Lec 58: The Structure of Social Action | Talcott Parsons

In this lecture, we will study about:
1. The theory of Social action that was propounded by Talcott parsons in his 1937 book - "The Structure of Social Action".
2. Talcott Parsons was influenced by Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, Sigmund Freud and Vilfredo Pareto.
3. Talcott Parsons using a synthethic approach synthetised the concepts of Utilitarianism, Idealism and Positivism into his Voluntaristic theory of action.
4. He gives the concept of unit act and argues that action is shaped by Normative Constraints and Situational constraint.
5. Actor is driven by Motivational orientation and Value orientation.
6. He argues that there are three types of Motives namely Cognitive motive, Cathectic motive and Evaluative motive which combines with three types of values namely Cognitive, Appreciate and Moral value orientation to give rise to 3 types of action namely Instrumental action, Expressive action and Moral action.
7. He analytically separates the different elements of unit act into Cultural System, Social System, Personality System and Organismic system.
8. He argues that an actor manifest a structured and patterned action in terms of status-role complex.
9. In status role complex, he gives the concept of Role expectations, Role Reciprocity and Double contingency.
10. He analytically differentiates between Social Structure, Social System and Social institutions. He calls society as one big total social system.
11. Structure Functiinalism of Talcott Parsons.
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