He did so by arguing that the motivated actor selects from among institutionalized patterns of choice. In effect he acknowledged that the human condition does not revolve on a changeless normative axis. Everywhere, human beings confront conditions of ambivalence where the rules are often in conflict. Fourth, early organists often conceived of society as a self-correcting system, evolving toward perfection. Merton, while not abandoning the emphasis on adaptation, considered this a myth.
Societies contain incongruities and contradictions, ambiguities and confusion.
In his revision of functionalism, Merton sought to make its logic fit the old nemesis of change. Fifth, Merton s multifaceted conception of function introduced a sociological form of trade-off or net balance. Some of his more important conceptions include the reference group and the self-fulfilling prophecy. By means of the former, he accounted for the relationship between group orientation and self-appraisal. Through the later, he demonstrated that a widely publicized and believed social prediction may contribute to the very behavior that confirms the prophecy.