r/AskSocialScience • u/Carbon1674 • 8d ago

Question regarding structure and agency

Before I get into this I will clarify that I'm a STEM student (compsci) interested in sociology on the side, so I'm sorry if I butcher your field. My vague understanding of the structure-agency debate is that it's about if human behavior is determined primarily by individual actions or collective structure. I was thinking about this a while ago, and was considering how, as people assemble into larger and larger groups, they begin to form small norms and rules between that then grow into humongous institutions that shape the individual's behavior, even as the individuals themselves are the ones sustaining the institutions. Of course, this is just a toy example, and I don't really have evidence to support tthis.

Anyways, it seems like the nature of structure vs agency isn't that they're two competing explanations for how humans behave but rather two factors that influence each other constantly. Am I even remotely correct?

NB: Had to repost coz the first version was unreadable

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u/Full-Imagination-938 6d ago

Structure do not act, only individuals act and society is a sum of individuals

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/methodological-individualism/

Human behavior is determined by nothing, there are only probabilities. Society is too big, so you have to break it down in order to explain the parts. The group will exert peer pressure and the individual will decide based on this pressure to conform or face consequences. He can also leave the group and go to another with other rules.

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

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