3. Functions and Dysfunctions
• “Function” simply means a purpose, intention;
what something is used for.
– Prefixes: ‘Dys’ vs ‘Dis’
• Dys- Greek prefix meaning ‘defective’, ‘difficult’, or
‘painful.’
• Dis- Latin prefix meaning ‘apart’, ‘asunder’, or ‘deprived
of.’
• Functional = positive; something works
• Dysfunctional = negative consequences;
something that doesn’t work.
4. Latent and Manifest Functions
• “Manifest” = obvious, evident, apparent.
• “Latent” = not manifest; hidden; concealed.
– Like a latent disease; the hidden content of a
dream, etc.
• Manifest function = intended or conscious
purpose (or consequences) of some action.
– The reasons people give for why they do things.
• Latent function = unintended, unconscious, Robert K. Merton
(1910 – 2003)
or hidden purposes (consequences) of
actions.
– The ‘real reasons’ or purposes that people’s
actions may have, as seen by outside observers
(sociologists)
5. Latent and Manifest Functions
1. Rain Dance Ceremony
– Manifest function:
• ‘We dance to bring rain’
– Latent function:
• The ceremony is ‘really’ a way of
building social solidarity through Rain Dance
ritual participation
6. Latent and Manifest Functions
2. University Education
– Manifest function:
• Higher Learning, Education
– Latent function:
• Keep young adults out of the job
market University
• Conduct research that supports
the ‘Military-Industrial-Complex’
(Eisenhower)
• …?
8. Prediction and Explanation
• Important rule:
PREDICTION IS NOT THE SAME AS
EXPLANATION!
– Not all explanations entail predictions
– Explaining something means knowing why and
how something happened after it happened.
– Prediction means being able to say what will
happen before it has happened.
9. Incomplete Knowledge
(aka ‘Blind Spots’)
• What we can observe is always only a partial perspective
of the whole picture: we have to abstract (literally “to
cut out”) or select what we regard as important or
essential. We simplify.
• Over time, these ‘small’ or ‘irrelevant’ influences can have huge
consequences! Thus, our predictions which don’t take these
influences into account will depart from the observed results.
This is not a pipe.
It is a picture of a pipe!
10. Incomplete Knowledge
(aka ‘Blind Spots’)
• However, this does not in principle mean that we can’t
make predictions! We just need to devise better
models and improve our knowledge…
• Motto: “All models are wrong, but some are useful”
• Motto: “The Map is not the Territory”
One cannot observe both the world Seeing one thing is always a way
and one’s observing at the same time. of not seeing something else
11. Fundamental Indeterminacy
• Reality itself may be inherently indeterminate
(i.e. unpredictable)!
• Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle:
– it is impossible to know with perfect accuracy both
the position and momentum of a particle (e.g.
electron) at the same time.
12. Fundamental Indeterminacy
• Chaotic systems are extremely sensitive to initial conditions, so
that tiny differences in the initial conditions of otherwise
identical systems will generate huge differences between them.
A butterfly creates massive tornados or hurricanes in another hemisphere. The idea is
that small and simple causes can generate complicated, non-proportional (i.e. ‘non-
linear’) effects. Brain teaser: could a butterfly also cause disproportionate phenomena
of a different kind, such as political revolutions or economic or legal upheavals?
13. Fundamental Indeterminacy
• Note: chaos theory as described in the book actually describes
phenomena that are, in principle at least, determinate. Chaos,
however, does make predicting events difficult in the real world,
simply because we can’t know all of the interacting causes and
initial conditions! Chaos theory is determinate.
• In contrast, Complexity theory describes systems that are self-
organizing (aka emergent) and therefore in principle
indeterminate.
14. Fundamental Indeterminacy
• Randomness begets randomness!
– History is full of accidents: Prediction
requires finding general patterns that
hold true from one case to the next
(across space or time). Such laws can’t Cleopatra
exist if tiny events can disrupt 69 BC – 30 BC
everything!
– Example: “Cleopatra’s Nose Problem”
• Marc Antony became infatuated with Cleopatra’s
beauty, and to impress her, leads his ship to battle
against Octavius, ultimately to defeat.
Marc Antony
83 BC - 30 BC
15. The Problem of Objectivity
• If we can discern a pattern, is this the only
pattern that exists? Social patterns can be
seen from multiple perspectives:
• Example: Compare the following number
sequences:
A- 1 2 3 4.
B- 8 5 4 9.
• Which has order, i.e. exhibits a pattern?
16. The Problem of Objectivity
A- 1 2 3 4.
B- 8 5 4 9.
• Both have order! A is in numerical order. B is in
alphabetical order.
• Order does not inhere in things.
• Order (i.e. pattern) is observer-dependent.
• Predictions are hypotheses that a pattern observed
in the present or past will continue on in the future.
