Glossary

This glossary, with adaptations and additions, borrows copiously from the author's earlier books, especially The Structure of Society (1952), Some Aspects of the Analysis of Family Structure (with Coale et al. 1965), and Modernization and the Structure of Societies (1966).

A

absolute age A basis of role differentiation. Absolute age is used as a criterion for assigning a particular type of role, and individuals are deemed eligible for such roles by belonging to a particular age span. That span is conceived as being such that an individual can belong to one, and only one, such span at any one time. Thus, one may be identified as an infant who acts like a child or as a child who acts like an infant. One cannot, however, be both an infant and a child at the same time. Four absolute-age distinctions are always made in one form or another. These are infancy, childhood, adulthood, and old age. Most societies are characterized by more than these four categories, but the various categories distinguished always cut across these four and exhaust them in one form or another. See age.

absolutism A pattern of political allocation for which most or all power is invested in a ruler and her or his representatives. Absolutism particularly involves the ability and willingness to suppress dissent and to obtain conformity by coercion if necessary.

achievement See universalistic.

actual (structures or patterns) Refers to the patterns (structures) that are observed regardless of the professed, or ideal, patterns. Thus, for example, one may say that, ideally , the members of U.S. society consider bullying a bad thing, but many of them actually engage in bullying. See ideal (ideal patterns or structures).

adaptationism See functional teleology.

adulthood That period in life during which the average member of a society is held to be capable of full responsibility for her or his activity.

aesthetic Of or pertaining to considerations of beauty.

affect (affectctive) Indications of pleasurable or painful significance to the actor, and of approval or disapproval of the object or state that occasions the reaction, and those reactions to stimuli that are commonly catalogued under the term "emotions"—i.e., anger, hate, fear, love, pity, etc.

affinal Related by marriage; e.g., a brother-in-law.

age The period of time during which something (including someone) may be said to have existed. Thus, one may speak of the age of an individual or the age of an institution, or of an organization, or of a building, etc.

allocative puberty The mistaken notion that allocation, whether of goods and services, power and responsibility, or whatever, is of negligible relevance for individuals until they near or reach adulthood. This concept is used to poke fun at the idea that allocation for humans, like sexual maturation, occurs only as a preparation for adulthood in the near approach to adulthood, or as the sign or rite of passage denoting adulthood.

anabolism Constructive metabolism, as opposed to catabolism.

analytic structure (or aspect or distinction) Patterned aspects of action or other phenomena that are not even theoretically capable of concrete separation from other patterns of action or phenomena. Thus, the distinction between the mass, shape, and color of a chair or the economic, political, and solidarity aspects of a society are distinctions of analytic structures. Distinctions among the arms, legs, and back of a chair, or the families, the villages, and merchant firms of a society are distinctions of concrete structures. See concrete structure.

apathy The cessation of individual motivation, conceived of here as capable of variation by degrees. Thus, one may speak of a more or less apathetic individual or set of individuals.

arational (arationality) All nonrational action that is not irrational.

ascribed (ascription) See particularism.

avoidant Relationships characterized by minimal, formal contact, and the restraint or overt affective displays.

B

basic Any quality or characteristic that is common, or expected to be common, to all of the members of any set. Thus, for example, family systems of some sort are basic to any society; the use of language is basic to all human beings capable of learning a language.

basic cognition That cognition that all the members of any set under discussion are assumed to share. See cognition.

biological Having to do with any living physical phenomena.

biological descent Derivation of living physical phenomena from other, older living physical phenomena.

C

capricious particularism Any particularism that invokes nongermane (or irrelevant) criteria, although the criteria may involve no social barring, e.g., to insist that only red-headed individuals be hired to operate lathes. The criterion of red-headedness could be germane for some relationships, for example those involving certain forms of genetic analysis. See particularism.

catabolism Destructive metabolism, as opposed to anabolism.

cathectic (cathexis) See affect.

centralization The organization of the action of the members of a social system about one or more foci. Complete centralization of a society would consist of having a single member make and carry out all decisions and determine all coordination; any departure from this constitutes some element of decentralization. Rule by members of a committee is not so centralized

as rule by a single individual, etc. Complete centralization and complete authoritarianism would be identical. Neither is possible.

certainty situations Situations in which unanticipated factors are not relevant or in which the actors do not anticipate unknown factors. Situations may be certainty situations objectively and/or subjectively.

change A unit or aspect of a phenomenon will have undergone change if the state of any elements of the model used to analyze the unit varies from one point in time to another. Change will vary according to the level of generality of one's model. If one is considering simply the presence of a family system in any society, the only form of change is from the presence to the absence of a family system for that society. If one is considering the type of descent system characteristic of the family systems of a given society, variation of the descent system from a patrilineal to a matrilineal one will constitute a change.

charisma The quality of being able to determine for one's followers the obligations for which they are responsible and the goals toward which they should strive as the referents of action. A charismatic leader may be defined as an individual who, as far as his followers are concerned, can transfer transcendental referents of action to empirical ones.

child See childhood.

childhood That absolute-age distinction made in all known societies covering the period between infancy and adulthood. In some,

but not all, societies this period may be broken down into subcategories, one of which is frequently distinguished as adolescence, which may be conceived of as specifically interstitial to childhood and adulthood. Childhood is a period during which the individual, while no longer absolutely dependent on others for all factors necessary for survival, nevertheless depends on them for instruction and guidance in the institutionally permissible and necessary behaviors required of individual members of his or her society. Childhood, as a minimum, implies the ability to speak the language of the society (or the portion of it in terms of which the individual acts) and to walk.

