Published in Baidya Nath Varma (editor), A New Survey of the Social Sciences, Asia Publishing House, Bombay, 1962. Reprinted by permission

7. Sociology ^*)

by
Hans L. Zetterberg, Columbia University

Introduction

An initial difficulty for the sociologist is the great variety of phenomena with which his discipline customarily deals. The topics range wide: family discord, social mobility, labor-management relations, propaganda, public opinion, crime, housing, rural-urban migration, race relations, class conflict, and a series of technical topics related to the organizations and institutions of government, industry, business, education, religion, welfare, civic affairs, mass-media, and others. It is easy to argue that no man knows enough or is wise enough to deal with all these phenomena.

There have been times when sociology has been imperialistic enough to claim all aspects of societal phenomena as its proper territory. But the expanding scientific knowledge about society can never be the monopoly of any one academic discipline. It is, of course, a joint enterprise of historians, economists, political scientists, demographers, sociologists, anthropologists, geographers, and others. A scientist's training is costly and his career is short. Specialization is necessary, and sociology too is a specialized science.

These two statements — sociology deals with just about every social phenomenon, and sociology is but a specialized one of the many social sciences — do not look comfortable next to each other. How can sociology deal with everything social and yet be a specialized science of the social world? Or, how can sociology be a specialized social science and yet deal with all societal phenomena? The diversity of subject matter and the necessity for specialization pose a dilemma.¹⁾ In principle, the resolution of the dilemma does not appear difficult. Two related solutions are found in sociology, as in most other sciences.

First, no science seems to deal with all aspects of what common sense considers one phenomenon. In a recent text in sociology, beginning students are given a vivid demonstration of this:

Consider your instructor's chair. If a specialist in the branch of physics called mechanics were to study it, he would see it as a combination of weights and balances; a biologist specializing in anatomy would see it as a receptacle for the human form and might assess its effect on the spinal column; an economist might see it as a product of mass production, a unit of cost and price; the psychologist might see it as a part of the perceptual frame of the student; and the sociologist might see in the chair a symbol of status. Like any field of inquiry, sociology is selective in its approach.²⁾

Thus the specialization of sociology lies in its concentration on certain aspects of any social problem or any social institution, not in an inclusive study of institutions and social problems.

The first task of theoretical sociology is to specify the limited aspects of reality with which sociology deals. This is done by providing a limited set of terms defining the "dimensions of sociological subject-matter." ³⁾ These terms, broadly speaking, tell the sociologist what is important for him to pay attention to as he views a human relationship, a group, or a society. The geographer, armed with definitions such as "latitude" and "longitude," looks upon a given area of the earth in these terms but can leave such problems as "the age of the crust of the earth" in a given area to a geologist. Likewise, a sociologist looking at a group in terms such as "rank" and "norms," which are among his key terms, can usually leave problems of the members' "personality traits" to the psychologist.

Sociological taxonomy concerns itself with the development of an orderly set of sociological terms, each one specified by more or less elaborate definitions.⁴⁾ Such a taxonomy — or "frame of reference," or "conceptual schema" — is useful in many ways; here, it is enough to say that it delimits the sociological subject-matter. Thus when faced with any subject of research, the sociologist who knows his taxonomy can immediately identify its crucial aspects or variables. He takes a fresh look at subject X and shows that the general terms defining his dimensions have identifiable counterparts in X. For example, Parsons assigns certain abstract attributes to a "social system" and then turns to, say, the economy, and finds that economic thinking takes these dimensions into account and concludes that the economy is a social system. Thus, taxonomy is used in diagnosis. To make a sociological diagnosis of the subject-matter pr problem X is to describe X by a limited number of sociological terms. For example, when Parsons and Smelser suggest that the distinction between short-term supply and demand in the economy is a special case of the distinction between performance and sanction in the social system,⁵⁾ this is a sociological diagnosis of supply and demand. ⁶⁾

A second and related resolution to the dilemma between diversity of subject-matter and the need for specialization is represented by the program set forth by Georg Simmel over a half century ago:

we shall discover the laws of social forms only by collecting such societary phenomena of the most diverse contents, and by ascertaining what is common to them in spite of their diversity.⁷⁾

The assumption here is that sociology will eventually discover a small number of propositions that are valid, in several diverse institutions and diverse cultures. This idea, that there are "sociological regularities of nature", is gradually becoming more of an. established fact and less of a wishful hope. In George Homans's The Human Group we find a few hypotheses confirmed by such diverse, subject-matter as an industrial work group, a Polynesian kinship structure, a city street gang, and a small New England community. This approach represents what we see as the second task of theoretical sociology, that is, the discovery of propositions that hold in different institutional structures.

A system of interrelated propositions is called a theory (or, sometimes, a "model").⁸⁾ To "test" a theory we check how well each proposition conforms to known data and how well several propositions in conjunction with each other account for the outcome of a given situation. If such a prognosis (or "derivation") is successful, we call the outcome "explained," that is, we claim that observed events conform to known propositions. Thus, Professor Homans is able to explain the friendly feelings between brothers on the island of Tikopia by a reference to his already established proposition that a higher frequency of interaction (among equals in rank) results in a greater mutual liking.⁹⁾

To sum up, the efforts of theoretical sociologists proceed along two interrelated lines: (1) the development of taxonomies and (2) the construction of theories. The sociological taxonomy provides a schema of definitions delineating aspects of social reality; it is used as a guide by sociologists engaged in the description and diagnosis of social phenomena. The sociological theory provides an ordered body of informative propositions, or laws, that summarize past research findings and forecast new ones; it is used as a guide by sociologists engaged in the explanation and prognosis of social phenomena. The following schema lists the key notions in the two responses to the diversity of sociological subject-matter which we have discussed:

These two approaches correspond on the level of actual research to the well-known distinction between descriptive and explanatory studies.

A bare listing of all the sociological taxonomies and theories currently in use would exceed the scope of these pages. I shall therefore limit myself to setting forth some examples of sociological theory that I have found useful. However, I shall not attempt to include the counterparts in research operations of the various terms used or to report the evidence supporting the various propositions presented.¹⁰⁾

Theory

1. On the Limits of Action

The simplest law of sociology is the principle of the limit of actions: the number of possible actions per person is limited.¹¹⁾ That everybody has had some experience with this principle is clear from the amount of complaining we do about lack of time and energy. We all know too well that one cannot be completely involved in, say, science and also in, say, politics, money-making, or the raising of a big family. The principle of the limit of actions is most applicable to large groups or to total societies, where individual idiosyncrasies do not disturb the over-all trends. It suggests, for example, that a low rate of nativity, that is, fewer children to bring up, releases energy for engagement by other institutions and, conversely, that intense involvement in polity or economy depresses the nativity rate, as witness the fewer children in the higher social strata, which are customarily more involved in these realms.

