Social system

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In sociology, a social system is the patterned network of relationships constituting a coherent whole that exist between individuals, groups, and institutions. [1] It is the formal structure of role and status that can form in a small, stable group. [1] An individual may belong to multiple social systems at once; [2] examples of social systems include nuclear family units, communities, cities, nations, college campuses, religions, corporations, and industries. The organization and definition of groups within a social system depend on various shared properties such as location, socioeconomic status, race, religion, societal function, or other distinguishable features. [3]

Contents

Notable theorists

The study of social systems is integral to the fields of sociology and public policy. Social systems have been studied for as long as sociology has existed.

Talcott Parsons

Talcott Parsons was the first to formulate a systematic theory of social systems, which he did as a part of his AGIL paradigm. He defined a social system as only a segment (or a "subsystem") of what he called action theory. [4] Parsons organized social systems in terms of action units, where one action executed by an individual is one unit. He defines a social system as a network of interactions between actors. [4] According to Parsons, social systems rely on a system of language, and culture must exist in a society in order for it to qualify as a social system. [4] Parsons' work laid the foundations for the rest of the study of social systems theory and ignited the debate over what framework social systems should be built around, such as actions, communication, or other relationships.

Niklas Luhmann

Niklas Luhmann was a prominent sociologist and social systems theorist who laid the foundations of modern social system thought. [5] He based his definition of a "social system" on the mass network of communication between people and defined society itself as an "autopoietic" system, meaning a self-referential and self-reliant system that is distinct from its environment. [6] Luhmann considered social systems as belonging to three categories: societal systems, organizations, and interaction systems. [7] Luhmann considered societal systems, such as religion, law, art, education, science, etc., to be closed systems consisting of different fields of interaction. [8] Organizations were defined as a network of decisions which reproduce themselves; his definition is difficult to apply in terms of finding a real-world example. [8] Finally, interaction systems are systems that reproduce themselves on the basis of co-presence rather than decision making. [8]

Jay Wright Forrester

Jay Wright Forrester founded the field of system dynamics, which deals with the simulation of interactions in dynamic systems. In his work on social systems, he discusses the possibilities of social system dynamics, or modeling social systems using computers with the aim of testing the possible effects of passing new public policies or laws. In his paper he recognized the difficulty of producing a reliable computer model system, but argued that an imperfect model was better than none and simply implementing new policy. [9]

Forrester argued that unsuccessful public policies aim to treat the symptoms rather than the causes of social issues and that they also generally focus on efforts rather than on results. This occurs because there is either an incomplete understanding or a misunderstanding of the causes of an issue on the part of the policymakers, which often leads to ineffective or detrimental policies which aggravate the issues they were implemented to correct or cause other issues to arise. Another problem Forrester notes is that some policies which may work in the long run may aggravate an issue in the short run. A successful policy according to Forrester must target the correct leverage points, in this case the aspect of the social problem which, if modified, will produce a sizeable enough effect to correct the problem.

Racialized social system

Eduardo Bonilla-Silva referred to the social relationships between different racial groups as a racialized social system. [10] : 50  Some academics have criticized the idea that the group of white people constitute a meaningful group for such analysis. [10] : 163  Iris Marion Young distinguished between the notions of "group" and "series", with a "group" being defined by one's own acknowledgment of being a member and a series being a passive social reality. Lewis argues that most groups of white people are a series rather in this sense rather than a group. [10] : 164 

Modeling

The problem with studying social systems is the difficulty of forming and testing theories; social systems are manipulated or controlled and large-scale systems cannot be reproduced in a lab setting. [11] However, the rapid increase in the availability of digital data over the last decade gives scientists studying the behaviors of social systems very detailed and much more holistic pictures of how social systems respond to various events and how networked social systems behave. [12] Additionally, the development and popularity of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter offer new ways to study the evolution of social systems and social networking behaviors with social graphs. [13] Even though the behaviors of these systems may be surprising or not yet well understood, the digital age offers a new frontier for the study of social systems. [14]

Notable past models are the WORLD2 and WORLD3 models: these both aimed to outline the world's distribution of resources. WORLD3 was based on the Club of Rome's Limits to Growth.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Niklas Luhmann</span> German sociologist (1927–1998)

Niklas Luhmann was a German sociologist, philosopher of social science, and a prominent thinker in systems theory.

Systems theory is the transdisciplinary study of systems, i.e. cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or artificial. Every system has causal boundaries, is influenced by its context, defined by its structure, function and role, and expressed through its relations with other systems. A system is "more than the sum of its parts" by expressing synergy or emergent behavior.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Talcott Parsons</span> American sociologist (1902–1979)

Talcott Parsons was an American sociologist of the classical tradition, best known for his social action theory and structural functionalism. Parsons is considered one of the most influential figures in sociology in the 20th century. After earning a PhD in economics, he served on the faculty at Harvard University from 1927 to 1973. In 1930, he was among the first professors in its new sociology department. Later, he was instrumental in the establishment of the Department of Social Relations at Harvard.