class Any set of individuals with any designated set of common characteristics. Thus, all individuals six feet tall could be described in these terms as a class—so could all landowners. Ordinary usage of the term rockets between this definition and that which posits a membership unit of some sort. Frequently encountered usages such as "the bourgeois class" often rocket back and forth between these two definitions without any warning. On the whole, the concept of class has confusing social applications, though this need not be the case. The concept of class as a membership unit is quite another matter. Class as a membership unit is a system of action involving all of the representatives of a set who share among other characteristics the characteristic of being members of that unit. An individual may, however, be a representative of a class in the more general sense without being a "class

member." One may, for example, be one of a set of all gravediggers without belonging to any gravediggers' organization. It is essential that one avoid confusion of a set of representatives of any class with a concept of class as a membership unit involving a set of class members.

class interests The goals, ends, etc., that can be said to characterize the representatives or members of a particular class. Again, this concept in ordinary usage rockets between two meanings (see class ).

class structure The patterns of actions that can be attributed to class identification.

closed class A set of individuals with common characteristics based at least in part on presumed or simulated biological descent. Recruitment of members for a closed class system always involves the family context of other representatives or members of the closed class.

coeducation The inculcation of knowledge about phenomena, ideas (including those with empirical and/or nonempirical referents), abstract concepts, and the social patterns of the referent systems in settings that involve both males and females as students.

cognition Knowledge or understanding of an empirical situation or phenomenon, of abstractions in general, and of nonempirical concepts and elements.

cognitive aspect Refers to how memory and analysis are involved in a relationship.

cohort A set of individuals who share the occurrence of an event such as birth, marriage, graduation, etc. Following Norman Ryder.

communication The activity or process whereby one (or more individuals) of a given species infers from the behavior (whether language of oral and/or written types, gesture, or posture) of another individual (or group of individuals) of the same or different species an idea or feeling or state of affairs that the other individual(s) is trying to convey or conveys inadvertently.

concept A name for the members of a given class of any sort. In science, concepts may be more or less precisely defined, must have empirical referents, and are more or less fruitful for the formation of hypotheses. In science, concepts are not valid or invalid.

conceptual scheme Concepts that are used in conjunction with one another for any particular purpose.

concrete social system See concrete structure.

concrete structure Those patterns that characterize units involving a set of members in social action. Such a set is, at least in theory, capable of physical separation in time and/or space from the membership of other, similar units with, of course, the possibility of overlapping memberships. Societies, which are themselves concrete structures, involve sets of members (i.e., a plurality of interacting individuals involved in a system of action primarily oriented to the system concerned). See expedient members and genuine members.

conformity The extent to which an individual's behavior in fact coincides with a normative expectation. See also institution.

conjugal (nuclear) family See family , conjugal.

consanguine Related by blood, i.e., by biological descent; e.g., son, grandchild, etc.

consumption The utilization of goods and services.

consumption roles Social positions differentiated on the basis of utilization of goods and/or services.

content As a subcategory of solidarity, the type of relationship that is to exist and the members between (or among) whom it is to exist.

culturalization The inculcation or development of culture. See culture.

culture The system of action of a society considered apart from its involvement of a plurality of interacting individuals, i.e., apart from operation in terms of it. The concepts culture and society refer to different ways of looking at the same thing. The two are analytically, not concretely, distinct. The concept of society (or social) focuses attention on the patterns of the unit considered in operation. The concept of culture focuses attention on the patterns considered qua patterns. Defined in this way, it is always possible to keep culture distinct from society, though one cannot talk about either culture or society "causing" something about one or the other. One may, however, state generalizations such as: "Cultural feature x always changes in the direction of y," or "Because of an ineradicable interest in material betterment, modernized social patterns will always diffuse to nonmodernized contexts when contact is made," etc. N.B.: Neither culture nor society is

"more general," "better," "deeper," or "more significant" than the other—in scientific usage.

D

decentralization (decentralized) The process of moving away from higher levels of coordination and control. Complete decentralization would require every individual to decide what to do and when to do it without reference to anyone else. There would be no accepted methods whereby one individual could coerce or influence another. Completely decentralized societies can no more exist than can completely centralized societies.

descent units Those kinship units for which the membership and the nature of solidarity is determined, at least in part, by orientation to their biological relatedness to some ancestor.

distribution The mode or manner in which elements of any sort are arranged, or come to be, in time and/or space or along other dimensions.

dysfunction A condition, or state of affairs, that (1) results from operation (including mere persistence) in terms of a structure of a given unit through time and (2) lessens the adaptation or adjustment to the unit's setting, thus making for a lack of persistence (i.e., a change in, or dissolution) of the unit as defined of which the structure is a part or aspect. N.B.: Whether a given function is a eufunction (or a dysfunction) or not has no implications for good, bad, or indifference. For it to have implications of a normative sort, the criteria for considering the unit to be good, bad, or indifferent must be established, establishing thereby that its persistence is, in turn, good, bad, or indifferent.

E

early childhood The period of childhood extending through the ages of three, four, or five years. See childhood.

economic allocation The distribution of goods and services making up the income and output of the members of a concrete structure among the various members of the unit and among the members of that unit and of other units with which its members are in contact. N.B.: Acts of distribution are themselves economic allocations, in this case, of services.

economic self-sufficiency A unit will be considered economically self-sufficient to the degree and in the respects that its membership acting in terms of its patterns (structures) can and does both produce and consume all of the goods and services necessary to and resulting from the operations in terms of the unit.

education The inculcation of knowledge about phenomena, ideas (including those with empirical and/or nonempirical referents), abstract concepts, and the social patterns of the referent systems. Education can always be analyzed in terms of learning and teaching.

egalitarianism See egalitarian relationship.

egalitarian relationship One in terms of which all of the members treat one another without reference to any hierarchical considerations.

elegant biological reduction Any phenomenon involving biological organisms, e.g., human beings, that can be demonstrated to be adequately explained for whatever purposes are at hand by the factors of species' heredity and the nonspecies' environment, in a highly generalized, parsimonious, scientific fashion.

