Here is the synopsis of our sample research paper on Functionalism and the Relationship between the Individual and Society
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This 3 page paper explores the relationship between the individual and society from a functional point of view. Bibliography lists 3 sources.
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3 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_HVFunRel.rtf
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work together" (The sociological perspective, 2005). This harmony is achieved by "social consensus," which is further defined as "a pattern of related parts that function together" including those institutions like
the family, and schools, that help society survive (The sociological perspective, 2005). The "most important modern advocate of the functionalist perspective" was Talcott Parsons, who stressed that in order to
survive, societies "must provide for meeting social needs" (The sociological perspective, 2005). Between 1910 and 1930, two differing versions of functionalism were developed": "biocultural (or psychological) functionalism, the approach advocated
by Malinowski, and structural- functionalism, the approach advanced by Radcliffe-Brown" (Edwards and Neutzling, 2001). Malinowski believed that "individuals have physiological needs and that social institutions develop to meet these needs"
(Edwards and Neutzling, 2001). There are differing kinds of needs; some are "culturally derived" but there are "four basic ... needs ... that require institutional devices"; the four are "economics,
social control, education and political organization" (Edwards and Neutzling, 2001). Each institution comprises those factors that it has to have to operate, including personnel, rules and regulations and so on
(Edwards and Neutzling, 2001). Malinowski believed psychological responses correlated to physiological needs, and that "satisfaction of these needs transformed the cultural instrumental activity into an acquired drive through psychological reinforcement"
(Edwards and Neutzling, 2001). Radcliffe-Brown, who is probably closer to what we want to look at, studied social structure, and suggested that society is both individual and institutional; that is,
a society "is a system of relationships maintaining itself through cybernetic feedback, while institutions are orderly sets of relationships whose function is to maintain the society as a system" (Edwards
and Neutzling, 2001). Radcliffe-Brown believed that society operated on a different "level" from either inorganic matter or biological forms (Edwards and Neutzling, 2001). A moments reflection will allow us to
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