Another way of stating the principle of the limits of action is to say that the number of possible actions increases with increase in the number of actors. This is one factor underlying the belief that size of population is not in itself a reliable index to what a society or a group can or cannot accomplish. For one thing, there are great variations among persons in energy and in capacity to carry out a variety of tasks. An abundance of energy is characteristic of some persons — of great leaders, more often than not, I would say — and people in the prime of life have, of course, more energy than old people. In general, we argue that the greater the physical stamina of the population, the higher is its upper limit of actions per person.¹²⁾

There is also the fact that the potential of a society always includes its use of commercial energy. ¹³⁾ The average American uses per year 80 times as much nonhuman energy — from sources such as petroleum, coal, electricity — as the average person in India and four times as much as the average person in the Soviet Union. Nonhuman energy may also raise the number of possible actions per person. At present, most nonhuman energy used in society is channeled into the economy and used for production of goods and services (statistics on the amount of energy produced constitute one of the most accurate indicators of the state of an economy). The use of nonhuman sources of energy by the military has recently expanded beyond the limits of the human imagination. The recent developments of electronic data-processing and calculation have led to greater use of nonhuman sources of energy in the administration of men and in the pursuit of knowledge. The social consequences of the use of electronic equipment extend far beyond the displacement of a large, but unknown, number of office workers. The new methods of record keeping and processing enhance an administrator's ability to keep track of his subordinates' actions and to hold them accountable. The consequence in any private or public government seems to be the opportunity for more central planning and the lessening of individual privacy and the exercise of individual discretion. In science, the new electronic methods of calculation will probably give us better means for prediction of events affected by a large multitude of factors, for example, ballistic flights, health, weather, and social processes. So far, religion, art, and ethics have not made much use of nonhuman sources of energy; it is intriguing to speculate about the forms these realms of society would take should they begin to avail themselves of nonhuman sources of energy to move us toward salvation, beauty, and virtue.

2. On Mobilization

Only rarely do men actually act at the limit of their capacity. What we call mobilization indicates the ratio of actual to potential actions; it varies from idleness to strenuous effort. Most men at most times live at a modest level of mobilization, and it takes a crisis to give the realization that we can do a great deal more than we usually do. Every individual has his accustomed level of mobilization, which can be slowly changed by forcing him to engage in a higher or lower number of actions.¹⁴⁾ Thus, a long-run increase in the number of actions per person leads to a higher accustomed level of mobilization, while a long run decrease in the number of actions per person leads to a lower accustomed level of mobilization. If the number of actions in a society increases at a faster pace than its population, the accustomed level of mobilization is squeezed upward. In practice, this happens whenever order, prosperity, knowledge, beauty, sacredness, and virtue increase in a society at a faster pace than its population, because order, prosperity, knowledge, beauty, sacredness, and virtue are, in effect, sum totals of different types of actions. If these clusters of actions grow more slowly than the population, the reverse holds and the accustomed level of mobilization slips. Many developing areas of the world face this today: in spite of concerted efforts to the contrary, their populations threaten to expand at a faster rate than their order, prosperity, knowledge, and other clusters of actions. The result is low accustomed levels of mobilization, that is, a widespread apathy and idleness among the masses.

In the short run, the principle of mobilization holds that an individual above his accustomed level of mobilization is more apt to lower than to increase his mobilization, but below his accustomed level of mobilization he is more apt to increase it than to lower it. Thus, above their accustomed level of mobilization, there is a built-in laziness in men, and a built-in exuberance below it. Laziness is counteracted by social reward patterns (see Section 11 below), and exuberance is counteracted by keeping men busy and channels open for new activities.

These propositions about mobilization make it easy to understand certain typical patterns of social relations. The larger the number of social relations a man maintains, the more he is pushed above his customary level of mobilization. He responds to this by reducing the number of actions in these relations, making his social relations less intimate, less lasting, more sporadic and more specialized. Furthermore, the more associates he has to keep track of, the higher must be his mobilization. It becomes easier for him if he can respond to them in terms of a few categories, such as occupation, sex, or age. Thus, the larger the number of associations, the stronger the tendency to treat them, impersonally, since this eases the required mobilization. In sum, where the ratio of actions per person increases, mobilization rises and we bring it back to par by treating our associates as strangers, persons with whom we have less intimate, less lasting, more sporadic, more specialized and more impersonal relations. Contrariwise, where the ratio is lowered, and our mobilization below par, we increase it by treating our associates as neighbors, persons with whom we have more intimate, more lasting, less sporadic, less specialized and more personal relations. This manifold scale from neighbor to stranger is useful when we want to separate the mediaeval from the modern, the rural from the urban, and the familistic from the bureaucratic. ¹⁵⁾

In the realm of ideas, a mobilization above par predisposes to rationalism, or in extreme cases to stereotyped thinking. In rationalism — the most spectacular Western way of coping with the limit of actions — a large number of simple ideas are reduced to a small number of general concepts and themes which enter into fixed relations with each other according. to simple rules of reasoning, e.g., the syllogism. In the use of stereotypes, the rules of reasoning have been suspended; labels and simplified images take the place of the rich details of the world. Both rationalism and stereotype are common among people constantly pushed above their accustomed level of mobilization.

3. A Simple Assumption about Motivation

Human motivation is, of course, immensely complex and only good fiction and modern psychotherapy can do justice to all its facets and layers. However, experience in some social sciences has shown that simplified assumptions usually suffice for adequate prediction not of individual actions but of the actions of aggregates of persons. Thus, economics has been fairly successful in making predictions on the basis of a single motive, the desire to increase profit. Sociology has of course to deal with the entire gamut of motives, but one assumption about motivation, in my opinion, is central: a person tends to engage in actions that help him maintain the evaluations he receives from his associates at or above a given level considered favorable by him in the relevant situation.

William James saw the motivational significance of evaluations by associates as early as 1891, when his famous dictum appeared: "A man's social me is the recognition which he gets from his mates. ... Properly speaking, a man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him and carry an image of him in their mind. To wound any one of these images is to wound him."¹⁶⁾

Concern with favorable evaluations is a broad tenet under which we cover such things as preoccupation with approval, recognition, admiration, good will, esteem, love, rank, honor, as well as all the honorific garnishings that come with money, power, competence, holiness, etc. It is abundantly evident in the hubris, the excessive pride, that ancient Greek dramatists and their followers (including the contemporary historian Arnold J. Toynbee) assumed to be the root of all human disaster. And it is equally evident among the forces that lift men to new heights of achievement in economy, polity, science, art, religion, and ethics. Thus a desire for favorable evaluations — vanity or pride, if you please — goeth before a rise as well as a fall.

It can be shown that the desire to maintain favorable evaluations from others implies a desire to maintain a favorable self-evaluation. The theory of convergence (see Section 5, below) assumes that evaluations such as "Mr. X is good" will spread among associates, and if the latter include Mr. X himself, he will also evaluate himself as good. Thus a favorable evaluation from others creates a favorable self-evaluation.¹⁷⁾ The desire to maintain favorable self-evaluations has received much illumination in contemporary psychodynamics, in which it is used, among other things, to explain "mechanisms of defense."