An elegantly biologically reduced proposition ought to involve "something like" the role played by the development of the Periodic Tables of the Elements in the reduction of chemistry to a special case of physics.

elites Individuals invidiously distinguished from others presumably on the basis of more or less highly prized characteristics, e.g., the "wealthy," the "highly educated," the "musically gifted," the "truly devout," the "highly skilled," the "sanctimonious," etc.

emotion See affect.

empirical Subject to sensory perception or to inference from sensory perception.

end Any future state of affairs toward which action is oriented.

eufunction(al) A condition or state of affairs that (1) results from operation (including mere persistence) in terms of a structure of a given unit through time and (2) increases or maintains adaptation or adjustment to the unit's setting, thus making for the persistence of the unit as defined, of which the structure concerned is a part or aspect. N.B.: Whether a given function is a eufunction (or a dysfunction°) or not has no implication for good, bad, or indifference. For it to have normative implications, the criteria for considering the unit to be good, bad, or indifferent must be established, establishing thereby that its persistence is, in turn, good, bad, or indifferent.

eufunctional See eufunction.

expedient members Those individuals who orient their action to the patterns of a particular concrete structure for instrumental purposes rather than because they find them "good" and/ or acceptable as normative patterns. See membership.

expression The type and limits of reaction, symbolic or otherwiseon the part of individuals or sets of individuals to the various phenomena with which they come in contact.

extendedfamily See family , extended.

external causes of change Causes of change are external if they are dependent functions of (i.e., produced by) operation in terms of units other than the unit that is spoken of as changed.

F

faddism The relatively rapid and intense alteration and application of means for relatively fixed ends. The rapid alteration of fashions in clothing, of some of the techniques of therapy in modern medical practice, of recreational forms, and the like, are all examples of this phenomenon.

fallacy of misplaced dichotomies The use of a dichotomous (or binary or dyadic) distinction to refer to polar distinctions with the possibility of infinite variations (or very large, finite variations) between the poles; i.e., the use of a binary distinction to describe a nonbinary distinction.

family A kinship unit (or organization) for which membership is always oriented, at least in part, to biological descent and sexual intercourse. See kinship units.

family , conjugal A family ordinarily having as members only a husband and a wife (or father and mother) and nonadult children if present.

Husband and wife, before they bear children, orient their behavior at least in part to the expectation that children, and hence descent considerations, may ensue.

family , extended A family unit characterized by the fact that, ideally speaking, all of the siblings of a given sex, usually the males, have their family of procreation as a continuation of their family of orientation. Siblings of the other sex "marry out of" their family of orientation.

family , multilineal conjugal A conjugal family whose members emphasize both matrilineal and patrilineal descent more or less equally.

family , nuclear See family , conjugal.

family , stem A family unit characterized by the fact that for one sibling, perhaps most often the eldest male sibling, the family of procreation is a continuation of his or her family of orientation. All other siblings, if any, become members of other families of procreation.

family foreign relations Involvement of some family members in relationships with individuals who are not members of their own family, especially, of course, those having implications for the family or families concerned, apart from a family member's simply being involved.

family of orientation The family context in which an individual is reared, usually from birth to adulthood, although there may be family systems for which individuals have more than one family of orientation; for example, they may switch units sometime during childhood or at the beginning of childhood.

family of procreation The family context in which an individual has, and to some extent rears, her or his children.

family units See family.

father A male parent. One may distinguish between a puristically biologically defined father—i.e., the individual source of the sperm that fertilizes an ovum—and a socially defined one, i.e., anyone defined as a male parent whether on the puristically biological grounds stated above or on others. Social and biological tend to coincide in the overwhelming majority of social contexts but probably not so often as do social and biological mothers. "It is a wise father. . . ." See mother.

father surrogate One who performs the functions usually associated with a father. Father surrogates are usually male.

father-time The time spent by fathers in direct care and interaction with their offspring. See father.

feral children Individuals abandoned by humans in infancy and reared in the wild by mammals of other species.

formal A given type of action will be termed formalized or formal to the degree that its structures (but not necessarily all the specific obligations covered) are precisely and minutely defined and/or institutionalized for the context of action in which it appears, regardless of the specific individuals involved. N.B.: There is consequently an element of universalism about all formal patterns.

formality See formal.

free goods Any goods accessible to any and all individuals at no cost, i.e., without regard to any productivity by or income accruing to anyone. "The moon belongs to everyone. The best things in life are free."

friendship A relationship for which the rights and obligations of the various parties are, ideally speaking, equal, and the solidarity is, ideally speaking, completely voluntary.

function A condition or state of affairs resultant from operation (including mere persistence) in terms of a structure through time. N.B.: Function and structure are unusual concepts (like production and consumption, anabolism and catabolism) in that what is a function from one point of view is a structure from another. See structure.

functionally diffuse Describes relationships for which the substantive definition—i.e., the activities or considerations of rights and obligations or performances that are covered by the relationship—is more or less vaguely defined and delimited. In terms of such a relationship, the burden of proof for declining a request by one party to the relationship rests, institutionally, on the person(s) wishing to decline the request, who must cite another, overriding consideration. Following early Parsons.

functionally specific Describes relationships for which the substantive definition—i.e., the activities or considerations of rights and obligations or performances that are covered by the relationship—is precisely defined and delimited. In terms of such a relationship, the burden of proof for establishing as legitimate any special claim in terms of the re-

lationship rests, institutionally, on the person(s) making the special claim. Following early Parsons.

functional requisite A generalized condition necessary for the maintenance of the unit with which it is associated given the level of the generalization of the definition, and the most general setting, of such a unit. N.B.: To hold that a given function exists because it is a requisite of a particular system is to commit a form of the fallacy of functional teleology, in this case, functional requisite teleology. Also, establishing a function as a functional requisite tells one nothing normative—nothing of whether it is good, bad, or indifferent.

functional teleology The fallacy of holding that a given function exists because of its implications for a given purpose or goal or end state of affairs. Thus: Teleology in general is usually illustrated by some such statement as "legs developed to wear pants," or "noses to bear spectacles." Functional teleology in a social context is well illustrated by the statement that the family developed to socialize children. It is not teleological to maintain that the "family developed and children are socialized in terms of it." It is functional teleology to maintain that the profuse, corded coat of the Komondor dog developed to protect it from weather and predators. What some biologists today call "adaptionism" is a form of functional teleology.

