There are some purposes in an institution, the aim is to maintain it’s social and allow it to continue. InstitutionĪccording to Malinowski, culture fulfiled the above-mentioned needs through the Institution. This need is used to tie human beings in a thread or to connect humans to humans.įor example- Tradition, values, religion, art, language, symbol etc. The function of power – Political organization Without secondary need, human’s work can go on but if it is there then human’s work will be done well.Ĭultural tool – production, distribution, consumption, trade

Basic need/ Primary need/ Biological need.

There are three types of human needs- Image source- Examrace Malinowski said in his theory that culture is a means of fulfiling human needs.

The function is the contribution of Partial activity to the total activity of which it is a part (Radcliffe Brown).

Each element of culture may have different functions, but they are related to each other.

Institutions are established norms or patterns of behaviour (Radcliffe Brown).

This function is nothing but fulfilment of human needs.

Elements or institutions of culture perform some function.Culture fulfils the characteristics of human beings through cultural institutions.Culture is a means of satisfying human needs.His book- “A Scientific theory of culture and other essays” was published posthumously where he propounded Functional theory or Need theory. He conducted research in the Trobriand Islands (on the east coast of New Guinea) and published his work in the book- “Argonauts of the Western Pacific” (1922). He was known as the father of social anthropology, ethnography, participant observation. Social structure is the arrangement of persons or groups of persons. Social structure is the web of social network in which people of a definite community lives in a definite time. Image source- ThoughtCoīrown focused on social structure, not on biological needs. Social institutions are marriage, family, kinship etc. He has a view that every individual has physiological needs which he or she fulfil through social institutions. Malinowski believed in biological aspects. Both have different views due to which Malinowski is known as Functionalist while Brown is known as Structural-Functionalist. The functionalism approach is mainly given by B. It explains the functions of various social institutions found in different cultures. This theory explains the functions of different aspects of culture. The concept of Functionalism came after the theory of evolution and diffusion. Here we are going to discuss the theory of Functionalism. There are three important anthropological thoughts- Functionalism, Structural- Functionalism and Structuralism.

Structure functionalism theory