Unit Act. Sociology Describes the Encounter. Part I

September 20th, 2007 Posted in Concepts, Unit Act

I got the unit act from Talcott Parsons. Not directly but through his book “The Structure of Social Action.” Spending his youth (in the 1920s) in scholarly study in Europe (for that is where Americans went then to get the sociological word) he returned and summed up the experience in a review of all the major figures. He unified their different approaches by placing their contributions within the unit act (each emphasizing one direction and ignoring others). So the act became a coat rack with a hook for each and in accommodating all it achieved a unity and a completeness.

But what is this is unit act, this elixir drawn from the euro literary brew?

Simply, it is a paradigm, a model, a way of approaching the full description of any encounter–two actors (individuals or groups) meeting and engaging. It identifies the kinds of information needed to describe what has happened and how an outcome has been reached. The objective is to understand and compare, and it is applicable to all members of the encounter class–it covers a lot of experience. And since it involves the smallest unit of sociability, the two persons in relationship, it can be thought of as one of the fundamental concepts of the sociological project.

My take on the unit act:

First: two actors have an encounter, become aware of each other, and enter a sequence of acts and counteracts called interaction. The presumption: that there is a possibility of some mutual adjustment and that the end stage reached is contingent upon this. Predictability is at best a probability distribution over all possible outcomes.

Second: the encounter always has a context made up of two major elements–governing culture(s) and the actively impinging ecology. We want to use these popular terns in very specific ways so we will have to define our use of them more precisely.

Culture is rules, values, concepts and such based on consensus agreement among some members of a group or society. (It can be segmented, not shared by all.) It is a human construct and in action it is imposed by human decision. With culture there is always a choice (activate or not activate, accept the prevailing definition or reject it) whether we recognize it or not. It always has a element of the voluntary. The control of what we do is a function of our consciousness, of how aware we are of our options.

This is not a rigid model. Known forms of social organization and order would be within the cultural sector. Since they are of considerable importance in defining situations they could occupy a conceptual space of their own.

The ecological part confronts us outside of our will. It is present outside of culture. We do not have the option of consciously turning it off, of either refusing it or opting for an alternative. For example, it is raining. I can not stop it by a wish. I can not choose to replace it with sunshine. I can react by covering my head, but I accept that the rain itself is not related to my consciousness of it.

So we know the interaction sequence will be limited, directed, swayed, warped, governed by these two elements. The ecological is there and we endure or react against it. The cultural content imposed will depend upon the decisions of the actors. Think of the culture as a vast encyclopedia of models of social situations. It is as though the actors after assessing their situation thumb through this directory and choose the most appropriate model.

Three: some assume that the actors always have a goal in mind in these encounters but I am not sure that this is inevitable. For example friends hanging out. The sequence may be a meander to nowhere. But we should be aware that the actors may have goals and their actions might also be governed by these choices. The possible goals and the ends actually achieved are not necessarily the same.

Four: the pair might have had a history of previous encounters or might have some line on each other from hearsay, rumor, reputation. This would be part of the cultural baggage, but we could consider it the local culture with its own space.

Five: we know that the basic form itself, in this case two actors meeting, sets conditions that are outside of culture though they might have the naturalistic quality of an ecological element. So the fragility of the two is obvious. One leaves or is driven off and there goes the specific grouping as well. So an admittedly modest veto is built in.

Six: cap all with a relevant characterization of the start stage of the encounter and carry through to the end stage when the encounter is broken off or finished which should also be characterized and you have a pretty good description of what happened.

^^^^^

In my experience of Professor Parsons’ work he never built on the unit act but followed up by going after the bigger game of the social system. I was very disappointed. The next episode of the TV series never appears, the unit act hanging in air, the subject without the predicate.

We know that the model poses as many issues as it resolves. If we think about how we ourselves actually respond in our encounters we do not usually consciously think through our decisions. Cues aplenty give us signs of where we are socially and the appropriate range of actions and understandings kick in. We only approach the awareness and detail suggested by the model if we travel alone to foreign lands and cultures–where we do not know the language, customs, rules, and the potential range of the choices available.

^^^^^

To test the model I will revisit professional sports and show how the model fits the reality. I will use American baseball because it is familiar to me. You can easily substitute your own favored sport and work through the details for yourself. The results should be similar. The model will fit but its limits will become visible and the question of using it in other situations of social experience might become both so obvious and attractive that you might begin working through some of the issues yourself.

So, baseball: its culture partially resides within a rule book, a manual. Here are the rules and understandings of what baseball is about. When people determine that they are in a baseball situation they orient themselves to these rules as best they can. This cultural element governs what they do. How they play the game.

There are also informal perceptions and lore, knowledge accumulated and shared by some players and spectators. These share in the governance–like take a three ball no strike pitch or do not try to steal third base with two outs. Details that are imposed and tend to order the action and logic of the game.

There are two teams, two actors, who meet on a previously arranged schedule and their interaction in form is given by the rules–they periodically shift offense and defense. They pitch and hit and catch and run as the rules allow. They play through nine cycles of offense and defense and at the end the team with the most runs wins. If there is a tie they continue on until one team pulls ahead. Games can range up to 20 or 30 cycles.

Play can be affected by the weather, especially the temperature and the position of the sun. A great down pour of rain suspends play as does a violent earthquake (a championship game was suspended in San Francisco for this reason.) These and similar non- cultural intrusions compose the ecological sector.

The strategy of the game changes as the interaction continues–the form of the pitcher, the closeness of the game, using the bunt instead of the home run, the steal or the hit and run, or going for the long ball. The pitcher throwing the ball high and inside to rattle the batters, the batters waiting out an unsteady pitcher. The game is full of detail. And the pattern evolves over the sequence.

Beginning stage both teams want to win, the outcome is in doubt. End stage the decision is in, a winner declared.

Culture and ecology and interaction and the encounter is described, is in the bag. Over the season with the multiple meetings the probability distribution of wins and loses will be described. Gamblers will lay odds on the starting pitchers and their associated line-ups but the outcome can never be precisely predicted. Yet wherever and whenever the unpire yells “Play ball” the pattern is obvious, we all know what to expect.

Obvious. Sociology belaboring the dead horse. But leave the ball park and meet your girlfriend for a date. Join a diplomatic team in negotiation with diplomats from another country. Take a lesson from a piano teacher. Be a witness cross examined by a lawyer at a trial. Meet a robber on the street.

These are all part of the class of encounters covered by the unit act. The rule manual might not exist and the source and locus of the governing rules, if indeed the rules totally govern, might not be obvious.

(A few more notes on this topic in our next post.)