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Robert King Merton (born Meyer Robert Schkolnick; July 4, 1910 – February 23, 2003) was an American sociologist who is considered a founding father of modern sociology, and a major contributor to the subfield of criminology. He served as the 47th president of the American Sociological Association. [1]
Strain theory is a sociological and criminological theory developed in 1939 by Robert K. Merton. [1] The theory states that society puts pressure on individuals to achieve socially accepted goals (such as the American Dream), even though they lack the means to do so. This leads to strain, which may lead individuals to commit crimes, like ...
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.
The phrase "self-fulfilling prophecy" was coined by Robert K. Merton, a sociologist who also developed the ideas of anomie, social structure, and the modes of individual adaption. [8] In his book Social Theory and Social Structure, he uses the example of a bank run to show how self-fulfilling thoughts can make unwanted situations happen. In his ...
In 1998 the International Sociological Association listed this work as the third most important sociological book of the 20th century. [ 2 ] The book introduced many important concepts in sociology, like: manifest and latent functions and dysfunctions , obliteration by incorporation , reference groups , self-fulfilling prophecy , middle-range ...
Middle-range theory has also been applied to the archaeological realm by Lewis R. Binford, and to financial theory by Robert C. Merton, [8] Robert K. Merton's son. In the recent decades, the analytical sociology programme has emerged as an attempt synthesizing middle-range theories into a more coherent abstract framework (as Merton had hoped ...
Sociologist Robert K. Merton popularised this concept in the twentieth century. [1] [24] [25] [26] In "The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action" (1936), Merton tried to apply a systematic analysis to the problem of unintended consequences of deliberate acts intended to cause social change.
Merton, through his critique of functional unity, introduced into functionalism an explicit analysis of tension and conflict. Yet Merton's functionalist explanations of social phenomena continued to rest on the idea that society is primarily co-operative rather than conflicted, which differentiates Merton from conflict theorists.