Definition of social system

1: the patterned series of interrelationships existing between individuals, groups, and institutions and

forming a coherent whole : SOCIAL STRUCTURE

2: the formal organization of status and role that may develop among the members of a relatively

small stable group (such as a family or club)

What Is a Social System?

Think about the town or city that you live in - what are the pieces that make it a community? There are

probably private businesses and manufacturing, public schools, government agencies, and possibly even

a few religious institutions. Although we tend to think of these things as being independent entities that

provide us with certain services, they are also the individual pieces that comprise a community or society.

In sociology, the groups and institutions that work together to make a complete whole are known as social

systems. As a concept and academic theory, social systems are used to identify relationships that

connect people and organizations, which ultimately contribute to a larger institution.

For example, public education is a kind of social system because it attempts to unify people by providing

standard education, which will allow them to participate in and contribute to the economy, thus

strengthening the overall society.

While it may seem like a fairly straightforward concept, social systems can be difficult to understand

depending on the context in which they are being applied. In the broadest sense, you can think of social

systems as a way of breaking down a larger group, such as an entire society, and categorizing them to

understand how their interactions combine to create a functional whole.

The term ‘system’ implies an orderly arrangement, an interrelationship of parts. In the arrangement,

every part has a fixed place and definite role to play. The parts are bound by interaction. To understand

the functioning of a system, for example the human body, one has to analyze and identify the sub-

systems (e.g. circulatory, nervous, digestive, excretionary systems etc.) and understand how these

various subsystems enter into specific relations in the fulfillment of the organic function of the body.
Likewise, society may be viewed as a system of interrelated mutually dependent parts which cooperate to

preserve a recognizable whole and to satisfy some purposes or goal. Social system may be described as

an arrangement of social interactions based on shared norms and values. Individuals constitute it and

each has place and function to perform within it.

Meaning of Social System:

It is Talcott Parsons who has given the concept of ‘system’ current in modern sociology. Social system

refers to’ an orderly arrangement, an inter relationships of parts. In the arrangement, every part has a

fixed place and definite role to play. The parts are bound by interaction. System signifies, thus, patterned

relationship among constituent parts of a structure which is based on functional relations and which

makes these parts active and binds them into reality.

Society is a system of usages, authority and mutuality based on “We” felling and likeness. Differences

within the society are not excluded. These are, however, subordinated to likeness. Inter-dependence and

cooperation are its basis. It is bound by reciprocal awareness. It is essentially a pattern for imparting the

social behaviour.

It consists in mutual inter action and interrelation of individuals and of the structure formed by their

relations. It is not time bound. It is different from an aggregate of people and community. According to

Lapiere, “The term society refers not to group of people, but to the complex pattern of the norms of inter

action that arises among and between them.”

Applying these conclusions to society, social system may be described as an arrangement of social

interactions based on shared norms and values. Individuals constitute it, and each has place and function

to perform within it. In the process, one influences the other; groups are formed and they gain influence,

numerous subgroup come into existence.

But all of these are coherent. They function as a whole. Neither individual, nor the group can function in

isolation. They are bound in oneness, by norms and values, culture and shared behaviour. The pattern

that thus comes into existence becomes the social system.

less stable interaction “according to shared cultural norms and meanings” Individuals constitute the basic

interaction units. But the interacting units may be groups or organization of individuals within the system.

The social system, according to Charles P. Loomis, is composed of the patterned interaction of visual

actors whose’ relation to each other are mutually oriented through the definition of the mediation of

pattern of structured and shared symbols and expectations.

All social organizations are, therefore, ‘social system’, since they consist of interacting individuals. In the

social system each of the interacting individual has function or role to perform in terms of the status he

occupies in the system. For example, in the family parents, sons and daughters are required to perform

certain socially recognized functions or roles.

Similarly, social organizations function within the frame work of a normative pattern. Thus, a social system

presupposes a social structure consisting of different parts which are interrelated in such a way as to

perform its functions.

Social system is a comprehensive arrangement. It takes its orbit all the diverse subsystems such as the

economic, political, religious and others and their interrelation too. Social systems are bound by

environment such as geography. And this differentiates one system from another.

