Chapter Outline

I. Parsons's Integrative Efforts

A. Biographical Sketch

II. General Principles

A. Philosophical and Theoretical Roots

1. Action

2. Voluntarism

3. Ideas, Goals, Norms

4. Emergence

5. Parts and Wholes

B. Action Theory

1. Unit Act

2. Voluntarism

3. Verstehen

C. The Turn Away From Action Theory

1. Need-Dispositions

2. Motivational Orientations

3. Value Orientations

4. Types of Action

a. intellectual

b. expressive

c. moral

d. instrumental

D. Pattern Variables

1. Affectivity-Affective Neutrality

2. Specificity-Diffuseness

3. Universalism-Particularism

4. Ascription-Achievement

5. Self-Collectivity

E. AGIL

1. Adaptation

2. Goal Attainment

3. Integration

4. Latency (pattern maintenance)

F. Consistency in Parsonsian Theory: Integration and Order

III. The Action System

A. Social System

1. Actors and the Social System

2. Society

B. Cultural System

C. Personality System

D. Behavioral Organism

IV. Change and Dynamism in Parsonsian Theory

A. Evolutionary Theory

B. Generalized Media of Exchange

V. Summary