Any discussion of the need to maintain favorable evaluations from others must face the difficult problem that all our associates do not have the same relevance for our need to maintain favorable evaluations; it is very important for us to be favorably evaluated by some associates and less important to do well in the eyes of others.¹⁸⁾ Psychoanalysis has stressed the importance we attach to obtaining favorable evaluations from childhood associates, particularly from parents; some contemporary thinkers have stressed that certain persons strive primarily for favorable evaluations from peers, that is, contemporary associates resembling themselves in terms of the positions they occupy. In a popular discussion of the American character, the latter are called "other-directed."¹⁹⁾ Another classification of the sources of significant evaluation contrasts associates in neighborly social relations with associates in secondary social relations, i.e., with relative strangers. Those who seek favorable evaluations from the former have been termed "locals" and those whose concern is the evaluations of the latter have been termed "cosmopolitans."²⁰⁾

The two classifications overlap. Thus we have four character types (see chart below) into which individuals can be divided on the basis of the source of the evaluation they would like to maintain. Type I, the inner-directed local, is represented by the person who all his life arranges his actions in accordance with ideals inculcated in him by his parents. He strikes the observer as traditional. Type II, the other-directed local, is represented by the person who shifts his actions in order to be appreciated by whoever happens to be close to him. He strikes the observer as obliging. Type III, the inner-directed cosmopolitan, arranges his actions so as to obtain the approval of ideals he has learned in the past, for example, in higher education. He strikes the observer as principled. Type IV, the other-directed cosmopolitan, adopts a pattern of action that is approved by whoever is at the moment the distant leader of his organization or that is propagated by the mass media. He strikes the observer as flexible. There is no basis, in my opinion, for the assumption that all of contemporary society is becoming other-directed. For one thing, the rapid growth of the medical, legal, teaching, and engineering professions in modern society represents, in all likelihood, an increase of people that can be called principled (Type III).

4. On Achievement Motivation

To maintain a favorable evaluation by associates is sometimes complicated by variations in the ways evaluations are gauged. Every evaluative statement has an anchorage point, call this Z, for zero, and a smallest noticeable difference, call this U, for unit. In the figure below the evaluation, E, is defined by the number of U's from Z.

In the statement, "Mr. Smith is a very good graduate student," the anchorage point (Z) is the average graduate student, the unit of measurement (U) is the smallest gradation a professor is able to use when he rates students, and the evaluation E ("very good") given to Mr. Smith is one of the higher ones, although not the very highest. It should be clear that an evaluation of Mr. Smith as a graduate student is subject to variations not merely in view of Mr. Smith’s performance; it will also vary if Z, the anchorage point for the judgement, varies, say, through an influx of very bright students into the class, or if U, the unit of gradation, varies, say, through the introduction of a more discriminating examination. Maintaining one’s evaluation thus invariably leads to a concern with Z and U.

Thus favorably evaluated persons have a tendency to resist any movement of the Z point closer to their E-score, and to resist any inflation in the size of U, since both these changes would cheapen the evaluations they receive. People accustomed to receiving high evaluations — e.g., persons who inherit high ranks — thus are likely to defend vigorously the existing scales of ranking and the existing methods of scoring people’s standing as high or low. However, often changes in the scoring system are beyond control. If the Z-point moves closer to a person’s E-score and/or if the U’s separating them become inflated, then he has to increase his E-score in order to maintain the same evaluation.²¹⁾ Like Alice in Wonderland, he has to run faster to keep in the same place. To maintain his standing, he has to embark on efforts to achieve ever higher evaluations. He is no longer a "consolidator" of the evaluations be receives, but an "achiever" of higher evaluations.²²⁾

The components Z and U are descriptions shared by persons, and therefore subject to influence from associates, according to the law of convergence to be discussed below (see Section 5). A person remains a consolidator so long as his life-cycle brings him into contact with persons who share his conceptions of Z and U. However, should he by some circumstance — e.g., in an outside role or when memberships overlap, or in a process of mobility between positions — encounter a higher Z-point or inflated U’s, he becomes an achiever, "keeping up with the Joneses." Achievers, therefore, are born mostly in these social structures when such encounters are frequent, for example, in urban settings and in periods of rapid change.

5. On the Convergence of Ideas

A sociological theory of convergence of ideas — like virtually every sociological proposition — is stochastic in nature, thus dealing with more or less strong tendencies present in various degrees at different times and places. It can be expressed in various ways, for example: a person tends to modify his ideas (i.e., descriptions, evaluations, and prescriptions) so that they approximate those found among his associates, and this tendency increases the more favorable evaluations he receives from his associates.²³⁾ This proposition has many implications. To illustrate, if we call some persons father, mother, aunt, uncle, grandparent, etc., this is clearly not because we have first-hand knowledge of the circumstances of our conception, and those of our relatives, but because other people talk about these persons as such-and-such a relation. Also, if we know nothing of the opinions of a person, but a great deal about the opinions of the persons with whom he associates, then we can infer a similarity of his opinions to theirs; if he acquires additional associates, he tends to modify his opinions in the direction of those of his new associates; if he gives up certain associates he also tends to give up opinions peculiar to them. However, for any individual the past is never completely erased, only modified; and the future holds out no promise of a completely new man, but only of modification of the existing man. There is, then, a measure of flexibility, and when this measure applies to large numbers of human beings we may observe considerable change in a society over a few years.

More important, the theory of convergence suggests that there will be a strain toward consensus wherever associates representing different markets and organizations meet or wherever markets and organizations share the same members.²⁴⁾ Contacts across boundaries (i.e., regular channels of intercommunication), overlapping memberships (i. e., persons with positions in two or more markets or organizations), and/or social mobility (i.e., persons leaving one organization or market to join another) are three factors which bring a measure of unity of beliefs, values, and norms to a society.²⁵⁾ Conversely, organizations and markets — or other complex social structures — without outside contacts, overlapping memberships, and/or mobility run the risk of developing into isolated camps with beliefs, values, and norms incompatible with those of the larger society. Certainly, the teaching and maintenance of uncompromising, unusual or extreme beliefs, values, or norms is best accomplished under conditions of restrictions of outside contacts, overlapping memberships (such as intermarriage) and mobility in and out of the system.

Finally, the theory of convergence suggests that persons exposed to a wider range of opinions among their associates tend to be less stable in their own opinion. This presumably accounts for the greater tolerance and somewhat shallower convictions prevalent in great cities, among people engaged in far-flung commerce, among cosmopolitan elites, and indeed, among those leaders who have more contact with the wide world outside their own group than is available to the rank and file. Conversely, rigidity and narrow-mindedness tend to mark those whose course of life never takes them outside their own circle.²⁶⁾

6. On Compliance with and Deviance from Prescriptions

The desire to maintain favorable evaluations by our associates is the key to our compliance with prescriptions. Some central ideas about conformity to and deviation from social norms are expressed in this twofold proposition: The more a person visibly deviates from a prescription by his associates, the more unfavorable evaluations the latter tend to give him; and this tendency to evaluate him unfavorably is proportionate to the degree to which their own reception of favorable evaluations depends on his compliance with the prescription. ²⁷⁾ In other words, we enforce our norms by applying sanctions in the form of evaluations to those who violate them, and we are more apt to enforce norms that satisfy us and less apt to enforce norms that dissatisfy us.

