Robert Merton

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RobertMerton

• July 4, 1910
• February 23, 2003

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Biographical Background

• Born Meyer R. Schkolnick in Philadelphia to
  working class Jewish Eastern European immigrant
  parents.
• A frequent visitor of the nearby Carnegie
  Library, The Academy of Music, Central Library,
  and the Museum of the Arts.
• Changed his name while working as an amateur
  magician in high school.
• Began his sociological career at Temple
  University studying with George E. Simpson and
  then under Pitrim A. Sorokin at Harvard.
• Greatly influenced by Sorokin who chaired his
  dissertation committee, along with Carle
  Zimmerman, George Sarton, and Talcott Parsons.
• Dissertation was on the social history of the
  scientific development in England in the
  seventeenth-century.
• Mertons second marriage was to fellow
  sociologist Harriet Zuckerman.
• He had one son and two daughters, including
  Robert C. Merton, who won the 1997 Nobel Prize in
  economics.

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Honors and Recognition

• Taught at Harvard, then as professor and chairman
  of the Department of Sociology at Tulane
  University (1939).
• 1941- joined the faculty of Columbia University,
  became Giddings Professor of Sociology in 1963.
• 1974 - achieved the highest rank at Columbia
  University as a University Professor and later a
  Special Service Professor upon retirement in
  1979.
• One of the first sociologists elected to the
  National Academy of Sciences.
• First American sociologist elected to the Royal
  Swedish Academy of Sciences.
• Member of the American Philosophical Society, the
  American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the
  National Academy of Education, and Academica
  Europaea .
• 1961 received a Guggenheim fellowship
• 1983-88 the first sociologist to be named a
  MacArthur Fellow
• Awarded honorary degrees from over twenty
  institutions including Yale, Harvard, Columbia,
  Chicago, and many universities abroad
• 1994 received the U.S. National Medal of
  Science, the first sociologist to receive this
  award

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Mertons Major Publications

• Social Theory and Social Structure
  (1949, 1957.
  1968)
• The Sociology of Science (1973)
• Sociological Ambivalence (1976)
• On the Shoulders of Giants A
  Shandea Postscript (1985)
• The Travels and Adventures of
  Serendipity A Study in Sociological
  Semantics and the Sociology of
  Science (2004)

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Major Theories

• Theories of the middle range
• Fills in the blanks between Abstracted
  Empiricism and Grand (all-inclusive) Theory (C.
  Wright Mills terms).
• Influenced by Weber and Durkheim.
• Functional and Dysfunctional analysis
• Functionalism is central to interpreting data
  based uponconsequences for larger structures.
• Society is analyzed with reference to cultural
  and social structures in regard to how well or
  badly they are integrated.
• Implies that all institutions are inherently
  serving for society, emphasizing the importance
  and existence of dysfunctions.
• Approaches conflict theory.
• Can explain and discover alternatives to
  dysfunction only if the dysfunctional aspects of
  institutions are recognized.
• Influenced by Durkheim and Parsons.

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Major Theories (continued)

• Manifest and latent functions
• Manifest functions expected or observed
  consequences
• Latent functions those that are not recognized
  or intended.
• Attention to latent functions increases
  understanding of the larger society in going
  beyond individual motivation.
• Says that dysfunctions can also be manifest or
  latent
• Functional alternatives
• Societies must have certain characteristics to
  ensure survival
• Emphasizes that other institutions are able to
  fulfill the same functions
• Important because this reduces the tendency of
  functionalism to imply approval of the status quo

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Mertons Critique of Functionalisms Fundamental
Premises
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Concept of Dysfunction

• What are Dysfunctions?
• Defined as the consequences of a social practice
  or behavior pattern that undermines the
  stability of a social system.
• Merton paid especial attention to their
  existence.
• Important to be alert to and pay attention to the
  dysfunctional aspects of social practices and
  institutions.
• Noticing dysfunctional aspects of society helps
  to explain the development and persistence of
  alternatives, often initially seen as
  problematical and or deviant.

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Sociological Theories of the Middle Range

• Sociological Theory in general refers to
  logically interconnected sets of propositions
  from which empirical uniformities can be
  derived.
• Theories of the middle range-lie between the
  minor but necessary working hypotheses that
  evolve in abundance during day-to-day research
  and the all-inclusive systematic efforts to
  develop a unified theory that will explain all
  the observed uniformities of social behavior,
  social organization, and social change

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Sociological Theories of the Middle Range

• Theories of the Middle Range are principally used
  in sociology to guide specific empirical
  inquiries.
• Such theories are more than simply empirical
  generalizations - isolated propositions that
  summarize the observed uniformities of
  relationships between two or more variables.

