The Pattern Variables: Some Empirical Operations

A delineation is made of the steps taken to measure two of Talcott Parsons' pattern variables by means of questionnaire items administered to cross section populations. The pattern variables thus operationalized are those designated by Parsons as characterizing the actor's motivations: Diffuseness-Specificity and Affectivity-Affective Neutrality. The population from which the data are drawn is a panel of middle-aged and elderly respondents, participants in a social-psychological study of aging and representative by sex and socio-economic class of a large midwestern metropolitan area. Three instruments are described, designed to measure orientations to interaction as objectively perceived, subjectively perceived, and subjectively approved, or valued. Hypotheses are presented and preliminarily tested with respect to relationships between orientations to interaction and age, and between "reality-goal discrepancies" and morale. It is concluded that (1) these pattern variables can be efficiently and reliably measured by means of survey-type questionnaire items; and (2) the hypothesized relationships with age and morale probably exist.