fundamentalistic reaction Behavior of individuals who are dissatisfied with a current changed context and long for and seek a return to what are regarded as the "good old days." Some of

these always try to turn the clock back, but they never can. "The moving finger writes. . . . "

G

games Sport of any kind; play, frolic, or fun; an amusement or diversion. (Webster's New International Dictionary. 2d ed.)

generalized affirmative Any application of the term "yes" or its equivalent that has meaning independent of the actor's understanding of the substantive content of the question being asked. There exists in effect for human beings no such thing as a generalized affirmative. There exists no referent, as it were, of the generalized affirmative. The generalized affirmative is of no utility in selection. For the affirmative voice to be used intelligently, one must understand substantively the question asked.

generalized negative Rejection whether via the use of some such term as "no," or by gesture of whatever thing or stimulus is being advanced. If an individual is in interaction with an environment—say, a parent—that keeps offering the individual different alternatives, it is possible, for example, for an infant to select by continuous rejection. If an infant is wet, he (she) need not be mollified when presented with the breast or covered with a blanket. By using the generalized negative, the infant will persist in being unmollified until he or she is changed. Prior to the storage of much substantive material in the memory, infants characteristically do select by learning to use the generalized negative more or less efficiently. What constitutes efficiency in this context will be most importantly determined for human infants by

the attentiveness and perceptivity of an infant's mother or mother surrogate. The form of the generalized negative that is most likely to be singled out and reinforced is crying. Crying is the first learned form of expression of rejection. All infants learn to cry more or less efficiently.

generation The position of an individual relative to other individuals in terms of the number of births of individuals involved in his/her direct biological line of descent from some (arbitrarily chosen) ancestor in that line.

genuine members Those individuals who are involved in a concrete structure by virtue of the fact that their actions for the purposes in hand are in fact primarily oriented to the system concerned. See membership.

germane particularism Reckoning of the eligibility for member ship in any relationship on the basis of criteria that some individuals are socially barred from possessing, but which criteria are relevant to the purposes for which the person is selected. Thus, at any given point in time, all individuals save one are ineligible to succeed to the throne of England, but given the relevance of the symbolism of continuity and tradition implicit in the position, the kinship criteria of the royal house are relevant.

goal Any future state of affairs toward which action is oriented. See end.

goal-orientation aspect That aspect of a relationship structure that focuses attention on what might be called "motivation." Here, one reckons the goals as determined on a more or less in-

dividualistic or a more or less responsible basis. See individualistic and responsible.

governance Having to do with the allocation of power and responsibility.

government A predominantly politically oriented organization that the members of a society regard as the most general, legitimate source of settlement of disagreements among members of two or more subsystems of that society. N.B.: The government of a society is not necessarily the "most powerful" subsystem of the society. Members of other subsystems may be able to marshal greater power than can the members of their government.

H

hierarchical The differential ranking of individuals, especially in terms of allocations of power and responsibility.

high modernization See modernization , high.

household A concrete unit whose members are always associated with some family unit. Households may involve, in addition to family member , family servants, various kin, friends, etc.

I

ideal (ideal patterns or structures) Any structures (or patterns) of behavior held to be "good" by an actor (or actors), usually institutionalized to some degree. For example, for a vast majority of the members of U.S. society, universal literacy is an ideal pattern. Hence it may be spoken of as an ideal pattern of U.S. society. See institution.

income The amount of money, goods, or services received over a given period of time by an individual or set of individuals.

individualism A doctrine holding that any given actor is and/or should be the major, or sole, referent of decisions affecting his future or that of others with whom he or she interacts, regardless of whether those decisions are "altruistic" or "selfish." See also individualistic.

individualism by default Exists when the fact that a given individ ual makes decisions affecting his or her future or the future of others with whom she or he interacts may be taken to be a function of the fact that alternative socially expected or institutionalized criteria or judgments are either unavailable, nonexistent, or irrelevant. See individualism.

individualistic A given relationship is more or less individualistic to the degree that each of the parties to the relationship may be expected to calculate how best to secure maximum advantage from the relationship for himself or herself without regard to the goals (ends) sought by other parties to the relationship.

infancy (infants) That period in the life cycle during which the ("average" or "normal") individual is completely dependent on the intervention of more fully developed individuals for survival. Individuals in this category (i.e., infants) are not able to walk, talk, or eat unaided. Acquisition of the ability to do these things marks the beginning of childhood.

informal A given type of action will be termed informalized or informal to the extent that variations in its structure (or patterns) actually develop and/or are institutionalized

on the basis of the specific individuals involved at a specific time. There is, thus, usually an element of particularism involved in informality.

informality See informal.

institution Normative pattern(s), conformity with which is generally to be expected, and failure to conform with which is met with the moral indignation of and/or sanctions by those individuals who are involved in the same general social system and who are aware of the failure (following early Parsons circa 1937). One may distinguish between the conformity aspect and the sanctions aspect of any institution.

integrated theory One which, in its derivation, is at least in part deduced from other theories and/or is logically interdependent with other theories.

integration Eufunctional adaptation to a concrete structure.

intensity The state and degree of affect involved in a relationship.

interfamily Existing between or among members of two or more families. See family.

intermediate ends Future states of affairs toward which action may be (is) oriented and that are themselves means to further ends.

intimacy A quality that places emphasis on direct contact, "informality," and overt display of affects.

intimate See intimacy.

intrafamily Common to internal family structure involving no nonfamily interdependencies. See family.

irrational Action for which the objective and subjective ends of actions are both empirical but not identical. I.e., the actor(s) concerned will not reach the ends sought by the means employed. Their choice of means may be either a function of ignorance or error or some combination of the two.

isolated theory One which in its derivation is not dependent in any way on other theories, or if it is, such derivation is not available or made apparent.