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Anomie Mertons Reconceptualization

• Re-conceptualizes Durkheim's concept of Anomie.
• Not necessarily an overall, or even localized
  breakdown in the normative structure.
• The cultural system and social structure of
  society is basically intact, workable,
  functional.
• In fact, to a certain extent, deviance
  represents the functionality of the system as
  an expression of functional alternatives.
• Basic Premise A disjuncture within the cultural
  system between the Goals (values) which
  define our lives and the culturally
  determined, institutionalized, legitimate
  Means (norms) for achieving them.

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Social Structure and Anomie

• Merton argues that deviance results from the
  culture and structure of society itself. He
  begins from the standard functionalist position
  of value consensus that is, all members of
  society share the same values.
• Since members of society are placed in different
  positions in the social structure (e.g. they
  differ in terms of class position), they do not
  have the same opportunity of realizing the shared
  values. This situation can generate deviance.

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Cultural goals and institutionalized means

• Members of American society share the major
  values of American culture, particularly the goal
  of success, largely measured in terms of wealth
  and material possessions.
• In America the accepted ways of achieving success
  are through education, talent, hard work, drive,
  determination and ambition.
• In a balanced society an equal emphasis is placed
  upon both cultural goals and institutionalized
  means, and members are satisfied with both. In
  American society great importance is attached to
  success less is attached to how you achieve
  success.
• Therefore, there is a tendency to reject the
  rules of the game and strive for success by any
  means necessary. In this situation where
  anything goes, norms no longer direct
  behaviour, and deviance is tolerated if not
  encouraged.

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(Adopted by Merton)
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Mertons Typology of Individual Adaptation
explanation of deviant behavior
Modes of Adaptation Institutionalized Means Cultural Goals
Conformity
Innovation -
Ritualism -
Retreatism - -
Rebellion -/ -/

• acceptance
• - rejection
• /- rejection of current values, replacement
  with others

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Conformity

• Social order is maintained because modal behavior
  of members represent the cultural patterns, even
  if they are secularly changing.
• Behavior ? basic values ? society
• Society does NOT exist if there is no deposit of
  values shared by interacting individuals.
• These values are the most common and widely
  diffused.
• They keep society rolling

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Conformity

• Members of society conform both to the goal of
  success and the normative means of reaching them.
  They strive for success
• by means of accepted norms and channels.

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Innovation

• Emphasis on success-goal ? wealth and power.
• occurs when the individual has assimilated the
  cultural emphasis upon the Goal without equally
  internalizing the institutional Norms governing
  ways and means for its attainment.
• Drives both business-like striving on one side
  of the mores and sharp creative practices on
  the other side of the mores.

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Innovation

• This response rejects the normative means of
  achieving success and turns to deviant means,
  always questionable, often criminal.

"Bernie" Madoff
former stockbroker, investment advisor,
financier, and the former non-executive chairman
of the NASDAQ stock market, and the convicted
operator of the Ponzi scheme considered to be
the largest financial fraud 18 billion in
in U.S. history!
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Ritualism

• Scaling down/abandoning cultural goals for
  personal aspirations.
• Although attempting not to accept cultural
  influences, they abide by institutional norms.
• Not generally considered to represent a social
  problem.
• Fairly frequent because largely dependent upon
  ones lack of achievement or ambition.
• Ritualist familiar and instructive comments-
  Im satisfied with what Ive got. - Dont aim
  high and you wont be disappointed. - I just
  work here I dont make the rules.

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Ritualism

• Serves as a private escape
• Avoid dangers and frustrations of cultural norms.
• Holds on to safe routines and institutional
  norms.
• Often found in the Lower-Middle Class
• Parents exert pressure to children about moral
  mandates of society.
• Upward social mobility not easy to obtain.

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Ritualism

• Ritualism those who select
  this alternative are deviant
  because they have largely
  abandoned the commonly
  held cultural goals of success.

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Retreatism

• May be least common form of adaptation
• in the society but not of it
• outcasts, vagabonds, chronic drunkards, drug
  addicts, street people, etc.
• Individuals have assimilated standards of both
  cultural goals and institutional means ? not
  accessible ? individual is shut off.
• Escape mechanisms defeatism, quietism,
  resignation, detachment.

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Retreatism

• Solution for deviant person abandon both goals
  and means and become asocial.
• Condemned because represents a non-productive
  liability.
• Positive side minimal frustrations while
  seeking rewards.
• Negative side socially disinherited.
• Adaptations are largely private and isolated.

