20 quotes
A common vocabulary unifying the several "behavioral" disciplines.
Sociology and modern systems theory (1967)
The division of distinctive social roles and tasks, based upon both inherited and socially acquired individual differences, is called social differentiation.
Class and society (1959)
Openness is an essential factor underlying a system's viability, continuity, and its ability to change.
Sociology and modern systems theory (1967)
Systems theory, in its concern for the whole and its emergent properties, ignores the components.
Society: A Complex Adaptive System--Essays in Social Theory (1998)
Morphogenesis will refer to those processes which tend to elaborate or change a system's given form, structure, or state.
Sociology and modern systems theory (1967)
A system is more than the sum of its parts.
Sociology and modern systems theory (1967)
In modern science, in fact, let alone modern systems theory, cause disappears wherever you have a very complex system of interrelated elements.
Walter F. Buckley (1970)
Status is dependent in the long run upon high class position — the maintenance of a prestigious style of life costs money — there is no necessary correspondence between them at any given time.
Class and society (1959)
"information" is not a substance or concrete entity but rather a relationship between sets or ensembles of structured variety.
Sociology and modern systems theory (1967)
As a suggested working definition, we may define power as control or influence over the actions of others to promote one's goals without their consent, against their "will," or without their knowledge or understanding.
Sociology and modern systems theory (1967)
A second dimension of stratification in modern societies is the status order. The term status as used in this study refers to the differentiation-of-prestige and deference among individuals and groups in society.
Class and society (1959)
The notion of system we are interested in may be described generally as a complex of elements or components directly or indirectly related in a network of interrelationships of various kinds, such that it constitutes a dynamic whole with emergent properties.
Society: A Complex Adaptive System--Essays in Social Theory (1998)
We have argued at some length in another place that the mechanical equilibrium model and the organismic homeostasis models of society that have underlain most modern sociological theory have outlived their usefulness
Society as a complex adaptive system (1968)
That a system is open means, not simply that it engages in interchanges with the environment, but that this interchange is an essential factor underlying the system's viability, its reproductive ability or continuity, and its ability to change.
Sociology and modern systems theory (1967)
Historically, most societies have been heavily skewed in favor of the power pole, and most of history— especially modern history— can be seen as a struggle toward the authority pole, that is, toward the institutionalization of a process of informed, consensual self-determination of the whole, which we call "democracy".
Society: A Complex Adaptive System--Essays in Social Theory (1998)
Social differentiation is a universal characteristic of human societies. Early human societies survived and became dominant among animal species because of their superior social organization — that is, their more elaborate division of labor and consequent close coordination of activities.
Class and society (1959)
The modern systems view, which flowered during World War II (though building on principles in the wind much earlier), has already borne its first fruits and is in danger of a superficial acceptance into the corpus of sociology by way of the incorporation of some of its now common vocabulary.
Sociology and modern systems theory (1967)
[The equilibrium model describes systems] which, in moving to an equilibrium point, typically lose organization, and then tend to hold that minimum level within relatively narrow conditions of disturbance.
Sociology and modern systems theory (1967)
In essence, the process model typically views society as a complex, multifaceted, fluid interplay of widely varying degrees and intentions and intensities of association and dissociation. The "structure" is abstract construct, not something distinct from the ongoing interactive process but rather a temporary, accommodative representation of it at any one time.
Sociology and modern systems theory (1967)
The more recent concern with complex adaptive organization has led to the notion of contingency as the important key. Thus Wiener, while working in the field of communications and probability theory, became convinced 'that a significant idea of organization cannot be obtained in a world in which everything is necessary and nothing is contingent'
Sociology and modern systems theory (1967)