The proposition makes clear that the motivation to obey prescriptions is always present, since those who deviate are given the unfavorable evaluation that our motivational assumption asserts that they tend to avoid.

It is interesting to note that persons who have acquired an achievement motivation will tend to conform, not merely to the prescriptions of their past and present associates, but will adopt actions that may be approved by future mates. Several such instances of anticipatory conformity have been recorded in the literature.

Prescriptions are, of course, violated at times, but only under certain conditions, already implied. First, if a prescription is not known to a person, there is no reason to expect that he will obey it. Stupidity, as well as isolation from sources of knowledge about what is expected, thus breeds deviation. Second, if the action prescribed is not noticed by associates, sanctions obviously cannot be forthcoming. Thus, darkness and privacy also breed deviations. Third, if the deviating action is not attributable by the associates to anyone in particular; then sanctions will not be applied to the actor; hence the less identifiable the actor, the greater the likelihood of violation. The marked deviations that occur in milling, anonymous crowds find their explanation here. Fourth, if a greater reward can be obtained from violating a prescription than from obeying it, the chance of violation increases. There is always a strong temptation to violate a prescription if the violater thereby obtains a higher rank or prestige associated with a greater command of an institutional value. Also, if a person is subject to contradictory prescriptions ("role conflict"), he is likely to disobey the one that leads to the lesser reward. Finally, and perhaps most interesting, violations occur when the would-be enforcers withhold sanctions, because they gain nothing by applying them. Thus those who are themselves frustrated by the prescription make poor enforcers of the norm. In any group with frustrating prescriptions, enforcement from outsiders becomes essential: it is impossible for the group to "police themselves" effectively.

7. On the Emergence of Ideas

The study of the conditions under which new beliefs, values, and norms emerge is still in its infancy. The most adequate thinking in this area centers around the notion that ideas (descriptions, evaluations and prescriptions) emerge among interacting persons in order to satisfy some frequently occurring and commonly felt need.²⁸⁾ Not enough is known as yet about the nature of the series of small changes that bridge the individual need and the resultant social products in the form of shared prescriptions, evaluations, and descriptions. Thus we cannot tell much at present about the conditions under which, say, defensive reactions in the form of prejudice develop from merely idiosyncratic responses to ideologies embraced by an entire aggregate of persons. The best thinking on this topic merely suggests that a spiraling or growing series of "feelers" are tendered — somewhat as in a process of flirtation or seduction — until the new idea is accepted.

A universal fact is the emergence of prescriptions to obtain some measure of insurance against interruption while satisfying nourishment, toilet, sleep, and sex needs — e.g., in the form of norms prescribing respect for privacy. Equally common seem prescriptions that uphold a reasonably even level of mobilization of effort, excessive idleness becomes prohibited and over-demanding assignments are ruled out. A need to maintain favorable evaluations can be assumed as operative behind a variety of prescriptions. Good examples are provided by the pressures toward tenure found everywhere. For better or worse, we ought to stay married; win or lose, the employer should not arbitrarily discharge employees; competent or senile, the professor still has the right to his chair; gerrymandering or fraud, incumbents insure their re-election. Anyso-called free competition in the markets of brides, jobs, goods, ideas, power, etc., implies the risk of losing and being degraded. Therefore, the pressure is always there to replace the competition with "sure deals," and prescriptions emerge in favor of ascriptive positions and less contingent social relations. Evaluations of groups can be further guaranteed through other means. Thus, secrecy norms arise to prevent outsiders from obtaining information that lowers the esteem in which a group is held or gives opponents an advantage; discriminatory norms in a group assure that intimate associations with low-ranking persons will not degrade the group. Also, some protection against the shame of devaluation is obtained through eligibility rules. Thus, prescriptions tend to emerge which prohibit persons or groups from entering into pursuits which are beyond their abilities and resources.

New descriptions of the social or natural world emerge as a result of information-seeking activities relevant to the satisfaction of felt needs. Festinger has elaborated both theory and data to the effect that information is sought if it reduces cognitive dissonance and is avoided if it adds to dissonance.²⁹⁾ At times, information-seeking activities also appear related to a seemingly universal need to avoid unpleasant surprises and at times to an apparently equal universal need to avoid the boredom of mobilization below par. In all, however, not much is known about the emergence of new descriptions.

As to evaluations, one might assume a predictable relation between the availability of the object or event evaluated, the need for it, and the degree to which it is favorably evaluated. If the need is constant, and increase in availability lowers the evaluation, and if availability is constant, an increase in need brings a more favorable evaluation. This familiar supply-demand formulation from economics seems to apply also to attitudes and ranks. The popularity of a hit tune or a new fashion, a new TV or radio program, a new style of architecture or art, increases so long as new people learn about and demand it, but decreases with the number of copied or plagiarized versions that become available. Likewise, occupational skills in demand at any particular time may be a factor in advancing the prestige of an occupation, while conversely, abundantly available skills command little occupational prestige. The same seems to hold for personal prestige: popular admiration is rarely accorded the typical citizen; it is given to the extraordinary citizen, one who has an unusual background or superior vision and adeptness in his field. (Contrary to much that is said on this point, I maintain that democracies, which select leaders by a kind of general-attitude census, are not likely to elect either mediocrities or so-called common men to high office.)

8. On Evaluative Equalization

It is normal in our type of society for an individual to have commitments to more than one organization or market at the same time. Thus, during the course of an ordinary day or week a person may have to act at times in his occupational role, at times as a family man, at times as a bridge partner, at times as a church member, etc. His respective ranks in these various capacities are not, necessarily, all on the same level. Whenever a person with a constellation of ranks appears in a high-ranking capacity, his evaluation is favorable; but whenever he has to appear in his low-ranking capacity, his relative evaluation declines. This kind of riding on the social roller-coaster is inconsistent with our assumption about motivation. Thus, if a person is evaluated much less favorably in one activity than in others, he will tend either to withdraw from that activity or to attempt to raise the evaluation received in that activity to a level commensurate with evaluations received in the others.³⁰⁾ Persons who engage in respected occupations tend to belong to high-prestige churches, to join prestigious organizations, to participate in exclusive recreational activity, to marry into families of good lineage, etc. This entire process may be solidified by prescriptions. The degradation regularly experienced by persons who hold discrepant ranks sets in motion the process of emerging norms, discussed above, and new norms emerge which restrict or prohibit rank discrepancies. For example, if a daughter marries below her family’s station, the in-law position of the members of the family will rank lower than their other positions. This decrease in favored evaluations will start the process of norm emergence, and the prescription "Don’t marry that man!" appears.

9. On Intimacy in Social Relations

If we take a statistical view of success and failure (i. e., assuming that some failures are inevitable), the larger the number of actions, relations and positions entering the composite evaluation of an actor, the less likely it is that this evaluation will fluctuate. This proposition makes it possible for us to identify some situations in which the nature of the social relations affects the maintenance of favorable evaluations.

