Robert Merton

Submitted by:

DHANRAJ SINGH

Batch 2021-26, BA LLB.

PRN: 21010223074

Symbiosis Law School, NOIDA

Symbiosis International (Deemed University), Pune

In

March 2022

Under the Direction of

Dr. Raihana Azmeera Sultana

Professor

Symbiosis Law School NOIDA

 CERTIFICATE

The project on Robert Merton is presented to the Symbiosis Law School, NOIDA for
Contemporary Sociological Studies as part of Internal Continuous this assessment is
based on my own research done under Dr. Raihana Azmeera Sultana's supervision. The
material used in the research that was acquired from other sources has been properly
acknowledged.

I am aware of fact that if plagiarism is detected later, I may be held liable and
accountable.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost, I'd want to express my heartfelt gratitude to Dr. Raihana Azmeera
Sultana for her assistance and role as my project's guiding light. They gave me with
significant knowledge that helped me comprehend all of the fundamentals of this project
and answered any questions I had about it.

I'd also want to express my gratitude to the library department and academic support at
Symbiosis Law School, Noida, for offering me with a variety of research sources and
resources to aid in the creation of an unique study.

I'd also want to express my gratitude to Symbiosis Law School, Noida, for presenting me
with this assignment so that I could understand the fundamentals of Robert Merton and
his sociological theories and contributions quickly, effectively, and entirely with full
detail.
INDEX

Sl. No. Particulars Page. No.

