Social Systems Theory

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Social Systems Theory

• Human Behavior and the Social Environment

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Characteristics

• It is comprehensive
• It offers greater potential for description and
  integration of disparate theories into a single
  framework that any other framework.
• It provides suggestive leads
• For all sectors of human behavior
• It has the potential to provide a common
  language.
• Parsimony
• It allows the reduction of theories to a
  framework that can be mastered.

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Providing Meaning to Theory

• General systems theory, which includes the
  narrower field of social systems, is a
  cross-disciplinary body of scientific thought
  that developed during the twentieth century.
• Social systems perspective a philosophical
  viewpoint on the relationship of person with
  their social environment.
• Social systems model meaning that it is at the
  same time a hypothesis to be tested, primarily
  through its application to professional practice.

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• Systems perspective provides the best theoretical
  basis for the study of human communication.

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Systems/Systemic Thinking

• System
• A set of things or parts forming a whole.
• A complex unity formed of many often diverse
  parts subject to a common plan or serving a
  common purpose.
• Systemic Thinking
• Using the mind to recognize pattern, conceive
  unity, and form some coherent wholeness to seek
  to complete the picture.

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• Systems consists of elements that are capable of
  being understood.
• Systemic thinking includes those ways of thinking
  that seek to understand coherence and
  connectedness of all life.
• Thought is patterned and imposed on the world as
  experienced by the perceiver.
• Comprehension of the part/whole nature of life is
  the central tenet of systemic thinking.

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• A social system is composed of persons or groups
  of persons who interact and mutually influence
  each others behavior.
• A social system is a bounded set of interrelated
  activities that together constitute a single
  entity.

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Polar Positions

• Systems exist at all levels
• Persons
• Families
• Organizations
• Communities
• Societies
• Cultures
• What is a basic unit of a social system?

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• Macro vs. Micro
• Whole vs. Part
• Holistic Viewpoint
• The whole determines the actions of its parts.
• People are determined by society.
• Atomistic Viewpoint
• The whole is the sum of its parts
• Persons determine the society.

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• The holistic view implied downward causality,
  while the atomistic view implied upward
  causality.
• Agree? Disagree?
• These two positions are important and powerful
  when applied to the task of deciding how to
  intervene in human behavior.

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• This duality has emerged within our profession as
  the historical distinction between casework and
  community organization, or as individual
  change vs. social change.
• This duality is inherent in other
  social/behavioral disciplines, most explicitly in
  the paradigm of nature vs. nurture.
• Both polar positions are relevant and must be
  considered when examining human affairs.

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Holon

• Each social entity whether large or small,
  complex or simple, is a holon.
• This term is borrowed from Greek language to
  express the idea that each entity is
  simultaneously a part and a whole.
• A social unit is made up of parts to which it is
  the whole (suprasystem) and at the same time is
  part of some larger whole (component).
• What is central is that any system is by
  definition both part and whole.

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• Focal system
• The system chosen to receive primary attention.
• Identifies the perspective from which the
  observer views, and analyzes the system and its
  environment
• The idea of holon then requires the observer to
  attend to both the components of that focal
  system and the suprasystem (significant
  environment) to fully understand it.

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• Social System Theory is holonistic requiring
• Specification of the focal system
• Specification of the units or components that
  constitute that holon
• Specification of the significant environmental
  systems
• Specification of ones own position relative to
  the focal system.

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Energy/Information

• The basic stuff of a system is energy.
• Energy can be in the form of information and
  resources.
• System action can be understood as the movement
  of energy/information
• Within a system
• Between as system and its environment
• Information is ingested as energy to the same
  extent that food fulfills biological needs.

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• What occurs in and between social systems are
  transfers of energy/information between persons
  or groups of persons.
• Energy is defined as
• Capacity for action
• Action
• Power to effect change

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• Energy and information are not identical.
• Energy must be structured in order to be useful.
• Information gives form to the energy.
• Energy derives from a complex of sources
  including the physical capacities of its members
  social resources such as loyalties, shared
  sentiments, and common values and resources from
  its environment.