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Retreatism

• Applies to psychotics, autistics, pariahs,
  outcasts, vagrants, vagabonds, tramps, drug
  addicts and chronic drunkards. They have
  internalized both the cultural goals and the
  institutionalized means, yet are unable to
  achieve success.

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Rebellion

• Collective adaptation.
• Involves genuine transvaluation.
• Experience of frustration leads to full
  denunciation of previously prized values.
• Key difference resentment condemns the object
  being craved rebellion condemns craving.
• More likely to occur if the institutional system
  is a barrier to satisfying goals.
• Goal to stay a part of society, but transition
  between social groups.

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Rebellion

• It is a rejection of both the success goals and
  the institutionalized means, and it replaces them
  with different goals and means.

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Rebellion
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Unanticipated Consequencesof Purposive Social
Action

• Crucial innovation to the field of Sociology.
• A look at unanticipated consequences.
• Social actions have both intended and unintended
  consequences.
• Discovery requires sociological analysis.
• Can be both negative and beneficial.

Example
Unanticipated consequence aspirin is also an
anti-coagulant which can help reduce the risk of
a heart-attack.
Aspirin, used most commonly as pain reliever
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Another Example
Beneficial Consequence The sinking battleships
created a permanent home to the creatures of the
sea as it acted as an artificial coral
reef. Negative Consequence The oil from the
battleships pollute the ocean water. This can
lead to environmental hazards and to the death of
many species.
In WW II, many battles took place on or near the
shore. Artillery on land firing at a
battleship at sea with the intention of sinking
the ship.
SINK IT!
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Distinguishing Manifest and Latent Functions

• There is often confusion between the conscious
  motivations of social behavior and its objective
  consequences.
• Difference between motives and functions
• Manifest Functions intended and objective
  consequences for a specified unit (person,
  subgroup, social or cultural system) which
  contribute to its adjustment or adaptation.
• Latent Functions unintended and unrecognized
  consequences.

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Heuristic Purposes of the Distinction

• Clarifies the analysis of seemingly irrational
  data
• Distinction aids the interpretation of social
  practices
• which persist even though their manifest
  purpose is not not achieved.
• When group behavior does not attain its supposed
  purpose, there is an inclination to attribute its
  occurrence to lack of intelligence, innocence,
  naiveté.
• Concept of latent functions extends beyond
  whether or not behavior attained its purpose.
• Directs attention towards individual
  personalities involved in behavior, and the
  persistence and continuity of the larger group.

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Examples

• 1. Hopi rain dance does not produce rainfall, so
  it is labeled as superstitious and the
  Hopi people are viewed as ignorant or
  primitive.
• However, the Hopi rain dance ceremonial has
  non- purposed, latent functions -
  reinforces group identity, reaffirms
  group norms, provides a communal
  experience of the Sacred with all that implies.
• 2. As recently as the 1980s the average birth
  rate in the India was 4.6 children per
  family, resulting in an apparent national
  overpopulation and so was seen as
  irrational and counter-productive to social
  development.
• Whats a functional
  explanation?

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A functional explanation

• In the 1980s the average Indian male could
  expect a number of years of unemployment when he
  got older. India had no social security program
  and the typical worker did not earn enough to
  save for these unemployed years. His only hope,
  then, was to be provided for by his children. It
  took an average of 1.1 wage earners to support
  one unemployed adult at minimum subsistence, but
  because it takes two to produce a child, each
  family needed at least 2.2 wage-earning children.
  Because half the children born were female, and
  females were essentially unemployable in India at
  the time, 4.4 children were required. To cover
  infant and child mortality, this number had to be
  adjusted upward to 4.6 children. Clearly, nobody
  was figuring this out on an explicit basis. It
  represents a dramatic example of a latent social
  phenomenon, both functional and dysfunctional.

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Impact of Mertons Theory

• If confined to the study of manifest functions
• the sociologist will be concerned with
  determining whether a practice instituted for a
  particular purpose does, in fact, achieve this
  purpose.
• Once expanded to the study of latent functions
• the sociologist will examine the familiar (or
  planned) social practice to determine the latent,
  unrecognized, functions and make distinctive
  intellectual contributions

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Impact of Mertons Theory

• Findings concerning latent functions represent an
  increment in knowledge because they describe
  practices and beliefs in terms which are not
  common knowledge.
• They preclude the substitution of naïve moral
  judgments for thoughtful sociological analysis.
• Naïve moral judgments in society usually result
  from the manifest consequences of a social
  practice or code of behavior not critically
  examined.

