Title

Character and Social Structure

Description

Character structure, in our vocabulary, is the most inclusive term for the individual as a whole entity. It refers to the relatively stabilized integration of the organism’s psychic structure linked with the social roles of the person. … The concept of role, the key term of our definition of the person, is also the key term of our definition of institution. It is, therefore, in our definitional model, the major link of character and social structure. … An institutional order, as we shall use the phrase, consists of all those institutions within a social structure which have similar consequences and ends or which serve similar objective functions. … All those institutions which deal with the recurrent and collective worship of God or deities, for instance, we may call religious institutions; together they make up the religious order. Similarly, we may call those institutions that have to do with power, the political; with violence, the military; with procreation, the kinship; and with goods and services, the economic order. …There are several aspects of social conduct which characterize all institutional orders, the most important being: technology, symbols, status, and education. … We shall arbitrarily call these "spheres," in contradistinction to "orders," because they are, in our view, rarely or never autonomous as to the ends they serve and because any of them may be used within any one of our five orders. … A social structure is composed of institutional orders and spheres. The precise weight which each institutional order and sphere has with reference to every other order and sphere, and the ways in which they are related with one another—these determine the unity and the composition of a social structure. 

Designer

Mills, C. Wright

Gerth, Hans

Date

1953

Source

Character and Social Structure: The Psychology of Social Institutions

Bibliographic Citation

Gerth, Hans and C. Wright Mills. 1953. Character and Social Structure: The Psychology of Social Institutions. Harcourt, Brace, and Company. Pages 22-34.

is composed of

English Hexagon

English Parallel Lines

English Square

English Octagon

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has attribute

English Dash Line

depict things of type

English Structural or Hierarchical

Coverage

sociology