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• Energy sources for personality systems
• Food
• The physical condition of the body
• Intellectual and emotional capabilities
• Emotional support from friends, family or
  colleagues
• Cultural and religious sanctions for ones
  beliefs and activities
• Recognition of ones status by society and ones
  colleagues in an organization
• Ones sense of self-worth and integrity.

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Entropy and Synergy

• The tendency of an unattended system to move
  toward an unorganized state that is characterized
  by decreased interactions among its components.
• Entropy is a measure of the quantity of energy
  not available for use.
• Examples
• Hes not performing up to his potential
• What a waste of talent

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• Synergy refers to increasingly available energy
  within a system derived from heightened
  interaction among its components.
• Examples
• Shes got it all together, and look at the
  results
• Out of many, one (E pluribus unum)
• Synergy occurs in open, living systems.

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The Four Basic Energy Functions

• Systems require energy in order to exist.
• There are four basic energy functions that are
  essential to carry out a systems purposes
• Securing energy from the environment
• Securing energy internally
• Goal attainment outside the system
• Goal attainment within the system

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• External Internal
• (environmental) (components)

SE
SI
GI
GE
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• The four functions (SI, SE, GI, GE) are not
  separate a system performs all of these
  functions at the same time.
• In any exchanges between whole and parts, all
  elements receive some energy and have some goals
  met.
• The reciprocal nature of the transactions and
  exchanges should be kept in mind.

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• If one function is always dominant, the other
  functions are neglected, to the detriment of the
  total system.
• Example
• The family system that concentrates energy only
  on the SE function may experience internal
  disintegration.
• latch-key kids

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Organization

• Even if energy is available in and to a system,
  if there is a total absence of organization then
  there is a total absence of system.
• Absence of organization equals entropy.
• Organization refers to the grouping and arranging
  of parts to form a whole in order to put a system
  into working order.
• System organization secures, expends, and
  conserves energy to maintain the system and
  further its purposes.

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• If the task of energy organization is not
  accomplished, then the system will fail to
  develop.
• Organization is not synonymous with higher levels
  of complexity.
• The measure of effectiveness of organization is
  its capacity to fulfill the systems goals, as
  well as the goals of its components.

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• Disorganization of a system whether person,
  family, or neighborhood does not mean totally
  unorganized it means not sufficiently organized.
• Families with problems are generally disorganized
  families, and the reasons for this
  disorganization can emanate from internal sources
  and/or external forces

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• The goals of one or more members are in
  opposition to system goals.
• The elements of organization are disrupted or
  unclear.
• Energies from within the system are not available
  or not sufficient for the demands on the system.
• The family is not adequately organized to obtain
  additional energy from outside its own system.
• The environment exercises a disorganizing
  influence on the family system (oppression).
• Energy is denied or not available from the
  suprasystem (unemployment or having welfare
  benefits cut off.).

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Causation, Feedback Loops, and Chaos Theory

• It is not useful to understand human behavior
  through searching for linear, one-directional
  cause-effect relationships.
• It serves little purpose to ask why persons do
  what they do.
• A more useful inquiry is how or in what way
  something happened.
• A interacts with B to produce AB, which changes
  both A and B, and results in C, which is partly
  A, B, and AB.

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• The process in which a system receives internal
  or environmental responses to its behavior and,
  in turn, reacts to these received responses by
  accommodating and assimilating the
  energy/information received, by altering the
  systems structure, and then engaging in altered
  exchanges of energy/information.

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• The fundamental concept in chaos theory is order
  vs. disorder.
• Energy that is completely flat, unorganized, and
  undifferentiated is in a state of disorder.
• Systems and subsystems which are maintained only
  by great effort and only by intense energy
  exchange internally and with their environment is
  an example of order.