K

kinship structure That portion of the total structure of a society for which, in addition to other orientations (sometimes equally, if not more, important), membership and the nature of the solidarity are to some extent, at least, determined by orientation to the facts of biological relatedness (descent) and/or sexual intercourse. N.B.: One may, of course, wish to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate, between institutionalized and noninstitutionalized, kinship structures.

kinship units Concrete structures (membership units) for which the membership criteria are oriented at least in part to biological descent and/or sexual intercourse.

L

latecomers Those who become involved with a process after it has developed elsewhere. Frequently used with regard to modernization.

learning Any increase in storage in the memory of an individual combined with ability to recall that which is stored.

learning , social Any increase in storage in the memory, combined with the ability to recall that which is stored, that is not adequately explicable in terms of species' heredity and the nonspecies' environment at the present state of our knowledge about that heredity and that environment. For humans, social learning is any learning not adequately explicable in terms of human heredity and the nonhuman environment at our present state of knowledge about those categories.

logical action See rational action.

M

magic See methodologically arational action.

market Any organization, however loosely organized, in terms of which action is primarily oriented to facilitating the exchange of goods and/or services among its members (or participants), with choice left up to them (i.e., with some degree(s) of freedom of choice).

mathematically stated (i.e. , mathematical analysis) A technique that, once a model for handling a problem has been defined, permits manipulation of the concepts involved without further reference to their substantive contents. Following Hermann Weyl. See model.

matriarchal Any system in which, ideally and/or actually, political precedence is taken by females. Often alleged of families.

matriarchy See matriarchal.

matrilineal Any system in terms of which descent is reckoned in the female line. Usually said of families.

matrilineality See matrilineal.

matrilocal Any system in terms of which the residence is determined by residence of the female. Usually said of families.

matrilocality See matrilocal.

means Methods, materials, and services (i.e., a state of affairs) viewed as conducive to or necessary to achieve an end(s). N.B.: This usage must be distinguished from use of the term as equivalent to "explains," "indicates," etc. Thus, all means are meaningful, but not all meaningful things, ideas, or experiences are means. Some may be regarded as "ends in themselves."

medium of exchange Any good or service that can be ex changed for two or more other goods and/or services. The more different items that a given article or service can be exchanged for, the more highly generalized it is as a medium of exchange.

member See membership.

membership The plurality of interacting individuals who are involved in a system of action by virtue of the fact that their action is primarily oriented to the system concerned, within the context concerned. The members of a society may, and commonly do today, vary in the extent to which they, either directly or indirectly, orient their actions to more than one such system of action. But they will be considered members of that society in terms of which their action is primarily oriented. Members of an organization may be more or less well integrated members of that organization, and they may be genuine members, as opposed to expedient members, of a given organization. Genuine members° , in fact, orient their action primarily

to the system concerned within the context concerned; expedient members° do so only insofar as the appearance of such orientation is necessary for the achievement of other ends.

membership criteria aspect - Describes the terms under which individuals are considered eligible or ineligible for inclusion in a relationship. See membership.

membership units See concrete structure.

memory "The power or function of reproducing and identifying what has been learned or experienced. This function includes learning, retention, recall, and recognition and is sometimes taken to include motor habits and skill." (Webster's New International Dictionary. 2d ed. G. & C. Merriam, 1954, p. 1534.)

merchant Specialists in exchange, which in this sense is a special form of production focused on the service of distribution.

metaquestion Any question whose answer falls within the realm of the presuppositions or a more general level of the subject under discussion.

methodologically arational action Action for which the ends of the actor are empirical but the means are nonempirical, at least in part. Also used here as a definition of magic. Cf. religion.

model A generalized description of a system of phenomena and/or concepts, as in mathematics and logic, that states the component parts of the system and at least some of the interrelationships of those component parts.

modernization (modern) The level of modernization of any society is defined here by the ratio of inanimate

to animate sources of energy used by the members of that society. A society will not be considered relatively modernized (or modernized ) until that ratio is sufficiently high that comparatively small cutbacks in inanimate sources of energy cannot be made up or adjusted to without far-reaching changes in the social structures of the system at the most general level under consideration of that system.

modernization high , The state of a society with high ratios of inanimate to animate sources of power whose members have developed mass markets for heavy consumer goods.

modernized society , relatively Characterized by such high levels of the ratio of inanimate to animate sources of power that a comparatively small percentage of cutbacks in inanimate sources of power cannot be adjusted to without far-reaching social change at extremely general levels, if they can be adjusted to at all. Societies are never completely modernized or completely nonmodernized, but the term "relatively" may be dispensed with once this is clear.

moderns People who orient their behavior to the patterns of modernization and at least to some extent accept them as institutionalized.

money A legal or quasi-legal (or official or quasi-official) medium of exchange. In relatively modernized contexts, usually a single such medium is fixed upon, and that is legitimized and issued by the members of the government of the society concerned. Money is usually a highly generalized medium of exchange, and the more highly modernized societies become, the higher tends to be the level of generaliza-

tion of this medium of exchange. There can be no such thing as a completely generalized medium of exchange, i.e., a unit such that anything can be purchased in terms of it. This generalization will hold true despite the wisdom of cynics, past and present.

monism Any explanation for which all deductions or variations are seen as dependent functions of a single variable.

mother A female parent. One may distinguish between a puristically biologically defined mother—i.e., the female who actually conceives and bears a particular infant—and a socially defined one, i.e., any female defined as a mother by other individuals on the basis of puristically biologically defined criteria and/or other criteria. Despite the possibility of divergence, the ordinary expectation at all times in all known social contexts is that the two coincide.

mother surrogate One who performs the functions usually associated with a mother. Mother surrogates are usually female.

mother-time Time spent by mothers in direct contact with infants and young children. See mother.

motivation The establishment of the ends of action whether they are empirical or nonempirical, intermediate or ultimate.

multilineal conjugal family See family , multilineal conjugal.

multilineality Tracing descent through two or more lines.

