The nature of institutions and their function in society is central to Talcott Parsons' and Robert Merton's work. Parsons' theories appeared to imply that all existing institutions were inherently either good or functional for society. In contrast, Merton recognized the existence of dysfunctional institutions and encouraged sociologists to actively identity the dysfunctionality. Merton defined dysfunction as something which may be generally dysfunctional, and the consequences created because of that dysfunction.
Parsons' pattern variables and Merton's modes of adaptation had a similar framework. Both theories offered a schema to explain what happened when a given individual in a society made a choice and then acted on that choice. How that choice was made and the consequences of alternative choices differed in Parson's pattern variables from Merton's modes of adaptation.
According to Wallace and Wolfe, Parsons believed that the retention of smooth, gradual adjustments of the institutions in a liberal democracy was the ideal. He did not consider it dysfunctional for the social patterns in a culture to continue to evolve. Evolution leads to change within, but not necessarily to system changes, in his view (1991, p. 53).
Parsons' general theory of action was central to his concept of system. The cultural, social, personality and the behavioral organism provided the basis for his overall framework of how societies were structured and fitted together. Parsons ranked the culture systems as the first level, followed by the social system on the next level, then the personality system, and the fourth system was the behavior organism.
In the development of his pattern variables, Parsons wanted to show that the situations organisms faced were not entirely unstructured and uncertain. The pattern variables he formulated categorized expectations and the structure of relationships. In this way, he made the theory of ac...