1 Certificate 2
2 Acknowledgement 3
3 Introduction 4
4 Main Body 5
5 Conclusion 5
6 Bibliography 6
Introduction
Merton was a well-known person in the social sciences in the post-World War II period. This
behavior, according to Merton, has an impact on components of society that allow science to
thrive. These influences range from broader community ideals and environment that foster
science to scientific community internal social procedures that control prize distribution. The
actual content of scientific knowledge, such as ideas, notion, plan, is, however, outside of
Mertonian's purview science social anthropology. Other social interests Merton's work includes
the relationship between class structure, deviation, and alienation; racial link and city society;
pile communication; compound civil society organizations otherwise officials; social sciences,
particularly medicine and medical education; and social and work ethic about community science
investigation. He popularized, concept of undesired results, pioneered use regarding cadre, and
devised a slew of advance words and phrases that have been used now become commonplace,
such as "example," "fulfilled prophecy," and "inefficiency." Merton only debated Talcott Parsons
as a social science student among postwar Americans, and Merton comfortably outperformed
Parsons as a novelist.
Main Body
Meyer R. Schkolnick was born on July 4, 1910, in Philadelphia, to Jewish immigrants from
Eastern Europe. During his childhood as a magician, he adopted the stage name Robert K.
Merton when his magic-practicing adviser — and hereafter in-law — notified him that name he
had chosen, Merlin be mispronounced. Took initial title from Harry Houdini's inspiration, Jean-
Eugène Robert-Houdin (Ehrich Weiss). His classmates knew him as Bob Merton when he started
undergraduate studies at Temple University in 1927, and he officially changed his name at the
age of nineteen. Merton worked as a research assistant for sociologist George E. Simpson at the
Temple. Merton was accompanied by Simpson to his first American Sociological Association
convention Pitim Sorokin, who urged him to pursue a career in social work at Harvard
University, was one of the people he met there. Merton earned his doctorate in 1935 and worked
as a priest and teacher for several years. He then went on to teach he spent the next two years
attending Tulane University, wherein he advanced through the ranks to become chair of the
Department of Social Development.
Merton's social work was mostly offered in the form of articles read aloud, rather than book-
length teachings. His PhD book, initially named "Sociological Aspects of Scientific
Development in Seventh-Century England," is also remarkable. In December 1935, he
successfully defended the idea in front of a research group that included sociologists Sorokin,
Parsons, and Carle C. Zimmerman, as well as scientific historian George Sarton. Merton's work
piqued Sarton's interest, and he proposed it for publication in Osiris, a journal that featured
extended lectures and other scientific history articles it was not the case suited to Isis, and which
was edited by Sarton. In 1938, Osiris published a modified "Science, Technology, and Society in
Seventeenth-Century England," a version of Merton's dissertation. It was finally made public.
According to Merton, Puritanism was not the driving force behind scientific advancement; other
ideologies or values can play a similar role. He expanded his concept to include other varieties of
uncontrollable Protestantism, such as German-German Pietism in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries and English Puritans in the seventeenth century. Even in a historical environment when
Puritan values were important, England's economic, scientific, and military demands were
equally important. As a result, the Puritan mentality it wasn't a necessary the situation for the
development about modern science. The reality that science went on to become a state
organization that frequently opposed the orthodox Protestantism of its roots reveals the
intricacies of past and the issue to Merton. Unfortunately, only about 500 copies of Osiris’ scroll
carrying Merton’s book were printed, and due to wartime conditions, even the most recent issue
of this journal, which was published in Belgium in 1938, was unavailable for study. The Merton
Thesis is arguably best known for a generation of sociologists with a relatively brief piece
entitled “Puritanism, Pietism, and Science,” In 1936, it was published in the Sociological
Review.
Ideas and Sociological Thoughts
Merton's fascination with the humanities that allowed science lasted to the end of his life. In a
finding indicated "Science and the Social Order," printed inside the American Sociological
Association around 1937 and reprinted the next year for the journal Philosophy of Science,
Merton examines Nazi political viewpoint and meddling ideology in Germany. Because Merton
points out, advances in science in the 20th century provided him with more flexibility and
autonomy out of other social structures than the sciences he had studied in the seventeenth
century. This kind of autonomy, on the other hand, could only be achieved in free democratic
countries, and it was now being contested in the Third Reich, where Jewish scientists'
contributions were, shockingly, outlawed.
Awards and honors received
As a result, Merton has held a number of important positions, including head of the Bureau of
Applied Social Research at Columbia University, head of Stanford University's Center for
Applied Behavioral Science (1952-1975), as president for the American Sociological
Association (1957). He was honored with numerous awards, such as the American Council of
Educational Organizations Prize for Outstanding Humanitarian Studies (1962), the
Commonwealth Award for Outstanding Service throughout Sociology (1970), the MacArthur
Prize Fellowship (1983), and first What to Do in America Achievement Award in the fields of
sociology and social policy (1984). In 1985, he received an Doctor in Literary Doctorate from
Columbia University.
Conclusion
Merton's greatest widespread and long contribution to social analysis may be classified into three
categories, despite the fact that he studied a wide range of social situations and groups. To begin,
human behavior can be better understood by focusing on social structures (groups, organizations,
social groupings, communities, and nations) that offer opportunities and impediments for their
members at the same time. Second, people are exposed to diverse cues and ambiguities in the
public interest at different levels, and as a result, they develop mixed or ambiguous values that
determine how they respond to others. As a result, sociologists are unable to grasp the path and
diversity of key social institutions by focusing on formal, legal patterns (laws, norms, etc.) or
particular qualities of people. Third, because of the complexity of public experience, typical or
“normal” social behavior often has a variety of effects, some of which are foreseeable and
desired, but others of which are unanticipated and even contradictory to most people’s
objectives. Overall, Merton advocated for rigorous, though intelligent, analysis while warning
against "common sense" examination and any reliance on slavery to measure human
involvement in society.
Merton put together a study of genuine (or significant) community organizations and groups,
concentrating on a single but important and persistent problem in community structures – as such
"middle-class" issues and definitions. Other major subjects were social specialization and
problems related to variety of tasks, communication forms and complexity, and cultural interests.
Merton identified between several types of "regional" and "universal" leadership, illustrating
how these divisions emphasize important power imbalances. Merton also linked different
degrees of social status to different forms of interpersonal impact ("reference organizations"), as
well as the act of changing one's character (mobility) to the collection of new trust groups
("expected socialization") in circumstances. Among them are soldiers, electors, and other non-
conformists. Socialization issues were explored.
Social cohesion, which refers to the process of attaining and sustaining official duties within a
communication organization, was another major problem. Merton interviewed med students,
psychologists, scientists, government officials, as well as other experts for his research. He & his
colleagues are especially interested in the clash between ethical ideals and personal status
concerns, and the "common" mismatch between recognized academic principles and scientists'
and professionals' "job" training facts.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

1) Meyer Robert Schkolnick, Robert K. Merton, Britannica (Mar. 20, 2022, 6:38 PM)
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-K-Merton

2) Ashley Crossman, Robert K. Merton, ThoughtCo. (Mar. 21, 2022, 8:13 PM)
https://www.thoughtco.com/robert-merton-3026497

3) Robert K. Merton, The sociology of science, 605 (1973)

4) Robert K. Merton, On social structure and science, 386 (1996)

5) Robert K. Merton, The Focused Interview, 200 (2008)