N

neighborhood Concrete structures (or organizations or membership units) whose membership is

determined at least in part by criteria of spatial proximity and which include as a minimum concrete substructures of other sorts.

neolocal Pertaining to any system for which the determination of residence of the members is differentiated from any previous residence of any member. Neolocality may be an ideal/actual pattern.

neolocality See neolocal.

nepotism Any form of particularism oriented at least in part to kinship descent units and/ or family units. By extension, the term in the vernacular has come to refer to particularism in general, much as the term "feudalism" has come to refer to any social system with a highly skewed distribution of income.

nonempirical Residually defined relatively to empirical, i.e., not subject to sensory perception or to inference from sensory perception.

nonfamily units Any kinship units other than family units and any nonkinship units. See family.

nonfamily units of Type I Nonfamily units for which action is supposed to be (i.e., is ideally) affected by family considerations of the members.

nonfamily units of Type II Nonfamily units for which action in terms of them is not supposed to be (i.e., is not ideally) affected by family considerations of the members.

nonhierarchical The absence of differential rankings for members of a relationship.

nonkinship units Concrete structures (or membership units) for which membership is oriented to neither biological descent nor sexual intercourse.

nonmodernized relatively , Residual category of modernized , relatively. Refers to the vast majority of all societies, even today, and to all societies prior to the second third of the ninteenth century. See modernized society , relatively.

nonrational All conscious action other than rational action.

Nuclearfamily See family , conjugal.

O

old age That period of the life cycle during which, either by institutionalization of special privileges or by other means, the full responsibilities of adulthood are no longer expected of the individual who has passed through the period of adulthood. Old age is generally marked by some rite de passage such as a retirement ceremony based on age.

open class A set of individuals with common characteristics that may be acquired after birth by achievement. A class system is considered to be more or less open to the extent that social barring is not an obstacle to class mobility.

organization Any social system that may be characterized as having a membership. Any membership unit of a society, including a society itself.

P

parsimony Logic. Economy of assumption in reasoning. (Webster's New International Dictionary. 2d ed. unabr., 1956 printing, p. 178)

particularism Any application of criteria for a relationship that involves social barring and/or nongermaneness. There are three forms of particularism: 1. germane particularism involving social barring, but the social barring is relevant to the purposes of the relationship. 2. capricious particularism in-

volving no social barring, but the criteria are not germane to the relationship. 3. ultimate particularism involving both social barring and nongermaneness.

pathetic fallacy The attribution of human qualities or capacities to nonhuman entities or phenomena. "The mountains pushed and the seas beckoned" is a classic use of the pathetic fallacy as a description of Japan as a setting for a society. "The system forced him to do it" is another ready example. Systems of social action , as the terms are used here , do not do anything. They consist only of patterns. People do things to one another in terms of social systems.

patriarchal Any system in terms of which, ideally and/or actually, political precedence is taken by males. Often said of families.

patrilineal Any system for which, ideally and/or actually, descent is reckoned in the male line; usually said of families.

Patrilineality See patrilineal.

Patrilocal Any system for which the residence is determined on the basis of where the male(s) reside; usually said of families.

Patrilocality See patrilocal.

Pattern Any conceptual and/or observable uniformity.

pleonasm Redundancy. (Webster's New International Dictionary. 2d ed., 1956 printing, p. 1890) See principle of pleonasm.

political allocation The distribution of power over, and responsibility for, the actions of the various members of the organization concerned, involving on the one hand the use of sanctions (of which force is the extreme

form) in one direction, and on the other hand accountability to the members and in terms of the structure concerned or to the members of other concrete structures or to (from the point of view of the actor) nonempirical entities.

polyandry Having to do with plural husbands.

polygamy Having to do with plural spouses, either female or male.

polygyny Having to do with plural wives.

Power The ability to exercise authority and/or control over the actions of others. More generally, the ability to influence the action of others.

prestige Ascendancy derived from general admiration or esteem; commanding position in men's minds. (Quoted from Webster's New International Dictionary. 2d ed.)

primitive society See society , primitive.

principle of parsimony The principle that holds the simpler of two hypotheses with identical explanatory power is to be preferred in science. One of the metapropositions on which science rests. Also referred to as Ockham's Razor. See parsimony.

principle of pleonasm The principle that holds that the more redundant an explanation the better. The term is polar to the principle of parsimony, a fundamental metaproposition of science. The fad for "thick description" in social analysis is the current favored form of the principle of pleonasm.

production Those actions that result in an output of goods and/or services. There is, of course, some productive aspect of any ac-

tion though that aspect may not be the relevant focus of attention.

production roles Social positions differentiated on the basis of the output of goods and/or services.

puristically biological Pertaining to any living phenomenon that can be adequately explained for purposes in hand solely in terms of the species' heredity and the nonspecies' environment.

R

race A social distinction, often applied invidiously to an individual or set of individuals on the basis of factors that are presumed to be biologically inherited by an individual or a set of individuals. The essence of the term when used as a basis for bigotry is social, not biological.

racism Refers to the invidious application of the concept of race to an individual or set of individuals. See race.

rational action Action for which the ends and the means are both empirical and the objective and subjective ends of action are identical; i.e., action for which the means chosen by the actor will in fact result in the actor achieving the ends sought. The term "rational" is here synonymous with logical, so correspondingly, are "nonrational," "irrational," and "arational" with "nonlogical," "illogical," and "alogical."

recreational Pertaining to relaxation and release from the usual duties and concerns of daily life.

reduction The explanation of phenomena usually considered on one level in terms of the constants and variables associated with a more general level. The explanation of

"social" phenomena in "psychological" or "biological" terms or of "biological" phenomena in molecular (chemical or physical) terms would be examples of reduction in science. The most elegant case of scientific reduction is the reduction of chemistry to a special case of physics via the discovery of the Periodic Table of Elements.

