Dysfunction

Dysfunction refers to an element, pattern, or process in a social system that disrupts stability, integration, or the achievement of its goals, as opposed to a function, which contributes to the maintenance of the whole. Robert Merton formalized the concept in Social Theory and Social Structure, distinguishing manifest from latent functions and dysfunctions, and arguing that the same practice can be functional for some groups and dysfunctional for others. Talcott Parsons’s structural functionalism emphasized how institutions contribute to social order, and Emile Durkheim treated pathological forms of the division of labor, such as anomie, as dysfunctions that threaten solidarity. Merton also analyzed bureaucratic dysfunction, including ritualism and goal displacement, while Herbert Gans argued in his essay on the positive functions of poverty that even apparently harmful conditions serve certain interests. Critics, including C. Wright Mills and Ralf Dahrendorf, charged that functionalist analysis assumes a consensus about system needs and neglects power and conflict, and that labeling something dysfunctional can serve ideological ends. The concept is also used popularly for family dysfunction and organizational breakdown. Dysfunction remains central to research on social order, deviance, bureaucracy, institutions, and the critique of functionalism.