Whether or not an individual or group is predictable,
however, really depends on the pattern you are
attempting to observe.
18. Self-fulfilling and Self-negating
prophecies
• Robert K. Merton also coined the terms
– ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ and
– ‘role model’
• A self-fulfilling prophecy is something that
comes true because you believe it will come
true.
– Example: bank run, placebos, psychic
Robert K. Merton
predictions, etc… (1910 – 2003)
• A self-negating prophecy is something that,
once believed to be true or expected to
happen, cannot happen (or becomes less
likely to happen).
19. The Power of Expectations
• Pygmalion Effect (aka
Rosenthal effect): the
greater the expectation
placed upon people, the
better they perform.
– According to legend, Pygmalion
was the king of Cyprus who fell
in love with a beautiful woman
(Galatea) he sculpted out of
ivory.
20. The Power of Expectations
• In the 1960s Robert Rosenthal
and Lenore Jacobson
hypothesized that teacher
expectations influenced
children’s performance.
• Study: they randomly assigned 1
out of 5 children to the
‘spurter/bloomer’ group, but
told teachers these students
were selected to the group
based on test performances that
indicated future success.
• Findings: the kids who were
expected to ‘spurt’ made larger
improvements than nonspurters.
22. Emergent Properties
• Methodological Individualism: the idea that
society can be explained entirely by the
individuals that make up society.
• Emergence: when the whole is more than the
sum of its parts. Emergent properties are those
new (and surprising) properties of the whole that
are not possessed by the individuals.
– Example: Water into Ice, Consciousness, etc.
23. Emergence and unintended
consequences
• The Invisible Hand: a famous and
early example of an unintended
collective (macro) consequence of
individual (micro) actions is Adam
Smith’s idea of the ‘Invisible Hand’
of capitalism, where everyone’s
selfish desire to make a profit ends
up making everyone better off.
• The contrary is also often argued: Adam Smith
competition may generate a ‘race
to the bottom.’
24. Emergence and unintended
consequences
• Neighborhood Sorting:
Thomas Schelling (2005
Nobel Prize winner) showed
Thomas Schelling
that macro-level segregation
would arise from micro-level
tolerance, so long as
individuals prefer to live
adjacent to some neighbors
similar to them.
25. Emergence and unintended
consequences
• Imagine a city as a giant checkerboard, and suppose each piece wants
30% of its neighbors to be the same kind.
• A few, with more than 30% of its neighbors of a different kind, will
move.
• Two effects of initial relocations:
1. other checkers of the same color from old neighborhood will also
want to move
2. other checkers of different color in new neighborhood will want to
move
26. Cascades and ‘Tipping’ points
• Diversity (differences between
people) can lead to ‘Tipping’- the
emergence of social cascades, aka
chain reactions or domino effects.
• TIPPING = a small event or a few
small actions can cause a cascade
and large scale change
• Example: There are 100 people in
the mall. How many of them have
to be running out of the mall
before you run out of the mall also?
(Assume you have no understanding
of why they running!)
27. Cascades and ‘Tipping’ points
• Diversity and Connectedness lead to ‘Tipping’
• Consider two scenarios.
– Scenario 1: Homogeneity. Everyone has the same threshold, or
tipping point. Everyone will run out of the mall if they see 20 other
people run out of the mall. What happens? NOTHING! No one will
leave unless 20 other people leave!
– Scenario 2: Heterogeneity (Diversity). Everyone is numbered from 1
to 100; their number is also the number of people they need to see
running before they also run: their threshold. What happens? First
person leaves, then the second, then the third, etc. This generates a
chain reaction, aka a CASCADE!
Person 0 Person 1 runs Person 2 runs
only if 1 other only if 2 other 3 4 5 6
Begins to run
person runs people run
28. Cascades and ‘Tipping’ points
• Mark Granovetter devised this threshold
model initially to describe riots:
– one person will definitely riot; another
will riot only if one other person riots; a
third will riot only if two others riot; etc….
– We are much more likely to riot ourselves
if we see others rioting.
• His model explains:
1. Why social changes can be abrupt,
discontinuous, and sudden.
2. Why they are so unpredictable. One
person in a chain can either cause or
prevent a collective chain reaction, or
social cascade.
• Other examples: clapping, birth rates,
dancing at parties, rates of crime, etc.
30. Functionalist Paradigm
1. Consensus about values and norms
makes society possible
2. Society is a whole made of
integrated parts that work (i.e.
function) together.
– A change to one part of society will
affect all others.
– All parts are interdependent.
– Society is ‘more than the sum of its
parts.’