First, less intimate relations expose the participants to greater risks of being devaluated than more intimate ones. The greater the number of a person’s actions that are known about and evaluated by others, the smaller the risk of his being unfavorably evaluated for any single or occasional failure or slip. Second, the smaller the number of relations that a person enters into, the greater his risk of being downgraded. A person in only one social relation is putting all his eggs in one basket, gambling on success in this role. If on the other hand, an individual invests the same number of actions in several social relations, it is likely that a failure in one will be balanced by success in others, and on the whole, he stands a better chance of maintaining a favorable evaluation from others. In short, having additional social relations, preferably of an intimate kind, serves to maintain a person’s favorable evaluation when he embarks on pursuits exposing him to fluctuating evaluations.

The first researchers in industrial sociology were surprised to find intimate informal groups superimposed on the formal job organization. The urbanization and industrialization of Western Europe brought about an upsurge in voluntary intimate associations in the nineteenth century. Similarly, contemporary so-called underdeveloped countries seem to emerge with the same rich flora of associations when their social structure changes toward that of a modern society. And long before, de Tocqueville, observing the settlers from aristocratic Europe in achievement-stressing America, was surprised by the abundance of voluntary associations they created in their new land. In all these instances, we might assume that the new associations help to maintain a certain inner security among the participants in the face of threats to their new status. It should be realized, however, that the hypothesis merely states that a certain aggregate of persons will have a motive to form or join in some secure or risk-spreading roles. Whether or not they will actually do so is a different issue, one that depends on the opportunities their position in the social structure opens to them. If they are already involved in some intimate roles they may revitalize and intensify their participation in them. If they have access to already existing associations that meet these criteria they may join them. If they do not know any such association, but interact with others who have the same motive such an association may be formed.

10. On Differentiation of Positions

Among associates, the positions of those performing djfferent actions (or very dissimilar distributions of the same actions) are likely to become differentiated. Careful studies have shown how kinship positions, such as mother and aunt, brother and male cousin, become differentiated. Thus we know that the presence of factors equalizing some kinsmen’s actions (e.g., common sex, generation, residence, and descent) make it likely that the same kinship term (i.e., position) will be assigned to these kinsmen, while, conversely, the presence of factors differentiating actions of relatives leads to a severality of kinship positions among them.³¹⁾

The differentiation of positions according to institutional realms — economic, political, religious, etc., positions — is a more complex issue. However, since each institutional realm has its characteristic action type, the principle of differentiation of positions is relevant here too. In practice, however, I would guess that the development of some distinct institutional reward patterns is needed to differentiate an institutional realm as a more separate entity.

11. On Institutional Reward Patterns

Let us call science, polity, economy, art, religion, and ethics the "institutional realms" of society. Each one of these realms has an "institutional value": thus, "knowledge," "prosperity," "order," "beauty," "sacredness" and "virtue" are the institutional values corresponding to these realms. Finally, each of these institutional realms has its typical mode of "stratification": we may say that command of knowledge defines "competence," control of social order defines "power," command of prosperity defines "riches"; likewise, command of beauty indicates "taste," command of the sacred indicates "holiness," and command of virtue indicates moral "rectitude."

The desire to maintain favorable evaluations from others is also one key to people s concern with their institutional values The more visible control of an institutional value (wealth, knowledge, etc.) a person has, the more favorable evaluations he receives from his associates. Thus men of competence, power, riches, taste, sacredness, and rectitude are more likely to receive favorable evaluations than others. Perhaps it is even likely that women are more apt to fall in love with such men than with others.

Each institutional realm has potentially a typical "institutional reward pattern" which provides for a regular relation between a degree of control over an institutional value and the receipt of specified honorific rewards. Such patterns, in which changes in control of institutional values are automatically related to changes in specified honorific rewards, are a strategic object of sociological study.³²⁾

In the Western economy, the signs of success honored by the larger community consist of visible goods and services, number of residences (rated as to size and location), number of employees and labor-saving devices, annual charity and (in some countries) taxation contributions, and in the case of firms, annual reports of earnings. Often the economic reward pattern also allows the successful individual to attach his name to his enterprise (e.g., the Ford Motor Company, the Krupp Works). In many instances there is a certain automatism — success by virtue of success — in economic rewards. For example, the successful individual may become a creditor and investor, receiving additional income in the form of interest or dividends — and homage from those who may want to borrow money from him. Note that the reward pattern is further solidified by a series of prescriptions; for example, if a rich man does not go in for a normal amount of display of wealth, he may be denounced as a miser, and if a visitor to the successful does not choose to notice or appreciate displayed goods and services, he may be denounced as ungrateful or snobbish.

In the contemporary polity, the reward pattern centers on symbols of position, such as titles and uniforms, on constant publicity and evaluation by mass media, on approval from cheering masses, on ceremonial rights and decorations. Successful men may also have cities, roads, bridges, public buildings, acts of legislation, etc., named in their honor and have statues, portraits, and memorial plaques created to commemorate their deeds. An ultimate evaluation, here as in other fields, may be the judgment of future historians.

In science, a firmly established pattern ties the name of the scientist to his published contributions to knowledge. Scientific articles and monographs get into print only if they contain new knowledge, and a scientist’s own publications are often more dear to him than his worldly possessions. And any new scientific report is expected to recognize in text or footnotes the authors of the more relevant ideas entering as parts of a new discovery, technique, argument, etc.

In religion, various signs make visible how close a person is to the sacred (for example, special gifts of tongue, or admissions to a graded series of holy rites) and call forth reverence by the community. The ultimate basis of the religious reward pattern is, of course, the evaluation of people by the divine assumed by believers. The typical service in Christian churches goes through a regular sequence in which an emphasis on the fact that man’s evaluation is lowered because of the sins he has committed is followed by an emphasis on God’s restoration of this evaluation through the forgiveness of sins.

In art, the reward pattern is less clear-cut. For a contemporary painter, for example, it would include the number of private shows, the number and kind of reviews by critics, the rating of the galleries in which paintings have been exhibited, the number and prominence of the collectors who have acquired paintings, the number of paintings hanging in museums, etc.

In ethics, Western culture has not developed any elaborate reward pattern, and the badges of moral rectitude are few; while virtue is, of course, appreciated, to do it visible honor is widely thought to cancel it out. Only history can tell whether this lack in Western culture will prove significant or not.

Given the relation expressed in the proposition that if an institutional value is growing, the evaluations given to those who control shares of it become more favorable, it follows that whatever is a typical evaluation is subject to constant revision upward. In other words, when an institutional value grows, the Z point in the corresponding reward pattern is moving upward. However, as was argued in Section 4, this upward movement is a circumstance in which an achievement motivation is generated. Thus, when institutional values are expanding, achievers are born. This is indeed convenient: where expansions have created new opportunities, achievers emerge to take advantage of them.