reify To confuse an analytic structure (or distinction) with a concrete structure (or distinction), e.g., to regard "economic man" as "man."

relationship In social analysis, any social structure (or set of structures) that defines the actions, ideally and actually, that determine the interdependence of two or more actors.

relative age A distinction among individuals on the basis of their comparative ages.

relatively modernized society See modernized society , relatively.

relatively nonmodernized society See nonmodernized, relatively.

religion A system of beliefs about action directly oriented to ultimate ends. See also ultimately arational action. Cf. methodologically arational action (magic).

religious Having to do with action seen by the actor as directly oriented to ultimate ends. "Living a good life," "serving God," "being at one with the Cosmos" are all examples of religious action.

requisite patterns(or structures) See structural requisite.

responsibility The accountability of an individual(s) to other individuals or groups or nonempirical entities for his or her own acts and/or the acts of others.

responsible A given relationship is more or less responsible to the degree that each of the parties to the relationship may be expected, in seeking to realize his or her own goals, to safeguard (even at the expense of some of his or her own goals) such goals of the other parties as are relevant to the relationship.

role Any socially differentiated position.

role differentiation Any distinction of heterogeneous roles. See role.

role model Any actor perceived by any other actor to exemplify any socially differentiated position.

S

sanction Penalty for nonconformity. See also institution.

schools Predominantly educationally oriented concrete structures (membership units).

science A set of generalized empirical propositions containing variables, preferably with deductive interdependencies among the members of the set, with the propositions of the set, at least in theory, subject to verification or disproof. A set of scientific propositions is vulnerable to either logical errors or empirical errors, i.e., errors of fact. The more abstract and parsimonious the set, the "better" it is in terms of the metapropositions that underlie science, as long as monisms are excluded. A perfect science, never yet approximated, would be a generalized empirical proposition

containing only two variables from which all other scientific propositions could be rigorously deduced. "Good" scientific theories are above all to be judged by their fruitfulness for the further development of scientific theories. A theory may prove to be highly fruitful even if it turns out to be empirically disproved as in the case of the Parity Principle in Physics. Short of a "perfect" scientific theory, one always expects any given theory to be disproved (i.e., contradicted or superseded), sooner or later, by a more parsimonious theory that explains more. Scientific propositions are not necessarily "better" than, say, "thick description." They're just wildly different.

self-sufficiency A system of action in operation is in theory self-sufficient only if its members are, at least in theory, capable by their own actions of providing for all of the functional requisites of the system without interdependencies with the members of any other social system.

setting Those factors that determine either exactly or on a probability basis the maximum range of possible variation in the patterns that characterize the unit for which those factors are said to constitute the setting.

sex Biological distinction between males, females, and, rarely, mixed forms, about which there is some social patterning in terms of any and all societies.

sexual-intercourse unit Kinship structure (organization or membership unit) for which membership is determined by orientation, at least in part, to sexual intercourse.

social Any observable uniformity, artifact, idea, etc., associated with the individual(s) of any species that cannot be adequately explained for present purposes in terms of the species' heredity and the nonspecies' environment. For Homo sapiens these are, of course, human heredity and the nonhuman environment.

social action All action (i.e., operation, including mere persistence) by individuals of any given species that is explicable or analyzable in empirical terms and cannot be adequately explained for the purposes intended in terms of the species' heredity and the nonspecies' environment; i.e., for humans, in terms of human heredity and the nonhuman environment.

social change Any alteration in a system of action of a given species that is not adequately explicable solely in terms of the heredity of that species and its nonspecies' environment; i.e., for humans, in terms of human heredity and the nonhuman environment. See change.

social inertia The tendency of any social pattern to persist unless some specific social action is brought to bear on it.

socialization The inculcation of socially acceptable and unacceptable structures of action on an individual (or group). See social.

social learning See learning , social.

social structure Any observable set of uniformities (patterns) in terms of which an individual acts that are not adequately explicable for present purposes in terms of species' heredity and the nonspecies' environment.

social system Any set of interdependent patterns defining the context of action for a plurality of interacting individuals who are the members of that social system (or concrete structure) that are not adequately explicable in terms of the species' heredity and the nonspecies' environment of the actors involved.

society A system of social action in operation that (a) involves a plurality of interacting individuals of a given species (or group of species) whose actions are primarily oriented to the system concerned and who are recruited at least in part by the sexual reproduction of the members of the plurality involved; (b) is at least in theory self-sufficient for the action of this plurality; and (c) is capable of existing longer than the life span of an individual of the type(s) involved.

society , primitive A society (1) whose membership is relatively small, making it possible for most of the members to be directly acquainted with most of the other members (perhaps even related to all of them by kinship ties of one sort or another); (2) for which the territory encompassed by the members at any given point in time is also relatively small; and (3) whose members live close to the bare margin of subsistence. Primitive society is a term more sinned against by social scientists than sinning.

sociobiologists Scientists seeking to explain in terms of species' heredity and the nonspecies' environment the behavior of organisms currently regarded as not susceptible to such explanation. I.e., they try to reduce social phenomena to puristically biological explanations.

solidarity Analytic structures (or patterns or aspects) in terms of which relationships are allocated according to the subcategories of content, strength, and intensity of the relationships.

specialized Characteristic of only one or some subsets of a given set; i.e., not shared by all the members of a given social system.

specialized cognition Knowledge not characteristic of all the members of a given set. What is ideally speaking basic knowledge for one society may be specialized knowledge for another. Only recently in human history, for example, has literacy come to be regarded as a basic form of cognition. For all societies, however, command of language is regarded as a basic form of cognition. Command of language is not basic for neonates but in one form or another comes to characterize them if they survive long enough and are not physically incapable of speaking or otherwise commanding a language.

stem family See family , stem.

stranger An individual previously unknown to the individual(s) with whom he (or she) comes in contact.