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Impact of Mertons Theory

• Analysis in terms of latent functions, then,
  often runs counter to the prevailing moral
  evaluations.
• Considered from the functional viewpoint
• Persistent social patterns and social structures
  perform positive functions which, at the time,
  arenot adequately fulfilled by other existing
  patterns and structures.
• Publicly criticized behaviors and organizations
  often defined as deviant are, under present
  conditions, very likely satisfying basic and
  important latent functions.

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Multiple Variables to Consider Simultaneously
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Mertons General Paradigm of Sociological /
Structural AmbivalenceStructurally created
Strain 

• opposing normative tendencies in the social
  definition of a role or status

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The Paradigm in General

• In its most extended form Incompatible
  normative expectations of attitudes, beliefs, and
  behavior are assigned to a status or to a set of
  statuses.
• In its most restricted form
• Incompatible normative expectations are
  incorporated within a single role of a single
  status.

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Specific Conflicts Contradictions

• Conflict among statuses within a status-set a
  pattern of conflict of interests or of values
  within the status-set.
• Conflict between several roles associated with a
  particular status.
• Contradictions among general cultural values
  held by all members of society, i.e., not
  specific to a particular status.

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Specific Conflicts Contradictions

• Conflict or disjunction between culturally
  prescribed aspirations and socially structured
  avenues for realizing these aspirations (the
  opportunity structure).
• Contradiction or conflict between cross-cultural
  statuses.
• Contradiction or conflict between reference group
  anchors or identifications.

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Role-Set Theory

• Begins with the concept that each social status
  involves not a single associated role, but an
  array of roles (a role-set).
• Example A medical student plays not only the
  role of student vis-à-vis the correlative status
  of his teachers but also an array of other roles
  relating diversely to others in the system
  other medical students, physicians, nurses,
  social workers, medical technicians, non-medical
  students, university administrative personnel,
  and the like.

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Role-Set Theory

• Role-Set theory raises the general but definite
  problem of identifying the social mechanisms
  which create and alleviate conflict.
• Illustrates another aspect of sociological
  theories of the middle range.
• Largely consistent with a variety of schools of
  sociological theory Marxist theory, structural
  functional analysis, social behaviorism,
  Sorokins integral sociology, and Parsons s
  theory of action.

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Role-Set Theory

• There is always a potential for differing
  expectations among those in a role-set as to what
  is appropriate conduct for a status-occupant
  given that other members of a role-set hold
  various social positions differing from those of
  the status-occupant in question.
• This gives rise to a double question What
  social mechanisms, if any, operate to counteract
  the potential instability of role-sets and,
  correlatively, under which circumstances do these
  social mechanisms fail to operate, with resulting
  inefficiency, confusion, and conflict?

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Individuals as Status-Occupants status-setsrole-s
ets norm-clusters
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Sociology A Systematic Approach
SOCIOLOGYSSS
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Mertons Sequence
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Obligations and Responsibilities
Normative Expectations (Rules)
Social Status
Cognitive Attributes Beliefs, Values, Motivations
and Attitudes
Interests
Power Authority
Social Capital
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Obligations and Responsibilities What am I
supposed to do?
Where do these come from?
Social Status
How do they change over historical time? i.e.,
fathers and parenting.
Individuals who occupy a given status must take
these into account.
The extent to which individuals who occupy a
given status live up to the responsibilities and
obligations that are called for varies.
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Normative Expectations (Rules) How am I supposed
to do all this?
Guidelines, rules for social conduct. They
indicate how one ought to act or behave in
social settings Prescribed -
Proscribed Permitted - Preferred
Social Status
Norms vary from one culture to another. Norms
vary from one sub-culture to another.
Norms vary over historical time.
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Normative Expectations (Rules) How am I supposed
to do all this?
Do not confuse norms with actual action or
behavior.
Social Status
The extent to which people consider norms
legitimate varies.
The extent to which people comply with norms
varies.
Norms vary in their importance Folkways -
norms for routine or casual interactions Mores -
norms derived from moral valuesTaboos - norms
that place behavior out of bounds Laws - norms
that are codified and are sanctioned
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S T A B I L I T Y
Obligations and Responsibilities What am I
supposed to do?
Normative Expectations (Rules) How am I supposed
to do all this?
Social Status
Cognitive Attributes Beliefs, Values, Motivations
and Attitudes
Mutually reinforcing and reciprocal Expectations.
Whether we recognize it or not, we possess a
vast storehouse of social knowledge and, to
varying degrees, know what is expected of us
what to expect of others.
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Interests Conflict is built into society
Conflict is built into the very fabric of
society. It is as normal - and healthy - as the
air we breathe and usually occurs in socially
patterned ways.
Social Status
By virtue of occupying different Positions,
people will have different sets of LEGITIMATE
interests, values and attitudes.
Thus a great deal of conflict in society is
structured it is the result of people
status-occupants trying to live up to the
expectations placed upon them.
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Interests Conflict is built into society
Social Status
If conflict is built into the very fabric of
society, how is it managed?
What are the patterns and functions of conflict?
How are conflicts whether legitimate or Not
resolved?
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Power AuthorityBoth are necessary for society
Power the capacity to impose ones will over
others, even against the resistance of others
coercion.
Social Status
Authority the capacity to have others comply
with your wishes - even if they would prefer not
to - because they recognize the legitimacy of the
request.
Power and authority are usually not individual
attributes, they are located in the positions
people occupy i.e., U.S. President.
The extent to which power and authority are
exercised by status-occupants varies.
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Power AuthorityBoth are necessary for society
Power and authority are not equally distributed
in all social statuses
Social Status
employer - employee male - female professor -
student dean - professor wealthy - poor white -
non-white
As a result, we should expect to find different
outcomes in society, as indeed we do
racial disparities in criminal sentencing
unequal pay for men and women
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Social Capital Access to Opportunities and
Resources Inequality is built into society
Social Status
Central or Controlling Statuses Different
statuses provide occupants different degrees of
access to resources and opportunities - some
more, some less. Examples the
double standard the opportunity
structure the glass ceiling
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Status-sets
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Master and Dominant Statuses
Master Status that status within an individuals
status-set that has special importance for
social identity, often shaping a persons entire
life.
Dominant Status that status within an
individuals status-set that is given priority
when the behavioral expectations associated with
two or more statuses come into
conflict. Salient Status that status within an
individuals status-set that is elicited in a
particular situation.
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Master Statuses
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Multiple Statuses
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from The Statue Within An Autobiography
An Illustration of Multiple Statuses
by François Jacob (1920 2013)

