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Manifest functions are the consequences that people see, observe or even expect. It is explicitly stated and understood by the participants in the relevant action. The manifest function of a rain dance, according to Merton in his 1957 Social Theory and Social Structure, is to produce rain, and this outcome is intended and desired by people participating in the ritual.
His example from his 1949 piece, "Manifest and Latent Functions", was an analysis of political machines. Manifest and latent functions were devised to prelude the inadvertent confusion between conscious motivations for social behavior and its objective consequences. [ 27 ]
The manifest function of education includes preparing for a career by getting good grades, graduation and finding good job. The second type of function is "latent functions", where a social pattern results in an unrecognized or unintended consequence.
James used examples of Walt Whitman and the "mind-cure" religious movement to illustrate healthy-mindedness in The Varieties of Religious Experience. In contrast, individuals predisposed to having a sick-souled religion are unable to ignore evil and suffering and need a unifying experience, religious or otherwise, to reconcile good and evil.
This requires, for example, the religious system to be fairly consistent, and even in a more basic level, a common language. Latency, or latent pattern maintenance, challenges society to maintain the integrative elements of the integration requirement above. This means institutions like family and school, which mediate belief systems and values ...
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Sociological, psychological, and anthropological theories about religion generally attempt to explain the origin and function of religion. [1] These theories define what they present as universal characteristics of religious belief and practice .
Sociology of religion is the study of the beliefs, practices and organizational forms of religion using the tools and methods of the discipline of sociology.This objective investigation may include the use both of quantitative methods (surveys, polls, demographic and census analysis) and of qualitative approaches (such as participant observation, interviewing, and analysis of archival ...