knowledge about human behavior, is necessary for understanding actions of religious people in social and historical circumstances. To this end it proposes an integrated causal model, drawing on Michael Pye’s concept of Religionswissenschaft and Talcott Parsons’s general action theory.

Producing Parsons' reputation: Early critiques of Talcott Parsons' social theory and the making of a caricature

This article examines the critical responses to Talcott Parsons' first major work, The Structure of Social Action (1937), and his two subsequent books, Toward a General Theory of Action and The Social System (both 1951). Because Parsons' work was the subject of such virulent debate, we cannot fully understand Parsons' impact on the discipline of sociology without understanding the source and nature of those early criticisms. I trace the responses to Parsons, first through book reviews and private letters and then in the more substantial statements of C. Wright Mills, George Homans, and Alvin Gouldner, from the largely positive but superficial reception of Structure to the polemics that followed Parsons' 1951 works. In the late 1930s and 1940s, Parsons' reputation grew steadily but there remained no careful reception of Structure, fostering resentment toward Parsons in some quarters while precluding a sophisticated understanding of his work. After 1951, a few critics capitalized on that tension, writing sweeping rejections of Parsons' work that spoke to a much broader audience of sociologists. That dynamic, coupled with Parsons' own indifference toward his harshest critics, produced a situation in which many sociologists simply chose not to read Parsons in the 1950s and 1960s, reinforcing a caricature and distorting perceptions of Parsons' place in mid-twentieth-century American sociology.

The Concept of General Theory of Action After Parsons

The Concept of General Theory of Action After Parsons

Wertrationalität und das Modell der Frame-Selektion

Nach Max Weber ist wertrationales Handeln dadurch gekennzeichnet, dass ein Akteur sein Handeln konsequent planvoll an bewusst herausgearbeiteten Werten ausrichtet, ohne andere Folgen in Betracht zu ziehen. Im Beitrag wird dieser Handlungstyp im Rahmen des Modells der Frame-Selektion rekonstruiert. Das Modell erweist sich als geeignet, Webers Vorstellungen einer Wertreflexion und rationalen Eigenwertorientierung als Spezialfälle einer umfassenderen Handlungstheorie zu integrieren. Dadurch werden auch Verbindungen zu den Arbeiten anderer Theoretiker wie Raymond Boudon oder Jürgen Habermas deutlich. Ausgehend davon wird argumentiert, dass das Modell der Frame-Selektion dazu verwendet werden kann, Webers makrosoziologische Konzepte der Wertsphären und Lebensordnungen handlungstheoretisch zu fundieren. Der Beitrag schließt mit Anmerkungen zum Verhältnis zwischen dem weberianischen Forschungsprogramm und dem Ansatz der erklärenden Soziologie.

Dynamic action units slip in speech production errors

In the past, the nature of the compositional units proposed for spoken language has largely diverged from the types of control units pursued in the domains of other skilled motor tasks. A classic source of evidence as to the units structuring speech has been patterns observed in speech errors – “slips of the tongue”. The present study reports, for the first time, on kinematic data from tongue and lip movements during speech errors elicited in the laboratory using a repetition task. Our data are consistent with the hypothesis that speech production results from the assembly of dynamically defined action units – gestures – in a linguistically structured environment. The experimental results support both the presence of gestural units and the dynamical properties of these units and their coordination. This study of speech articulation shows that it is possible to develop a principled account of spoken language within a more general theory of action.

Enhancing Individual and Organizational Learning

Learning at all levels is essential for organizational survival. Drawing on the literature in adult and organizational learning, this article proposes a sociological model of organizational learning based on Parsons’ general theory of action. The model defines individuals and organizations as learning systems, and uses diagnostic questions related to adaptation, goal attainment, integration, and pattern maintenance to identify individual and organizational learning needs. The article applies the model to a strategic planning scenario, showing how managers may be able to use the model as a guide to address the learning needs of individuals and organizations.

A Humean theory of choice of which rationality may be one consequence

For the reader who considers economic theory of choice as a special case of a more general theory of action, Hume's discussion of the determinants of action in the Treatise of Human Nature (1739 – 40), in the Enquiry on Human Understanding (1748) and in the Dissertation on Passions (1757) deserves attention. However, according to some modern commentators, Hume does not seem to have given any evidence that would favour what nowadays we would consider as the kind of rationality involved in modern theories of rational choice. On the contrary, this paper arrives at the conclusion that consistency between preferences and choice, like the usual properties of completeness and transitivity, may be considered as outcomes of a mental process, described by means of a decision algorithm that aims to represent Hume's theory of choice.

Explaining social action and two types of rationality? New approaches toward the integration of value rationality and instrumental rationality into a general theory of action

Drei neuere Ansatze zur Integration des wert-und zweckrationalen Handelns in ein handlungstheoretisches Modell werden untersucht. Gemeinsam ist den Vorschlagen von Raymond Boudon, Siegwart Lindenberg und Hartmut Esser, dass sie Rationalitat wesentlich als Begrundbarkeit verstehen. Im Gegensatz zu Boudon gehen Lindenberg und Esser aber davon aus, dass Rationalitat konsequentialistisch aufgefasst und in diesem Rahmen Webers Begriff der Wertrationalitat verstandlich gemacht werden kann, die ihrem Begriff nach eine Konsequenzenorientierung zunachst ausschliest. Lindenberg und Esser greifen dabei auf eine um framing-Annahmen erganzte Werterwartungstheorie zuruck. Dies ermogliche es, beide Handlungstypen in ein gemeinsames Modell zu integrieren, welches uber eine blose Handlungstypologie hinausgeht, nicht zuletzt deswegen, weil es auch erlaube, die Bedingungen zu spezifizieren, unter denen die Handlungstypen jeweils in den Vordergrund treten. Es wird gezeigt, dass die Ansatze von Lindenberg und Esser dieses Ziel noch nicht erreicht haben. Bei Lindenberg wird der Kontrast zwischen traditionalem und wertrationalem Handeln und der spezifische Begrundungsanspruch, mit dem das wertrationale Handeln verbunden ist, nicht adaquat entfaltet. Fur Essers Modell ergibt sich, dass es der Bewusstheit und dem Begrundungsanspruch des wertrationalen Handelns zwar Rechnung tragt, aber die Frage offen bleibt, ob sein Modell hinreichende Bedingungen fur wertrationales Handeln anzugeben vermag. Der Aufsatz schliest mit Uberlegungen dazu, ob eine Ableitung beider Handlungstypen aus einem Rationalitatskonzept sinnvoll denkbar ist.

The contemporary crisis and the social relations department at Harvard: A case study in hegemony and disintegration

The history of sociology is marked by periods of theoretical pluralism and hegemony. Their interplay has resulted in the slow and uneven development of the discipline. Today, however, bodies of theory and practice have become so diverse that many scholars worry that sociology is in a state of disintegration. The theoretical career of Talcott Parsons provides a microcosm in which to explore similar processes. Building on the success of The Structure of Social Action, Parsons led a movement that transformed Harvard's Department of Sociolgy into the Department of Social Relations. There he attempted a grander, but failed synthesis in Toward A General Theory of Action. His case provides a situation in which to explore features of disciplinary integration and fragmentation. The comparison stimulates one to fashion an informed sense of whether sociology is now facing its latest crisis or may be in the process of decomposition as a corpus of study.