12. On Vested Interests and on Class Conflicts

Each institutional value has "creators," "purveyors," and "receivers." Thus new knowledge is produced by "scholars," transmitted by "teachers," and received by "students"; persons who produce modifications in the social order are "rulers," those who apply or transmit their prescriptions are "administrators," and those who are at the receiving end are the "subjects"; the creator of prosperity is a "producer" (earner), the recipient is a "consumer" (spender), and the transmitter is kown as a "dealer." The creators of beauty are, of course, the "artists," but we have no summary term in English for all who purvey art and all who receive it. Sacredness is created by "holy men," and purveyed by "clergymen" to "laymen."

It has been shown that the reward patterns linking institutional values to favorable evaluations vary a great deal in different historical circumstances. We can now further specify that institutional reward patterns are differently elaborated respectively by the creators, purveyors and receivers of an institutional value. Persons sharing a common style of life centered on their particular reward pattern form a "vested interest." The distinctions we made between creators, purveyors, and receivers of various institutional values — teachers, students, administrators, consumers, clergymen, etc., — are likely to reappear as distinctions between vested interest groups. Their concern with the elaboration and protection of their reward patterns generates much of the dynamics in a society. The great sociologist Max Weber focused much of his attention on vested interests, and his writings lend support to the assumption that much of human history is a contest between various vested interest groups.³³⁾

This assumption tends to correct somewhat the one-sideness in the Marxian dictum that all history is a struggle between classes. The class struggles are cases in which organized aggregates of those who control a small share of an institutional value — especially prosperity and order — revolt against those who control a large share and their organizations.³⁴⁾ Since there is a positive relationship between control of an institutional value and the evaluations received from others, it follows that the people in the lower strata have to accept a lower estimate of their worth. Herein lies the motivational basis for class struggles; the lower strata take over the methods of measuring worth that prevail in the higher strata. One may say that a class line or a class cleavage is experienced wherever or whenever a relatively low stratum measures its worth according to criteria prevalent in a relatively high stratum. The closer a person is to the upper strata, the more likely he is to adopt their Z’s and U’s. In other words, the feeling of degradation arises earliest and becomes strongest in the upper segments of the lower strata, from where it may, through agitation, spread downward. We talk about a class struggle when these sentiments permeate militant organizations and are not merely individual reactions. The legitimacy of the existing mode of stratification is denied by these class organizations and a new scoring of social worth is proposed, in which the last shall become the first and the first the last. The Marxists typify this ethos in the Internationale:

Nor more tradition’s chains shall bind us
Arise, you slaves; no more the thrall!
The earth shall rise on new foundations,
We have been naught, we shall be all!

In spite of the appeal of such protest ideologies, history shows no exception to the rule that class struggles succeed only in modifying existing stratification or in replacing one form of division by another. In no society, has stratification been abolished or equal control of institutional values been achieved by all.

There are several devices, planned or unplanned, that channel the resentment generated by the frustrations of the members of the lower strata away from a frontal attack on their superiors on the other side of the class line. The simplest is allowing the more intelligent among the frustrated to rise into higher strata. Upward social mobility reduces the potential for class conflict. To have a father, brother, or son on the other side of a class line balances class loyalty against family loyalty; as usual, mobility and overlapping memberships keep groups together, rather than apart. The frustrated group may also be diverted from economic and political realities and interested in other types of comparison. This refocusing may be in terms of the stratification in other realms of society, as in the case of a religious faith that grants a place in heaven regardless of a person’s economic or political standing. The modern world has at least two other features that provide alternative rankings. One is concern with sports and athletics. The critical comparisons of men of money, power, and competence made by, say, mass media are never as sharp as the comparisons of athletes or ball-players. Another distraction is concern with celebrity. The mass media not only draw attention to men of power, class, competence, etc.; they also focus on café society, thus helping their public to confuse high positions in the stratification system with ability to get in the way of camera lenses. Finally, gambling provides the stuff out of which dreams of a spectacular improvement in station are made through no major effort of one’s own. Innocent fantasies obviate both upward mobility and class-conflict.

13. On Humanitarianism

It is an old observation that persons who suffer give favorable evaluations to those who relieve their sufferings. Appreciation is given those who help the weak, care for the sick, console the sorrowing, regardless of whether there are prescriptions to be helpful. Thus, a "humanitarian" motivation is possible wherever sufferings occur — and that is, of course, virtually everywhere. Since violence always results in suffering, humanitarianism grows with the use of violence, it is perhaps not accidental that the Red Cross is a product of war. At times entire orgamzations and markets become involved in such humanitarian enterprises and a "welfare establishment" emerges with its own reward patterns. In fact, in modern so-called welfare states, the welfare establishment has many of the characteristics of a full-fledged institutional realm.

Persons whose favorable evaluations are maintained through a larger than usual share of humanitarian acts are called "tender-hearted." In contrast, those who strive for their evaluations in other endeavors than humanitarian ones — for example, the pursuit of money, power, or academic excellence — are called "tough-minded." This is a useful distinction in many situations, above all, perhaps, in characterizing leaders.

An "organization" is defined as a set of social relations, the prescriptions of which are issued from a central leadership. Where there is no central leadership at all in social relations, we deal no longer with an organization. Social relations that are not subject to control by a common leadership constitute a "market." An "invisible hand" in the form of special social mechanisms, but no central authority, directs what shall go on when buyers and sellers meet, when political candidates encounter their constituents, when a young man meets a young woman, when a scientist presents his findings to another scientist. In general, I would say that organization men tend to become tender, while market men tend to be tough. By being tender-hearted, the organization man receives support that he needs from his fellow members; by being tough-minded, the market man loses support he is indifferent to from competitors and adversaries. Traditionally, women have remained within the organization of the household and have developed a reputation for being the tender sex, while men have entered the market places of work and politics, establishing the image of being the tougher sex.

14. On Oscillation of Dominant Social Types

A useful typology emerges when humanitarianism is cross-classified with achievement motivation. Tough-minded achievers may appropriately be called "pioneers," and tender-hearted achievers "reformers." Tough-minded consolidators I shall call "protectors" and tender-hearted ones "philanthropists" (See chart below.)

One might argue that there is a certain pattern of oscillation throughout the history of a society (or an institutional realm) between these types. Phases in which tough-minded people dominate are followed by phases in which tender-minded people dominate; and phases in which achievers dominate are followed by phases in which consolidators dominate. However, this idea needs much further development to be useful in diagnosing historical trends.³⁵⁾ A possible cyclical pattern is this: when pioneers, that is, tough-minded achievers, dominate for a time, they generate much suffering, consequently more tender-hearted achievers — reformers — emerge. This, however, takes some of the steam out of the institutional growth, so that achievement motivation becomes less prevalent; thus more consolidators emerge in the form of both tough-minded protectors and tender-hearted philanthropists. Then philanthropists, by giving bonanzas and encouragement to the under-privileged, generate new achievement motivation, and a new generation of pioneers or reformers is born, starting the cycle all over again.