A role is a set of connected behaviors, rights, obligations, beliefs, and norms as conceptualized by people in a social situation. It is an expected or free or continuously changing behavior and may have a given individual social status or social position. It is vital to both functionalist and interactionist understandings of society. Social role theory posits the following about social behavior:

  1. The division of labour in society takes the form of the interaction among heterogeneous specialized positions, we call roles.
  2. Social roles included appropriate and permitted forms of behavior and actions that recur in a group, guided by social norms, which are commonly known and hence determine the expectations for appropriate behavior in these roles, which further explains the position of a person in the society.
  3. Roles are occupied by individuals, who are called actors.
  4. When individuals approve of a social role, they will incur costs to conform to role norms, and will also incur costs to punish those who violate role norms.
  5. Changed conditions can render a social role outdated or illegitimate, in which case social pressures are likely to lead to role change.
  6. The anticipation of rewards and punishments, as well as the satisfaction of behaving pro-socially, account for why agents conform to role requirements.
<span class="mw-page-title-main">Open system (systems theory)</span> Systems with external interactions

An open system is a system that has external interactions. Such interactions can take the form of information, energy, or material transfers into or out of the system boundary, depending on the discipline which defines the concept. An open system is contrasted with the concept of an isolated system which exchanges neither energy, matter, nor information with its environment. An open system is also known as a flow system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Autopoiesis</span> Systems concept which entails automatic reproduction and maintenance

The term autopoiesis refers to a system capable of producing and maintaining itself by creating its own parts. The term was introduced in the 1972 publication Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living by Chilean biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela to define the self-maintaining chemistry of living cells.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Structural functionalism</span> Sociological theory of society

Structural functionalism, or simply functionalism, is "a framework for building theory that sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social structure</span> Sociological classification of human societies according to their social characteristics

In the social sciences, social structure is the aggregate of patterned social arrangements in society that are both emergent from and determinant of the actions of individuals. Likewise, society is believed to be grouped into structurally related groups or sets of roles, with different functions, meanings, or purposes. Examples of social structure include family, religion, law, economy, and class. It contrasts with "social system", which refers to the parent structure in which these various structures are embedded. Thus, social structures significantly influence larger systems, such as economic systems, legal systems, political systems, cultural systems, etc. Social structure can also be said to be the framework upon which a society is established. It determines the norms and patterns of relations between the various institutions of the society.

Role theory is a concept in sociology and in social psychology that considers most of everyday activity to be the acting-out of socially defined categories. Each role is a set of rights, duties, expectations, norms, and behaviors that a person has to face and fulfill. The model is based on the observation that people behave in a predictable way, and that an individual's behavior is context specific, based on social position and other factors. Research conducted on role theory mainly centers around the concepts of consensus, role conflict, role taking, and conformity. The theatre is a metaphor often used to describe role theory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sociocybernetics</span> Research field

Sociocybernetics is an interdisciplinary science between sociology and general systems theory and cybernetics. The International Sociological Association has a specialist research committee in the area – RC51 – which publishes the (electronic) Journal of Sociocybernetics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social complexity</span> Conceptual framework

In sociology, social complexity is a conceptual framework used in the analysis of society. In the sciences, contemporary definitions of complexity are found in systems theory, wherein the phenomenon being studied has many parts and many possible arrangements of the parts; simultaneously, what is complex and what is simple are relative and change in time.

Sociological abstraction refers to the varying levels at which theoretical concepts can be understood. It is a tool for objectifying and simplifying sociological concepts. This idea is very similar to the philosophical understanding of abstraction. There are two basic levels of sociological abstraction: sociological concepts and operationalized sociological concepts.

Neofunctionalism is the perspective that all integration is the result of past integration. The term may also be used to literally describe a social theory that is "post" traditional structural functionalism. Whereas theorists such as Jeffrey C. Alexander openly appropriated the term, others, such as the post-structuralist philosopher Michel Foucault, have been categorized as contemporary functionalists by their critics.

The AGIL paradigm is a sociological scheme created by American sociologist Talcott Parsons in the 1950s. It is a systematic depiction of certain societal functions, which every society must meet to be able to maintain stable social life. The AGIL paradigm is part of Parsons's larger action theory, outlined in his notable book The Structure of Social Action, in The Social System and in later works, which aims to construct a unified map of all action systems, and ultimately "living systems". Indeed, the actual AGIL system only appeared in its first elaborate form in 1956, and Parsons extended the system in various layers of complexity during the rest of his intellectual life. Towards the end of his life, he added a new dimension to the action system, which he called the paradigm of the human condition; within that paradigm, the action system occupied the integral dimension.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social psychology (sociology)</span>

In sociology, social psychology studies the relationship between the individual and society. Although studying many of the same substantive topics as its counterpart in the field of psychology, sociological social psychology places relatively more emphasis on the influence of social structure and culture on individual outcomes, such as personality, behavior, and one's position in social hierarchies. Researchers broadly focus on higher levels of analysis, directing attention mainly to groups and the arrangement of relationships among people. This subfield of sociology is broadly recognized as having three major perspectives: Symbolic interactionism, social structure and personality, and structural social psychology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sociology of law</span> Sub-discipline of sociology relating to legal studies