• In the following excerpt, Professor of Medicine
  and Nobel Prize Laureate François Jacob reflects
  on what has been an obviously dramatic life.
• I have portrayed his series of selves as a
  series of statuses which he has occupied and/or
  transitioned through in his life sequence.

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• I see my life less as continuity than as a series
  of different selves I might almost say
  strangers.
• At the end of the line, I see the little boy, the
  only child, cajoled by a sweet mother, spoiled by
  all, playing (too often alone) while mouthing
  words that he tries out and twists ad infinitum.
  Then comes the adolescent, swollen with vanity,
  full of ambition, a shade backward with girls.
• Then, the medical student preparing to become a
  surgeon.
• The fighting man of the Free French forces,
  thrown across North Africa with an infantry
  battalion from Chad.
• The wreck of a man, lacerated by grenades, who
  returns to Paris and make a stab at 10 different
  professions.
• The beginner at the Pasteur Institute,
  discovering in awe the world of research and
  biology.
• All this gang marching in single file.

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François Jacob continues

• I have trouble imaging that, when the name
  Francois Jacob is called, all these selves can
  leap up and answer, Present!
• When I come across my name in a report card, a
  military document, or an old newspaper article,
  it seems to refer to fellows who happen to have
  the same name as I. Would I recognize them if I
  passed them on the street?
• Like the bird contemplating the shell it has just
  broken out of, and saying, Me? In there? Never!

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Status-sets identities
Age 54
Husband
Father
Race White
Professor
Friend
Executive Director
Status-Activation Salient Statuses
Since individuals occupy multiple statuses, which
specific status becomes activated at any given
time? How is this socially negotiated by
partners in interactions? How are discrepant
activations resolved?
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Status-sets identities
Age 54
Husband
Father
Race White
Professor
Friend
Executive Director
Since individuals occupy multiple statuses they
are subject to cross-pressures expectations to
comply with contending expectations of different
statuses.
to what
extent are the beliefs, values
attitudes, interests and social standing
attached to different statuses in an
individuals status-set
consistent? and then how are
the inevitable inconsistencies
that arise managed?
Status-consistency
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Status-sets
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Jane Does Status Set
Example
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Status-conflict Status-strain
Age 54
Husband
Father
Race White
Professor
Friend
Executive Director
Conflict living up to the demands and
obligations of one status precludes
fulfilling the demands and obligations of
another status.
Strain fulfilling all of the various status
demands and obligations, but at
less than peak effectiveness having
to prioritize, make trade offs, cut corners.
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Status-conflict or Status-strain
Role-conflict or Role-strain
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Role-set of the status of Professor
Professor
Students
Colleagues
Deans
Support Staff
Community
(each with a variable person-set)
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Multiple Statuses
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Multiple Statuses
If you can identify your counter role occupants
they will lead you to your role-set.