3. Society seeks stability and tends to
avoid conflict
31. Conflict Paradigm
1. In every society, there are disagreements and
differences (i.e. lack of consensus) about values and
norms
2. Society is made up of subgroups (aka ‘classes’) that
are in ruthless competition for scarce resources
3. Society is not harmonious: conflict is normal in a
society.
– The conflict can be latent (i.e. conflict of interests) or
manifest (i.e. real conflict such as violence).
32. Symbolic Interactionist Paradigm
• Also known as social constructionists
1. How people act depends on how
they see and evaluate reality
2. People learn from others how to
see and evaluate reality
3. People constantly interpret the
meaning of their own behavior
and the behavior of others
4. Misunderstanding and conflict
comes from people not perceiving
reality in the same way
33. Which paradigm is correct?
• Society is like this cube: we
can see it from multiple
perspectives!
• The paradigms are just lenses
through which we view society.
34. Cooperation and Conflict
• It is very important to distinguish interaction of individuals
within groups and interaction of individuals between groups.
• Cooperation often exists within a group. Competition and
conflict often exists between groups. Humans are neither
totally cooperative, nor totally competitive!
• Example: two football teams competing against each other;
corporations; nation-states; etc.
Cooperation Cooperation
Within Within
Competition/Conflict
Group A BETWEEN Groups Group B
35. Ethnocentrism and Relativism
Ethnocentrism: the ‘process of judging other peoples and
their customs and norms as inferior to one’s own people,
customs, and norms” (pg. 52). Ethnocentrism is normal!
Most societies exhibit some amount of ethnocentrism.
Toward Own Group Toward Outsiders
See members as superior See outsiders as inferior
See own values as universal and See outsiders’ values as false
true
See own customs as original, See outsiders’ customs as ignorant,
reflecting ‘true’ human nature lacking in humanity
Cultural Relativism: ‘the belief that other people and their ways of doing
things can be understood only in terms of the context of these people’ (pg. 56).
McIntyre argues that although ethnocentrism is common, it can get in the way of
understanding. To understand others, you have to see things from their point of
view.
Hinweis der Redaktion
Not only do explanations not entail predictions, successful prediction does not necessarily entail accurate explanation! In some cases you can make successful predictions without knowing how or why! You can be right, but for all the wrong reasons.
How do we explain surprises and (seeming) randomness?
Alternatively stated: one cannot simultaneously observe how one observes what one observes, i.e. one cannot simultaneously distinguish the distinction used to observe from other possible distinctions (i.e. observations)!
This is somewhat misleading. According to Heisenberg, the probability that an electron will be in one location or another can be known and is determined.
Chaos theory goes from simple to complicated. It explains how a few simple relationships can generate really complicated patterns that are difficult to observe or detect. Complexity theory goes in the opposite direction: from complicated relationships to simple patterns. Complexity theory deals with ‘self-organization’, and can explain how millions of complicated organisms called people can generate simple patterns. Chaos theory is determinate, but complexity theory describes systems that are self-organizing (aka emergent) and therefore in principle indeterminate.
Chaos theory goes from simple to complicated. It explains how a few simple relationships can generate really complicated patterns that are difficult to observe or detect. Complexity theory goes in the opposite direction: from complicated relationships to simple patterns. Complexity theory deals with ‘self-organization’, and can explain how millions of complicated organisms called people can generate simple patterns.
Random disturbances create randomness. What creates the random disturbances? Other random events!; In the Pensées, Pascal remarks "Cleopatra's nose, had it been shorter, the whole face of the world would have been changed“
See pages 227-8 in your book!
See pages 227-8 in your book!
Adam Smith published his famous Wealth of Nations in 1776.
If we assume homogeneity of preferences (i.e. each individual has the same threshold dissatisfaction, say 30%), then about as many new moves are caused as the number of initial moves, displacements. We get significantly more sorting or segregation than any particular individual wanted! The amount of segregation goes up even more, however, if we assume heterogeneity, i.e. each person has a different movement rule.
When people are connected and interdependent, critical states can emerge. In these critical states, small changes can generate disproportionate (nonlinear) ‘domino effects’, ‘chain reactions’, social cascades, snowballing, etc.
Granovetter is perhaps most famous for his concept of the ‘small worlds’ such as in the popular game, 6 degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon.
Granovetter is perhaps most famous for his concept of the ‘small worlds’ such as in the popular game, 6 degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon. We will cover this later in the semester!
It turns out that groups that are more cooperative can out-compete (and hence survive) better than those that do not. Group-level selection explains how altruistic behavior within groups may have evolved. Surprisingly, hostility towards outsiders can actually create more solidarity within the group.
We can see more details and make more fine-grained distinctions regarding those with whom we spend a lot of time. We always regard ourselves and those close to us as the statistical ‘outliers’, as special individuals. We tend to see others with whom we don’t spend a lot of time in terms of general categories and stereotypes.