15. On Growth of an Institutional Value

Little is known about the causes, of expansion, even though there is a great deal of concern all over the world today about the ways in which a nation grows in prosperity, order, knowledge, virtue, etc. In contemplating any large collection of case histories of institutional development one cannot avoid the conclusion that the development never proceeds evenly. Phrases such as "boom and bust" and "rise, realization, exhaustion and decline" come to mind. Small fluctuations in growth and decline are understandable in principle. Growth of an institutional value, by definition, is an expansion in the prevalence of a certain type of action. As has been said, any change in availability of an action changes the evaluation of it (if demand is constant). Thus creators of an institutional value are apt to overproduce it when evaluations are high and underproduce it when evaluations are low, and these changes in the supply of the institutional value generate fluctuations in evaluations that lead to a new cycle of overproduction and underproduction.

These fluctuations provide great challenges for achievers. The most daring among them attempt to rise with the tide when the trend is upward and to enjoy tenure in one form or another when the trend is downward. Thus, the ambitious scientist may capitalize on a specialty in his field in which knowledge is rapidly expanding. When worthwhile discoveries in this area become less likely, he withdraws to rest on his laurels (e. g., in the form of a university chair), or switches to another specialty in expansion. Likewise, the ambitious investor and politician throw their lot wherever opportunities expand and stay on the sidelines with their nest egg of capital and good will when opportunities decline. Of course, all ambitious achievers — particularly the less intelligent — run the risk of misjudging the trends and thus being stuck with whatever they have when others advance, or lose what they have when others enjoy their share in relative security. In all, however, it is fair to assume that an institutional value will grow in the hands of intelligent achievers.

Technically speaking, growth of an institutional value is a function of the degree to which the institutional value is channeled from its receivers back to its creators. This return of an institutional value to its creators is what we know as "investment". The "multiplier" effect of investment on prosperity is well known in theoretical economics. An original investment generates a chain reaction of progressively smaller investments throughout the economy which leads to prosperity; the total value of all goods and services increases.

The principle of growth through investment is much more obscure once we leave the economic realm. However, exploring some analogies can be suggestive. In the polity, when subjects exert pressure (prescriptions) on their rulers to regulate some activity, the order grows when they succeed, because new prescriptions (laws) come into effect. Moreover, the rulers typically delegate the task of formulating the details of application and enforcement of the prescriptions to trusted officials who, in turn, delegate some task to assistants, and so forth. However, each step of delegation generates new prescriptions which define the authority of the different administrators. Thus, a "multiplier" of sorts operates here, the initial prescription from subjects to rulers adds a generous share of growth to the order in society. In science, the principle of growth through investment suggests that no piece of knowledge must be allowed to rest in idle secrecy. For example, patents must not be bought and suppressed or research findings kept secret: the creators of knowledge will be more successful if the suppressed piece is available to them. In art, the principle suggests that items of beauty should not be scattered about in inaccessible private places but be brought together into magnificent exhibitions or festivals that will inspire the creators of art to new ventures.

Another possibility of growth — also in need of much further study — is that growth in one institutional value may create an opportunity for growth — again through investment — in another value. Thus, an increase in sacredness may provide for new works of art, an increase in knowledge may provide for new profitable products, an increase in prosperity may provide for a new political order, etc. This is one of the most intriguing ways in which events in one institutional realm have consequences in another.

A consequence of growth is expansion of the number of purveyors of the growing institutional value. Thus when prosperity grows, the ranks of dealers and brokers expand; when the level of knowledge grows, the number of teachers increases; when the social order grows, the number of functionaries and administrators expands, etc. In other words, a new middle class emerges. Far from polarizing the society into two extreme camps of upper and lower classes, as Marx predicted, the most conspicuous feature of developing societies is the expansion of the cadres of middle men, in our times known as "white-collar."

By Way Of Conclusion

A prime preoccupation of the theoretical sociologist, as I see it, is with the systematic combinations of propositions. His success in this enterprise will determine whether he has anything of value to say to his contemporaries, particularly to the leaders of his society. I believe that the new vistas now opening up for this type of theoretical enterprise go beyond the imagination of the keenest observer. It may be possible to estimate in advance, without doing original research, the consequences of major changes of any nature — increased college enrollment, shortened work week, desegregation legislation, the creation of a national gallery, the establishment of space colonies, and so forth — in all their manifestations, be they economic, political, scientific, religious or others.

The theoretical sociologist is thus well advised to be on the lookout for devices that aid him in making correct combinations of simple propositions; among these must be membered a technical vocabulary, since ordinary language combines ideas in a rather haphazard manner. If abstract sociological reformulations of common experiences lend themselves to more accurate combinations of ideas than the lay formulations, we must accept them even though they may lack a literary quality. This is not to excuse the terminological excesses that plague sociology but to indicate that any difficulties with formulations that the reader is likely to have met with in this review of theoretical sociology are, at least in part, inherent in the discipline.

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Notes

*) The introduction and conclusion to this chapter are taken from the second edition of my book On Theory and Verification in Sociology, and the main body is taken from chapter 3 of the book Social Theory and Social Practice. Both are published and copyrighted by the Bedminster Press, New York, and used here with the permission of the Bedminster Press.

1) Cf. Robert S. Lynd, Knowledge for What, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1939, ch. 2.

2) Leonard Broom and Philip Selznick, Sociology, Row Peterson, Evanston, 1955, p. 3.

3) Whatever aspect of reality a scientist chooses to talk about we call a "dimension of nature." The dimensions might be identified by various names or "terms." It is important to note that a dimension is thought of as a property of reality, while a term is a property of a language used to talk about this reality.

4) The most widely known sociological taxonomies in the postwar years have been: the schema of status-role analysis originated by Linton and developed by Merton and Gross (see Ralph Linton, The Study of Man, Appleton-Century, New York, 1936, pp. 113-114; Robert K. Merton, "The Role Set: Problems in Sociologlical Theory," British Journal of Sociology, Vol.8 , [1957] pp. 106-120; Neal Gross, Ward S. Mason, and Alexander W. McEachern, Explorations in Role Analysis, Wiley, New York, 1958, ch. 4). Merton's schema of anomie (Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure, 2nd ed., Free Press, 1957, ch. 4), the schema of pattern variables developed by Parsons and Shils (Talcott Parsons and Edward A. Shils, "Values, Motives, and Systems of Action," in Talcott Parsons and Edward Shils L [eds.], Toward a General Theory of Action, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1952, pp. 76-88), and the still controversial AGIL schema (Talcott Parsons, Robert F. Bales, and Edward A. Shils, Working Papers in the Theory of Action, Free Press, Glencoe, 1953, 179 ff.). These have proved their worth in ordering sociological descriptions and in identifying a wide variety of problems, ranging from those of small groups to those of total societies.

5) Talcott Parsons and Neil J. Smelser, Economy and Society, The Free Press, Glencoe, 1956, p. 9.

6) This is occasionally also called to "derive" X, or "explain" X, speech habits which are misleading.

7) Georg Simmel, "The Persistence of Social Groups", American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 3 (1898), pp. 829-836.

