Main trends of research in the social and human ... - unesdoc - Unesco

IIO P. F. Lazarsfeld
cannot yet predict what priority the individual will assign to such expectations
or what the total pattern of his performances will be. This he proposes to sub-
mit to special analysis. He views the pertinent decisions as a kind of transaction
or bargaining process to obtain a maximum of rewards at minimum cost. This
‘role market’ is described in terms taken from economics, which throws new
light on many common observations (the family, for instance, is seen as the
role budget center where credit can be obtained, allocations can be discussed,
etc.). Various computational ideas are suggested to reduce role strain : ‘First,
by selecting a set of roles which are singly less onerous, as mutually supportive
as he can manage, and minimally conflicting; and, second, by obtaining as
gratifying or value-productive a bargain as he can with each alter in his total
role pattern.’
Of course, the market is not quite free; there are always ‘third parties’. The
general norms of society, the existence of subsystems such as churches and
other organizations, and the role of specific reference groups limit the free role
bargain. In the end, a society is seen as a system which provides the orientation
according to which the individual makes his decisions. Goode ends with sug-
gestions of how such role transactions could be studied concretely :
Would youincrease the time and energy younow give to role relationship X? Or, grant-
ed that these are the ideal obligations of this relationship, how little can you get away
with performing? Or, by probing the decision, is it possible to ascertain why the indi-
vidual has moved from one role transaction to another, or from one role organization
to another?
Gouldner moves in the opposite direction, from the system (S) to the subunit
and the individual (i). He starts out with a critique of earlier functional analysis;
it ‘is incomplete insofar as the analyst has not explicitly traced the manner in
which groups or structures whose ends have been satisfied in turn reciprocate
and repay the sub-units under study for the gains it provides them’. This ex-
change of services is caught by Gouldner’s term of reciprocity. Logically and in
fact, it is a basic feature of any system.*‘ According to him, in all societies there
is a norm which requires that benefits received, be returned sooner or later.
The demonstration that (i) is functional for (S) helps to account for (S)’s own persist-
ence and stability only on two related assumptions: I) that (S) reciprocates (i)’s services
and 2) that (i)’s service to (S) is contingent upon (S)’s performance of positive function
for (i).
But the two ‘partners’ may not be fully dependent upon each other; they may
have alternative sources of supply. This weakens the connections between the
elements of a system. A subunit can have a varying degree of functional auton-
omy; this raises for it the problem of how to manage its contributions and
receipts. Thus, Gouldner arrives at the point from which Goode starts: role
management. In fact, at the end of one of his essays, Gouldner has a subtitle:
the strategies of parts and systems. Not unexpectedly the ‘third party’ appears.
Gouldner discusses cases in which, because of power differences, the weaker
partner cannot fully reciprocate. Here society or specilic institutions intervene.
The philanthropist is not rewarded directly by the poor; he obtains his reward in
terms of the prestige the community accords him.