Behavior Systems as a Field for Research

LARGE part of the research basic to current sociological theory has been carried on during the last half-century. To be sure, throughout the ages valuable studies have been made occasionally, but never before has there been consistent and continued investigation oriented toward the discovery of the compendent principles of a science of society and culture. Research in sociology, since the World War, has been focused, in the main, on the following fields: (i) social institutions, such as the family and religion; (2) community study and human ecology; (3) social psychology; (4) the processes of culture change; and finally, (5) analysis of the pathological aspects of culture and society. Very few of these investigations have been centered on the many vocations in western civilization. This is an important omission for, as Park has observed, occupation becomes, or tends to become, the basis for a new society.' The thesis presented here is that the sociologist and anthropologist should include within the focus of their attention the behavior systems of definable functional groups. This approach entails as a point of departure the definition and characterization of behavior systems. Persons in more or less continuous association evolve behavior traits and cultural mechanisms which are unique to the group and differ in some way from those of other groups and from the larger socio-cultural complex. That is, every continuing social group develops a variant culture and a body of social relations peculiar and common to its members. This complex on the overt side may be characterized by discernible behavior of the group members in relation to each other, and to those who do not belong; and on the covert side, by an ethos or ideology which includes mores, codes, and other rules, which take the form of sanctions binding upon the membership in their relations to each other and to the external social world.2 Knowledge, techniques, attitudes, and behavior traits are all integrated into a more or less congruous system within which the participant members orient their lives and acquire status in the community and society. These constitute the criteria by which a specialized group is differentiated from other technical groups, and from the larger, incoherent Great Society. Such a complex constitutes a behavior system. The general characteristics of a specific behavior system include the following: (i) a group of specialists recognized by society, as well as by them-