8) Sociological theories fall into two general categories: microsociological, that is, focusing on processes that occur within and between social organizations; and macrosociological, that is, focusing on processes that occur within and between institutional areas. The most prominent sociological theories in the postwar years have been: Homans's theory of group processes (George C. Homans, The Human Group, Harcourt-Brace, New York, 1950), Simon's theory of organization (Herbert A. Simon, Models of Man, Wiley, New York, 1957), Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance (Leon Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, Row Peterson, Evanston, 1957), and Murdock's theory of kinship (George P. Murdock, Social Structure, Macmillan, New York, 1949). These theories are cumulative, in the sense of being more than individual efforts; new research continually checks and adds to them. All are microsociological; macrosociology has so far no cumulative theory. Indeed, new macrosociological formulations often ignore past ones: this field has therefore to be studied through its history, primarily through such individual contributions as those made by Marx, Pareto, Weber, Sorokin, and others.

9) Ibid., pp. 242ff.

10) A few sociological theories have been expressed in mathematical terms (e. g. Simon, op. cit.), but most sociological theory is couched in ordinary language, a pattern we shall follow here. A popular trend is the formulation of theories in terms of functions; in sociological functionalism attempts are made to single out the determinants that serve the adjustment and adaptation of a given structure, functional determinants, from those that are detrimental to the adjustment and adaptation of the structure, dysfunctional determinants (Merton, op. cit., p. 51). I have not found functional language particularly helpful outside of social practice and will not use it in social theorizing.

11) The proposition of the limit of actions is not identified with any particular sociologist; the idea is explicit or implicit in most writings in theoretical sociology.

12) For a recent, well documented illustration of the importance of physical stamina, consider the complex societal effort of the armed services in World War II, in which the United States could not use more than about half of the eligible men. See Eli Ginzberg et. al., The Lost Divisions, Columbia University Press, New York, 1959.

13) A general survey of the effects on society of usage of non-human energy is found in Fred Cottrell, Energy and Society, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1955.

14) This and many of the following ideas about mobilization are taken from, William James, The Energies of Men, New Edition, Dodd, Mead and Company, New York, 1926.

15) For the first systematic use of the general distinction between neighbor and stranger and some related notions, see Ferdinand Tonnies, Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, Fues Verlag, Leipzig, 1887. A systematic analysis of the content of this in other types of social relations is found in Pitirim A. Sorokin, Social and Cultural Dynamics, American Book Company, New York, 1937, Vol. 3. (See also, the so-called pattern variable schema developed in Talcott Parsons and Edward A. Shils, "Values, Motives, and Systems of Action" in Talcott Parsons and Edward Shils (eds.), Toward a General Theory of Action, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1952, pp. 76-88.) The effect on social relations that follow from a sheer increase in the number of associates with whom a person must deal are explored in a challenging way in Georg Simmel, Soziologie: Untersuchungen über die Formen der Vergesellschaftung, Dunker and. Humblot, Leipzig, 1908, ch. 2.

16) William James, The Principles of Psychology, Holt, New York, 1891, ch.10, "The Empirical Self or Me", section lb.

17) This is a part of the so-called "theory of the looking-glass self" proposed by Charles H. Cooley in Human Nature and the Social Order, Scribner, New York, 1902, pp. 183-185.

18) This issue, in my opinion, is the heart of so-called "reference group theory" (See Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure, Second edition, The Free Press, Glencoe, 1957, chs. 8 and 9), although most of the writings under this heading deal merely with problems of modifications of descriptions, evaluations, and prescriptions, and the problems of compliance to prescriptions.

19) David Riesman, The Lonely Crowd, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1950.

20) Merton, op. cit., ch. 10. See also Alvin W. Gouldner, "Cosmopolitans and Locals: Toward an Analysis of Latent Social Roles", Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 2 (1957-1958), pp. 281-306 and 444-480.

21) A very readable use of this argument in the field of economic consumption is found in Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class, Macmillan, New York, 1899, chapters 2-4.

22) Pareto’s discussion of the activities of "lions" and "foxes" in politics and of "speculators" and "rentiers" in the economy contributes much to the understanding of consolidators and achievers, although his terms are defined differently. See Vilfredo Pareto, Trattato di sociologia generale, G. Barbera, Florence, 1916, esp. 2231-2235.

23) In my article, "Compliant Actions", Acta Sociologica, Vol. 2 (1957), pp. 179-201, I have reviewed some evidence for this proposition as it applies to descriptions and evaluations (op.cit., sections 4 and 5).

24) For a precise formulation of the notions of "organization" and "market," see Section 13 infra.

25) On this and other factors affecting social solidarity, see Emile Durkheim, De la division du travail social, Felix Alcan, Paris, 1893.

26) Many of these ideas are discussed in Georg Simmel, "Die Grosstädte und das Geistesleben", Jahrbuch der Gehe-Stiftung zu Dresden, Vol. 9 (1902-1903), pp. 185-206. See also, Pitirim Sorokin and Carle C. Zimmerman, Principles of Rural- Urban Sociology, Henry Holt, New York, 1929, ch. 13.

27) Several studies supporting the first clause in this proposition have been analyzed by George C. Homans, The Human Group, Harcourt-Brace, New York 1950, pp. 140-144 and pp. 179-181; and by Henry W. Riecken and George C. Homans in the first part of their chapter, "Psychological Aspects of Social Structure", in G. Lindzey (ed.), Handbook of Social Psychology, Addison-Wesley, Cambridge, 1954, pp. 786-832, esp. pp. 788-791. The second clause is added here. It is illustrated by an experiment by Stanley Schachter, "Deviation, Rejection and Communication", Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol. 46 (1951), pp. 190-207.

28) Albert Cohen, "A General Theory of Subcultures", in his Delinquent Boys, Free Press, Glencoe, 1955, ch. 3.

29) Leon Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, Row Peterson Evanston, 1957, pp. 12-15.

30) Cf. Emile Benoit-Smullyan, "Status, Status Types, and Status Interrelations", American Sociological Review, vol. 9 (1944), pp. 151-161.

31) George P. Murdock, Social Structure, Macmillan, New York, 1949, esp. ch. 7.

32) The only one that so far has been subject to systematic analysis is the reward pattern of science. See Robert K. Merton, "Priorities in Scientific Discovery: A Chapter in the Sociology of Science," American Sociological Review, Vol. 22 (1957), pp. 635-659.

33) Weber’s historical writings contain analyses of patrimonial vassals, junkers, officers, civil servants, priesthoods, and several other vested interests. The German term used by Weber for these vested interests is "Stand". It is formally defined in Max Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 3rd ed., J. C. B. .Mohr. Tübingen, 1947, p. 179, and sometimes rendered in English as "status group".

34) For a useful compilation of the most important of the references to class and class conflicts scattered through the writings of Karl Marx, see Tom B. Bottomore and Maximilian Rubel (eds.), Karl Marx: Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy, Watts, London, 1956, pp. 178-202. A critical but sympathetic modern review applying Marxian ideas to "industrial" (rather than "capitalist") societies is found in Ralph Dahrendorf, Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1959.

35) For a promising beginning that sociologists to date somehow have failed to follow up, see Pareto, op. cit., chs. 12-13.

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