The sociology of law, legal sociology, or law and society is often described as a sub-discipline of sociology or an interdisciplinary approach within legal studies. Some see sociology of law as belonging "necessarily" to the field of sociology, but others tend to consider it a field of research caught up between the disciplines of law and sociology. Still others regard it as neither a subdiscipline of sociology nor a branch of legal studies but as a field of research on its own right within the broader social science tradition. Accordingly, it may be described without reference to mainstream sociology as "the systematic, theoretically grounded, empirical study of law as a set of social practices or as an aspect or field of social experience". It has been seen as treating law and justice as fundamental institutions of the basic structure of society mediating "between political and economic interests, between culture and the normative order of society, establishing and maintaining interdependence, and constituting themselves as sources of consensus, coercion and social control".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sociology of terrorism</span> Academic field that seeks to understand terrorism

Sociology of terrorism is a field of sociology that seeks to understand terrorism as a social phenomenon. The field defines terrorism, studies why it occurs and evaluates its impacts on society. The sociology of terrorism draws from the fields of political science, history, economics and psychology. The sociology of terrorism differs from critical terrorism studies, emphasizing the social conditions that enable terrorism. It also studies how individuals as well as states respond to such events.

In system theory, "differentiation" is the increase of subsystems in a modern society to increase the complexity of a society. Each subsystem can make different connections with other subsystems, and this leads to more variation within the system in order to respond to variation in the environment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social network</span> Social structure made up of a set of social actors

A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors, sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for analyzing the structure of whole social entities as well as a variety of theories explaining the patterns observed in these structures. The study of these structures uses social network analysis to identify local and global patterns, locate influential entities, and examine network dynamics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Medical sociology</span> Branch of sociology

Medical sociology is the sociological analysis of medical organizations and institutions; the production of knowledge and selection of methods, the actions and interactions of healthcare professionals, and the social or cultural effects of medical practice. The field commonly interacts with the sociology of knowledge, science and technology studies, and social epistemology. Medical sociologists are also interested in the qualitative experiences of patients, often working at the boundaries of public health, social work, demography and gerontology to explore phenomena at the intersection of the social and clinical sciences. Health disparities commonly relate to typical categories such as class and race. Objective sociological research findings quickly become a normative and political issue.

References

  1. 1 2 "Definition of SOCIAL SYSTEM". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 2017-06-09.
  2. ↑ "What are some examples of social systems?". Reference. Retrieved 2017-06-09.
  3. ↑ "What is social system ? definition and meaning". BusinessDictionary.com. Retrieved 2017-06-09.
  4. 1 2 3 Parsons, Talcott (1951). The Social System. England: Routledge. p. 15. ISBN   978-0-203-99295-1.
  5. ↑ "Observing Society: Meaning, Communication, and Social Systems By Daniel B. Lee and Achim Brosziewski". www.cambriapress.com. Retrieved 2017-06-09.
  6. ↑ Vermeer, Hans J. (2006). Luhmann's "social Systems" Theory: Preliminary Fragments for a Theory of Translation. Frank & Timme GmbH. ISBN   9783865961020.
  7. ↑ Mayrhofer, Wolfgang (2004). "Social Systems Theory as Theoretical Framework for Human Resource Management – Benediction or Curse?" (PDF). Management Revue. 15 (2): 178–191. doi: 10.5771/0935-9915-2004-2-178 . hdl:10419/78961. JSTOR   41783463.
  8. 1 2 3 David Seidl, Kai Helge Becker (2013). Niklas Luhmann and Organizational Studies. Denmark: CBS press. pp. 35–42. ISBN   978-87-630-0304-9.
  9. ↑ "Jay W. Forrester: Counterintuitive Behavior of Social Systems" . Retrieved 2017-06-09.
  10. 1 2 3 White out : the continuing significance of racism. Ashley W. Doane, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva. New York: Routledge. 2003. ISBN   978-1-136-06458-6. OCLC   825767493.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  11. ↑ JC. (1985-01-01). "Social Systems Theory and Practice: The Need for a Critical Approach". International Journal of General Systems. 10 (2–3): 135–151. doi:10.1080/03081078508934877. ISSN   0308-1079.
  12. ↑ Vespignani, Alessandro (24 July 2009). "Predicting the Behavior of Techno-Social Systems" (PDF). Science. 325 (5939): 425–428. Bibcode:2009Sci...325..425V. doi:10.1126/science.1171990. PMID   19628859. S2CID   206519032.
  13. ↑ "Extending Systems Thinking to Social Systems - The Systems Thinker". The Systems Thinker. 2016-01-23. Retrieved 2017-06-09.
  14. ↑ "Online Social Systems | Simons Foundation". www.simonsfoundation.org. Retrieved 2017-06-09.

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