What Is an Open System? An open system is a system that regularly exchanges feedback with its

external environment. Open systems are systems, of course, so inputs, processes, outputs, goals,

assessment and evaluation, and learning are all important. Aspects that are critically important to open

systems include the boundaries, external environment and equifinality. Healthy open systems

continuously exchange feedback with their environments, analyze that feedback, adjust internal systems

as needed to achieve the system’s goals, and then transmit necessary information back out to the

environment
Boundaries All systems have boundaries, although the boundaries can be difficult to identify because

systems can be very dynamic. Open systems have porous boundaries through which useful feedback can

readily be exchanged and understood. Closed systems, unlike open systems, have hard boundaries

through which little information is exchanged. Organizations that have closed boundaries often are

unhealthy. Examples include bureaucracies, monopolies and stagnating systems.

External Environment The external environment includes a wide variety of needs and influences that can

affect the organization, but which the organization cannot directly control. Influences can be political,

economic, ecological, societal and technological in nature. A highly effective organization is regularly

exchanging feedback with its external environment – it is an open system. Healthy organizations regularly

try to understand their environments through use of environmental scanning, market research and

evaluations. These organizations often try to influence their external environment, as well, for example,

through use of public relations, advertising and promotions, lobbying and advocacy, and educating

industry and local leaders.

In many small businesses, there are two types of systems within these organizations, closed systems and

open systems. An open system interacts with its environment through giving and receiving information. In

a closed system, interactions only happen within the specific system, which means closed systems are

shut off from the outside environment, and every interaction is transmitted inside that closed system.

Workers in closed systems within an organization don’t communicate with other departments about their

activities, nor do they receive input from other departments. Closed systems have the advantage of being

efficient because there are clear procedures that are not affected by outside influences. The best way to

understand closed systems is to see how they are used in organizations.

Equilibrium and Social Change:

Equilibrium is a state of ‘balance’. It is “a state of just poise”. The term is used to describe the interaction

of units in a system. A state of equilibrium exists, when systems tend towards conditions of minimum
stress and least imbalance. The existence of balance between units facilitates the normal operation of

system. Community evaluates and recognises the importance of equilibrium.

The equilibrium condition, is a “condition of integration and stability”. It is sometimes made possible with

the development of a certain set of productive forces such as pressure groups which brings into being an

appropriate super structure of institutions. Equilibrium can also be of moving sort, which according to

Parsons, is “an orderly process of change of the system”.

The maintenances of equilibrium, according to him resolve two fundamental types of process: “The first of

these are the process of the socialization by which actors acquire the orientations necessary to the

performance of their roles in the social systems, when they have not previously possessed them; the

second type are the process involved in the balance between the generation of motivations to deviate

behaviour and the counter balancing motivations to restoration of the stabilized interactive process which

we have called mechanism of social control”.

A social system implies order among the interacting units of the systems. This order, be it equilibrium or

harmonious relations between individuals, is likely to be disturbed, at times, by social changes,

occasioned by innovations which force new conceptions of roles and norms. The role of a housewife is

affected when she goes for work away from home. This change is bound to influence other social

institutions as well.

Maintaining the orderliness or social system is difficult when social changes are frequent. Herbert

Spencer introduced the cause and effect relationships to explain the changing nature of societies in the

equilibrium/disequilibrium’ analysis.

The structural-functional pattern of institutions which constitute a society would change in accordance

with change it may encounter in its total external environment, and with changes in its internal conditions.

There would be a changing disposition of the parts of a society until some appropriate ‘equilibrium’ is

reached.
Spencer elaborating the theory of equilibrium has indicated its universal applicability. He pointed out that

members of a society are continuously in the process of adapting to its material substance. “Each

society”, he wrote, “displays the process of equilibration in the continuous adjustment of its population to

its means of subsistence.

A tribe of men living on wild animals and fruits is manifestly like every tribe of inferior creatures, always

oscillating from side to side of that average number which the locality can support. Thought by artificial

production unceasingly improved, a superior race continually alters the limit which external conditions put

to population, yet there is ever a checking of population at the temporary limit reached”.

In elaborating his theory of equilibrium, Spencer has referred to several economic aspects, and to the

industrial system, of a society which continuously adjusts itself to the forces of ‘supply and demand’. He

has also discussed political institutions in ‘equilibrium-disequilibrium’ terms. It is applicable to, all societies

equally.

Taking society as a total entity, and its interrelationship with its parts, the changes in them can be

explained by ‘equilibrium- disequilibrium’ adjustments. “Marxian Historical Materialism” remarks Ronald

Fletcher, in The Making of Sociology is in fact an” equilibrium-disequilibrium analysis of the historical

sequences of social order and social changes, and the explanation of this process in terms of material

changes, attendant social conflict, and its resolution.”