Robert K. Merton

Robert K. Merton was an American sociologist at Columbia University who reshaped structural functionalism into a more empirically workable form and coined a number of concepts that entered everyday language, including self-fulfilling prophecy and role model. He distinguished between the manifest and latent functions of social practices, showing that institutions can serve purposes their participants neither intend nor recognize, and his strain theory explained deviance as a consequence of the mismatch between culturally prescribed goals and the socially structured means available to achieve them. Merton was also an influential figure in the sociology of science and in developing middle-range theory as an alternative to grand, all-encompassing theoretical systems.