Soc Sci 11

Lesson 3-5 UC-IS-SHS

DOMINANT APPROACHES IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
• Positivist Social Science: Structural Functionalism, Rational Choice Theory, and Institutionalism

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
At the end of the lesson, the students are expected to:
a. Explain positivism as one of the paradigms in the social sciences;
b. Determine manifest and latent functions of socio-cultural phenomena as well as social dysfunctions based on
structural functionalism;
c. Predict the social consequences of decision-making based on scarcity according to rational choice theory; and
d. Examine the constitutive nature of informal and informal institutions and their actors and how it constrains
social behavior.

• POSITIVIST SOCIAL SCIENCE/POSITIVISM

- derived from the French word “positivisme” which means “imposed on the mind by experience.”
- refers to the philosophy of science that asserts that the only source of trustworthy knowledge is the
information obtained from rational conducts and reports of sensory experience.
- The concept of empirical evidence, or established data received from the senses, is important in positivism.
- The French Sociologist August Comte is considered the “Father of Positivism” when he asserted in the early
19th century that society, like the physical world, operates according to absolute laws and that the
sociologist must discover these laws in order to understand the nature of society.
- Prefers exact quantitative data and often uses experiments, surveys, and statistics as a research method. It
advocates “objective research” and propagates the belief that the “truth is out there”.
- E.g. Social Weather Stations (SWS) surveys in order to provide an independent source of data on economic
and social circumstances.
➢ Positivism is related to certain social theories such as structural-functionalism, rational choice, and
institutionalism which we will be discussed in this lesson. See the Figure below.

Theoretical Approaches under Positivist Paradigm

A. STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONALISM (LESSON 3)

- Sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability
- More concerned with the place of individuals in the social order itself than with individual actions.
- Similarly, societies have structures similar to those of organisms
- Social institution, like the parts of the body, functions together with the larger system.
- The social institution such as kinship, religion, politics, and economics, together compose society, just
as different biological schemes together form the organism.
- Hence, every institution is considered as having a function in fitting together with some other institution.
Everything is therefore functional.
e.g. Tsismis – tends to control individual behavior that leads to social order
❖ KEY CONCEPTS IN STRUCTURAL-FUNCTIONALISM
• Function - The different parts of each society contribute positively to the operation or functioning of the system
as a whole. Each society has certain needs in that there are a number of activities that must be carried out for
social life to survive and develop.
- Goods and services must be produced and distributed in order for people to survive, there must be some
administration of justice, a political system must exist, and some family structure must operate so as to
provide a means to reproduce the population and maintain social life on a daily basis.
- In the structural functional model, individuals carry out each of these tasks in various institutions and
roles that are consistent with the structures and norms of the society.
• Social Functions- refer to results or effects for the operation of the society in general.
* For instance, 1. Education has several significant purposes in a society, such as socializationand learning.
2. The family can be treated as having essential functions for society such as providing sexual,reproductive,
economic, and educational needs for its members.
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Lesson 3-5 UC-IS-SHS
3. Media provides the social function of mirroring the concerns of the audience
4. Religion contributes to the well-being of society by teaching morality
• Interdependence and equilibrium - the different parts of the social system are generally in equilibrium, or
moving toward equilibrium, with consensus rather than conflict governing the inter-relationships of the various
parts.
• Evolutionary change. While equilibrium, consensus, and static rather than dynamic analysis is most common,
there is some discussion of change. Change tends to be orderly and evolutionary, rather than revolutionary or
with dramatic structural breaks.
• Macro. The focus is macro-sociological, with institutions and structures existing in the society as a
whole.
▪ Macrostructures - formed among groups or institutions
Examples: religion, education, tradition, and culture
▪ Microstructures - established among individuals or within groups that result in individualinteractions
Examples: addressing elders with respect
e.g. Education - - > macrostructure -> shape the minds of students to become productivemembers of society
- - > microstructure - > addressing elders with respect patterns and shapes theyounger generation to
promote social values

O Social functions may be intended or unintended consequences, thus they can be classifiedinto manifest
and latent functions.
• Manifest and Latent Function – Robert Merton in his Social Theory and Social Structure used the example of
the rain dance, whose manifest function is to produce rain, while the latent or unintended function of the
rain dance is to provide a regular opportunity for the members ofthe group to meet and share a common
activity.
a. Manifest Function – predicted, intended, expected, and knowable effect of a social structure.
Example: Students go to school to learn and earn a degree.
b. Latent Function – an unintended outcome of social structure
Example: Students go to school to find a potential girlfriend or boyfriend/Socialization
c. Manifest Dysfunction – predicted, intended, expected, and knowable disruptions of a socialstructure
Example: Large gathering of people disrupts traffic flow
d. Latent Dysfunction – unpredicted and unexpected disruptions of social structures
Example: Customers' waiting period is lengthened since customers stay for a little longerwhen taking
pictures of their food before eating

B. RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY (Lesson 4)

- One of the many positivist theories that try to explain utility maximization. The idea when a person is
confronted with a set of choices, that person will choose the option that will serve his/her objectives.
i. Rational – means people act based on or inaccordance with reason or logic
ii. Choice – refers to an act of selecting or making a decision when faced with two or morepossibilities
▪ When applied to economics – “people estimate the probable costs and benefits of any action before
deciding what to do”.
- it propagates that the belief that people are often encouraged by money and thepossibility of
making earnings.
- Hence, they tend to choose the course of action that is likely to give them thegreatest satisfaction at
the lowest costs possible.
▪ Hobbes Leviathan – Explained the basic functioning of political institutions through individualchoices.
Postulated that choices came from “universally held desires and dislikes”
▪ Adam Smith – simplifying the notion of “egotism” in his “Wealth of nations”
“it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect ourdinner, but regard
to their own interest”
▪ Rational choice has been used to explain themes like voting, coalition formation, ethnicrelations,
social mobility and the like.

Rational Choice theory comes in many varieties, depending on the assumptions that are madeconcerning
preferences, beliefs, and constraints – the key element of all rational choice explanations
• Preferences denote the positive or negative evaluations individuals attach to possible outcomesof their actions.
Preferences can have many roots, ranging from culturally transmitted tastes forgood or other items to personal
habits and commitment.
o Belief – i t refers to perceived cause-effect relations, including the perceived likelihood with
which an individual’s actions will result in different possible outcomes
• Constraints define the limits to the set of feasible actions.

Social science practitioners especially economists use a logical axiom wherein they make a decision.They make a
certain pattern in which they can make a rational choice
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Lesson 3-5 UC-IS-SHS
1. A person starts with a desire – create a belief –propels you to act.
2. A person starts with a desire – propels you to act immediately.
3. A person starts with a desire – create a belief – come upon new information – create a new
belief – propels you to act.
4. A person starts with a desire – seek information – create a belief –propels you to act.

Action

Desires Beliefs

i n for m ati on

• Game Theory- deals with situations where others’ choice of strategy affects your best choice
and vice versa. e.g. Nuclear deterrence, arms races.
- "the study of mathematical models of conflict and cooperation between intelligent rational decision-
makers." Game theory is mainly used in economics, political science, andpsychology, as well as logic,
computer science and biology.
• Social Exchange Theory - is a model for interpreting society as a series of interactions betweenpeople that are
based on estimates of rewards and punishments.
- According to this view, our interactions are determined by the rewards or punishmentsthat we expect
to receive from others, which we evaluate using a cost-benefit analysis model (whether consciously
or subconsciously).

❖ KEY CONCEPTS/ASSUMPTIONS IN RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY

1. Utility Maximization – patterns of behavior in societies wherein the choices made by the individuals are
governed by the maximization of benefits and minimization of costs. In short, people will choose the object
that provides the greatest reward at the lowest cost.
2. Structure of preferences – people are motivated by their personal desires and aspirations; they must make
choices to attain a certain goal.
* Rewards and punishments: e.g. A person who wishes a car may choose between two options: buy the
car by spending most of his or her savings (he or she may have little savings left but will merit social
approval for being able to buy a car which can be considered as a status symbol) or steal that car
(which can lead to imprisonment and social disapproval.
3. Decision making under the coalitions of uncertainty – each individual takes full advantage of the likely
worth of his own payoff.
- occurs since the focus is on the expected rather than actual usefulness. Individuals act based on the
information that they have about the conditions under which they are acting. According to Homans “no
exchange continues unless both parties are making a profit”. It denies any kind of action that is not totally
rational and calculative.
4. Centrality of individuals in the explanation of collective outcomes - means that rational choice theorists
believe that it is by reference to the maximizing actions of individuals that group outcomes must be explained.
- Social change and social institutions can be explained as the result of individual actions and interactions.
Group outcomes are therefore caused by the maximizing action of individuals.