Strategic Research Material "Strategic Research Sites, objects or events that exhibit the phenomena to be explained or interpreted to such advantage and in such accessible form that they enable the fruitful investigation of previously stubborn problems and the discovery of new problems for further inquiry" (Merton 1987, p. 12).

Strategic Research Site A locus of Strategic Research Materials (following Merton 1987).

stratification Role differentiation that distinguishes higher and lower standings or classifications in terms of one or more criteria.

stratification aspect Having to do with hierarchical or nonhierarchical rankings of the members of any relationship. See stratification.

strength The relative precedence or lack thereof taken by a given relationship (or factor) over other relationships (or factors) of its general sort and over other obligations and commitments in any larger social sphere.

Structural prerequisite A structure that must exist if action in terms of it is to result in the functional prerequisites of any given unit. N.B.: To maintain that any given structure must exist or does exist because it is a structural prerequisite of a given unit is to commit a form of structural teleology, in this case, structural prerequisite teleology.

structural requisite A pattern or observable uniformity of action or operation necessary for the continued existence of the unit with which it is associated given the level of generalization of the definition of the unit and the most general setting of such a unit. N.B.: To state that a structure exists (or must exist) because it is a structural requisite is to commit a form of structural teleology° , in this case, structural requisite teleology.

structural teleology The fallacy of attributing the existence of a structure to any function produced in terms of it; e.g., families exist to socialize children. See functional teleology. The hypothesis that actors orient their behavior to future states of affairs is not teleological in this sense. It is currently an essential tool of social analysis.

structure A pattern, any observable uniformity of action or operation. N.B.: Structure from one point of view is a function from another. The structure of a child's behavior may be "politeness"; that same "politeness," however, is also a function of the socialization of the child by parents. See function.

Substantive definition aspect - Having to do with the activities or considerations or rights and obligations or performances that are covered by a relationship. Used here particularly with regard to the precision of definition and delimitations of the rights and obligations of the individuals involved.

system Any patterned collection of elements.

system of theory A set of generalized statements containing variables that are all to some degree more or less well integrated with one another, i.e., more or less interdependent. See system and theory.

T

tabula rasa "The smooth tablet; hence the mind before receiving impressions from without . . . ." (Webster's New International Di ctionary. 2d ed.) Vulgarly, but usefully, referred to as a "blank mind."

tautological Explained solely in terms of itself, not conceivably falsifiable. Such statements are considered inutile in any empirical science, though they are of the essence in mathematics and logic.

teaching The inculcation of learning.

teleology The attribution of purpose. For science, the attribution of purpose as an explanation for a phenomenon is regarded as a fallacy.

theoretical system Sets of theories with more or less powerful deductive interdependencies. See system of theory.

theory A generalized statement containing variables. Empirical scientific theories are generalized statements containing variables that utilize concepts having empirical referents and draw empirical relationships between (or among) referents of two or more such concepts. Empirical scientific theories are vulnerable both to logical errors and errors about observable phenomena.

thick description A concept usually left undefined or defined only by example. It represents a replacement of the principle of parsimony by the principle of pleonasm. Apparently an event or scene is "thickly described" if one piles up enough descriptive material until "the meaning comes" to the observer. (Thorstein Veblen once teased a pious and devout student who greatly admired Veblen's command of German and asked how he had acquired it. "I stared at the words," said Veblen, "until the meanings came to me.") Implicit in this concept is the idea that a parsimonious description is incapable of conveying the essence of the situation. Thick description is a basic tool in our new anti-intellectualism. It occupies a pole opposite to that of science, for which denotation is everything and connotation is a curse. In terms of thick description, denotation, if it can be achieved at all, can only be achieved by a piling up, as it were, of connotative anecdotes. Thick descriptions cannot be generalized. Who is to say whether thick descriptions are right or wrong, tenable or untenable, fruitful or barren?

traditional An institutionalization that serves to perpetuate an institution. All institutions are to some extent traditionalized. There are, thus, no nontraditional or untraditional societies or social systems, because all social systems involve some institutions, however specialized. N.B.: Modernized (relatively modernized) societies are not "nontraditional," "untraditional," or "atraditional." In some respects, but by no means in all, traditions in modernized societies are different, and have a different position in general social structure, from those of nonmodernized societies.

U

ultimate ends Ends that are not viewed as means for any other ends; i.e., ends that are ends in themselves.

ultimately arational action Action for which both the ends and means of the actor are at least in part nonempirical; e.g., religion as defined here. Cf. methodologically arational action (magic).

ultimate particularism Membership criteria that involve both social barring and nongermaneness.

uncertainty situations Situations in which unanticipated factors are relevant, whether recognized or not.

universalistic Pertaining to membership criteria such that no one is socially barred from being a party to the relationship and such that the criteria are themselves germane to the purposes for which the selection is made. What is generally described as meritocratic is what is here meant by universalistic or predominantly universalistic.

universals Relative to any set, universals are those elements, aspects, etc., that apply to any and all members of the set.

ur Primeval, aboriginal.

ur relationships Aboriginal relationships.

utopian pattern An ideal pattern of a sort with which general conformity is not expected (i.e., is not institutionalized), but one that may be institutionalized and traditionalized as an ideal pattern. Utopian patterns are ones for which respect in moral terms is usually institutionalized and traditionalized, even though the very people who hold them so do not regard them as realistic expectations. Utopian patterns are probably vital as a first step in socializing individuals, especially children, in terms of complex institutions. Thus, we often tell children they should "never tell a lie," distinguishing later between acceptable and unacceptable levels of lying; e.g., the concept of the "little white lie."

V

vicarious participation Involvement by the actor(s) via spectator or observer roles.

W

world system Any set of social systems on planet Earth with interdependencies among those systems. Such systems can indeed be tenuous ones, characterized by very modest levels of interdependence. Exaggeration of those interdependencies is a persistent characteristic of "it's a plot" theories of international (or intersocietal, or intercultural) phenomena.

Y

young children Children up to three, four, or five years of age. See childhood.