Types of social structures – Behavioral sciences explore the cognitive processes within organisms and the behavioral interactions between organisms in the natural world. It involves the systematic analysis and investigation of human and animal behavior through the study of the past, controlled and naturalistic observation of the present and disciplined scientific experimentation and modeling.
It attempts to accomplish legitimate, objective conclusions through rigorous formulations and observation. Generally, behavior science deals primarily with human action and often seeks to generalize about human behavior as it relates to society.
Types of social structures
Talcott Parsons has described four principal types of social structure. His classification is based on four social values: universalistic social values, particularistic social values, achieved social values, and ascribed social values.
The four types of social structure are:
The Universalistic-Achievement Pattern:
This is the combination of the value patterns which sometimes are opposed to the values of a social structure built mostly about kinship, community, class and race. Universalism by itself favors status- determination on the basis of generalized rules independently of one’s achievement.
The Universalistic-Ascription Pattern:
Under this type of social structure, the elements of value-orientation are dominated by the elements of ascription. Therefore, in such a social structure, strong emphasis is laid on the status of the individual, rather than on his specific achievements. The emphasis is on what an individual is rather than on what he has done. Status is ascribed to the group than to the individual. The individual derives his status from his group.
The Particularistic-Achievement Pattern:
This type combines achievement values with particularism. The primary criterion of valued achievement is found not in universalistic terms such as conformity to a generalized ideal or efficiency but these are focused on certain points of reference within the relational system itself or are inherent in the situation.
The Particularistic-Ascriptive Pattern:
In this type also the social structure is organized around the relational reference points notably those of kinship and local community but it differs from the particularistic-achievement type inasmuch as the relational values are taken as given and passively “adapted to” rather than made for an actively organized system. The structure tends to be traditionalistic and emphasis is laid on its stability.
Read More….