Manifest and Latent Functions and Dysfunctions

Manifest And Latent Functions And Dysfunctions

Manifest and latent functions are social scientific concepts first clarified for sociology by Robert K. Merton. Merton appeared interested in sharpening the conceptual tools to be employed in a functional analysis.

Manifest functions and dysfunctions are conscious and deliberate, the latent ones the unconscious and unintended. While functions are intended (manifest) or unintended (latent), and have a positive effect on society, dysfunctions are unintended or unrecognized (latent) and have a negative effect on society.

Read more about Manifest And Latent Functions And Dysfunctions:  Functions, Dysfunctions, Medical Science Model, Quotes

Famous quotes containing the words manifest, latent and/or functions:

    Is it not manifest that our academic institutions should have a wider scope; that they should not be timid and keep the ruts of the last generation, but that wise men thinking for themselves and heartily seeking the good of mankind, and counting the cost of innovation, should dare to arouse the young to a just and heroic life; that the moral nature should be addressed in the school-room, and children should be treated as the high-born candidates of truth and virtue?
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    In history an additional result is commonly produced by human actions beyond that which they aim at and obtain—that which they immediately recognize and desire. They gratify their own interest; but something further is thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though not present to their consciousness, and not included in their design.
    Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)

    Mark the babe
    Not long accustomed to this breathing world;
    One that hath barely learned to shape a smile,
    Though yet irrational of soul, to grasp
    With tiny finger—to let fall a tear;
    And, as the heavy cloud of sleep dissolves,
    To stretch his limbs, bemocking, as might seem,
    The outward functions of intelligent man.
    William Wordsworth (1770–1850)