C. INSTITUTIONALISM (Lesson 5)
- It is an approach that highlights the role of institutions, both formal and informal, in affecting social
behavior. The study of institutions has a long pedigree.
- It draws insights from previous work in a wide array of disciplines, including economics, political science,
sociology, and anthropology.
- It was a reaction to prevailing strands of
- thought in the late 19th century that ignored institutions, historical context, and practice that gave way to
wide-ranging hypothesizing.
- It is a theory that views institutions as humanly devised constraints that structure political, economic, and
social interactions.

• Social Institution - a group of people assigned to perform a definite task and function in a social system.
- are social structures that have attained a high degree of resilience. They are composed of cultural-
cognitive, normative, and regulative elements that together with associated activities and resources,
provide stability and meaning to social life.
- Institutions increase the predictability of the decision-making situation by setting rules that govern the
players, allowable actions and strategies, authorized results and linkages among decisions (Heywood,
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Lesson 3-5 UC-IS-SHS
2000).

❖ KEY CONCEPTS IN INSTITUTIONALISM

• Two Kinds of Institutions
Institutions consist of formal rules and informal constrains. Definition of their distinction as follows:
a. Formal institutions are openly codified, in the sense that they are established and communicated through
channels that are widely accepted as official. This refers to those officially established often by the
government. They’re legally introduced and enforced by the state. E.g. money, traffic rules, holidays, labor
unions
b. Informal institutions are socially shared rules, usually unwritten, that are created, communicated, and
enforced outside of officially sanctioned channels. Informal institutions are equally known but not laid down
in writing and they tend to be more persistent than formal rules. E.g. Dowry, Arranged Marriages, Tipping
food servers, Filial Piety, Public Opinion

Comparison of Formal and Informal Institutions

VARIABLE FORMAL INSTITUTIONS INFORMAL INSTITUTIONS
Type of Exchange - Impersonal - Face - to - face
Approach to Rules - Rule of Law - Rules in use
Character of Rules - Written - Unwritten
Nature of Exchange - Contractual - Non-contractual
Time Schedule - Specified - Non-specified
Actor Premise - Organizational goal adherence - Shared Expectations
Implications of Agreement - Precise compliance - Ambiguous Execution
Transparency - Potentially open to scrutiny - Closed and Confidential
Conflict Resolution - Third party body - Self-Enforcement

➢ Two Dominant Perspective in Institutionalism

a. Old Institutionalism – studies formal institutions that are supported by the government, on how its various
laws and practices are implemented to the citizens. It is more studied in the field of Political Science.
b. New Institutionalism – refers to studying institutions and how it affects the society or social behavior. It
refers to an interaction of various institutions within the society, and how their dynamics, rules, and norms
determine the behavior and actions of individuals.
1. Normative Institutionalism – defines institutions much more broadly than a political scientist or
economist and it includes also the symbol systems, cognitive scripts, and moral templates, hence it
breaks down the divide between institutions and culture. It argues that institutions influence actor’s
behavior by shaping their values, norms, interest, identities, and beliefs.
2. Rational Choice Institutionalism – it draws heavily from rational choice theory but is not identical to
it. Proponents of this theory argue that political actor’s rational choices are constrained (bounded
rationality). It argues that political institutions are systems of rules and inducements within which
individuals attempt to maximize their utilities. This theory also argues that institutions are rules that
govern the behavior between individuals and that actions are made in the interest of the self.
3. Historical Institutionalism – It is a social science method that uses institutions to find sequences of
social, political, and economic behavior and changes across time. It is a comparative approach to the
study of all aspects of human organizations and does so by relying heavily on case studies. It looks at
how choices are made about the institutional design of the government system and how it influences
the future decision- making of individuals.
4. Feminist Institutionalism – It is a new institutionalist approach that looks at how gender norms
operate within the institutions and how institutional processes construct and maintain gender power
dynamics.
5. Sociological Institutionalism - It is a form of new institutionalism that concerns how institutions
create meaning for individuals providing important theoretical building blocks for normative
institutionalism within political science.

REFERENCES:

• Alejandria-Gonzalez, M.P. (2016). Disciplines and Ideas in the Social Sciences. Makati City:DIWA
Learning Systems Inc.
• Arcinas, M. (2016). Disciplines and Ideas in the Social Sciences. Quezon City: Phoenix PublishingHouse, Inc.
• Jose, M., Ong, J., (2016) Disciplines and Ideas in the Social Sciences. Quezon City: Vibal Group,Inc.
• Marsh, D., Stoker G. (2002) Theory and Method in Political Science. New York: PalgraveMacmillan.
• Reyes, M. (2004). Social Research: A Deductive Approach. Manila: Rex Book Store