Robert Merton's Contribution To Sociology

Henceforth, these cultural expectations can influence individuals’ comportment towards each other, and their beliefs in themselves. The American sociologist Robert Merton (1948) claimed that made-up expectations by people could come factual and create their own reality by causing other people to change their behaviors to accord the initial expectations (cited in Sharma &Sharma, 2015).

I found this web site to be particularly useful in my research because it helped me to find important information about where the study of sociology originated from and how it started. I found that sociology started because of a lot of the world exploration during the time of its development. Voyagers from the sixteenth and seventeenth century periods would bring back stories of strange cultures and traditions from other countries from around the world. These stories and accounts of different cultures changed the way that people thought about the social order of things.

The line on the wall is not always clear. The vast majority of people like to think they will stand against the masses if they believe they are right, unfortunately this is far from the truth. Asch wanted to investigate what drove people to act the way they do in group settings, like in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. Asch took a simplistic approach looking at what drove the need to conform and follow directions. He proves with his conformity experiment, just how completely our need to follow the crowd is, we are driven by the masses and our need to conform to the group standards of behavior.

The sociological imagination helps us understand how social arrangements influence people’s behavior. Often people can’t distinguish “between personal troubles of milieu and public issues” (mills 2014, 4) and that is greatly affected by their social environment. This leads us to ask why people do certain things.

Two Civil Rights leaders who had the same dream, and a goal they wanted to achieve making equality possible in America. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X were both strong leaders, but had different views, religious outlooks, background, and were both assassinated in their prime.

The phenomena that Merton 's theory indicates towards can be successfully explained with the help of an example of how people achieve or strive to achieve economic success. For instance, in the U.S which has a capitalist system, everybody is motivated to attain financial profitability for a greater sense of positive identity. There are two legally approved ways of accomplishing this task, education and work. However, not everyone may have access to equal opportunities because of brokered access or discrimination on the basis of class, gender, race, sexuality etc. that is prevalent in most societies (Broidy & Agnew,1997). This leads to an unequal distribution of means among people belonging to the same society and having similar aspirations. This lack of accessibility to available means encourages deviant behaviour among people to attain their cultural goals. Such people then resort to deviant activities that violate social norms such as theft and embezzlement, to fulfill their economic goals and cultural ambitions. Individuals who are oppressed or those that are marginalized by the society are most likely to indulge in such unsanctioned activities to achieve economic success as even they have similar cultural and economic goals as the rest of the people in the society. This example validates Merton 's theory that a society which fails to provide adequate and equal means to all the people creates a strain on the less privileged and limits their scope for success through socially accepted means. A good example of this is the Black Lives Matter Movement (2014-15) which demanded equal means and respect for all. The movement adopted a violent tone as a means to accomplish its

Just like in sociology, where things are not what they seem the same goes for the foundation of sociology should be questioned. Only three white men are Canonization for sociology and taught all around the world forgetting about other great minds in history. Instead The full range of intellectuals who produced "theories of society" can be recovered for this history. (Connell 1997, 1546). Just like in all society Connell reminds to keeping questioning and even in between our own college

among humans in our daily life. Sex is the biological term that determines the biological and

Great thinkers, including Plato and Aristotle opened the doors to studying society; they based their thoughts on creating an “ideal society”. The science of Sociology was later developed in the early 19th century by Auguste Comte, who coined the word “Sociology”. He began to study society, using “critical thinking”. Comte believed that only by really understanding society could we begin to change it. In this Essay I will compare and contrast two major theoretical perspectives in Sociology. The Functionalist theory of Emile Durkheim and the Marxist theory of Karl Marx (Giddens, 2009, p. 72)

Martin Luther King Jr. was an African American, civil rights activist who believed that everyone was equal no matter what race they were. He was born on January 15th, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. King was a very kind and loving man to his wife and four children. King lived in a world where race determined who a person was and what they did. Racial discrimination was all over the place, but it was the worst in the South. King was a man of God, justice and freedom, and he wanted every man to be equal to another. ("Martin Luther King Jr." "Web")

Great thinkers, including Plato and Aristotle opened the doors to studying society; they based their thoughts on creating an “ideal society”. The science of Sociology was later developed in the early 19th century by Auguste Comte, who coined the word “Sociology”. He began to study society, using “critical thinking”. Comte believed that only by really understanding society could we begin to change it. In this Essay I will compare and contrast two major theoretical perspectives in Sociology. The Functionalist theory of Emile Durkheim and the Marxist theory of Karl Marx (Giddens, 2009, p. 72)

This essay will discuss the concept of one of the greatest economists, a philosopher, a journalist, a historian, also known and believed to be one of the founding fathers of sociology. Karl Marx, made a contribution to sociology in the 19th century. He developed a sociological theory that stated that human societies progress through a struggle between two distinct classes, namely; the bourgeoise and proletariat. It claims that society is in conflict between the rich who own and control everything, and the poor who must work for the rich and be rewarded very little for their hard work. The theory is known as the conflict theory or the Marxist theory or Marxism, which is more concerned about the class struggle within the society,

This paper will analyse Merton’s (1949) chapter “On Sociological Theories of the Middle Range” pp. 39-53 in Social Theory and Social Structure. Sociological theories refer to logically interconnected sets of propositions from which empirical uniformities can be derived (Merton, 1949). Merton (1949) describes middle-range theories as ‘theories that lie between the minor but necessary working hypotheses that evolve in abundance in day to day research and the all-inclusive systematic efforts to develop unified theory that will explain all the observed uniformities of social behaviour, organization and social change’. This is in contrast to Talcott Parson’s ‘grand theory’ that explains every aspect of society from a structural level. Grand theorists seek to develop all-encompassing theories that can apply to society at large. However, because grand theories are so broad, it does not allow for the development of working hypotheses which can then be empirically confirmed by conducting research. Merton provides an alternative method to sociological theory by introducing theories of the middle range.

Sociology is “the scientific study of human life, social groups, whole societies and the human world as such” (Giddens 2009). Robert K. Merton (1910-2003) was an American sociologist who contributed greatly to the sociology we study today. He is best known for his theories of deviance, for his development of the concepts "self-fulfilling prophecy", “unintended consequences”, “role strain”, “reference group” ,"role model” and for founding the sociology of science. He is considered to have been one of America 's most influential social scientists.

Charles Hodge is a well-known theologian in the American history, and ranks among the noted Calvinists who preached in the nineteenth century1. He was born in Pennsylvania on December 28, 1797 in a highly distinguished family having Irish ancestry2. Besides being a noted theologian, he was also an accomplished preacher, author and educator5.