It is believed that the concept of a social role in sociology was first introduced by R. Linton, although F. Nietzsche already uses this word in a sociological sense: “Care for maintaining existence imposes on most male Europeans a strictly defined role, as they say, a career.” From the point of view of sociology, any organization of a society or group presupposes the presence of a set of differing roles. In particular, P. Berger believes that "society is a network of social roles."

Social role - it is a system of expected behavior, which is determined by normative duties and the rights corresponding to these duties.

For example, an educational institution as a type of social organization requires the presence of a director, teachers and students. Weight is social roles associated with a specific set of duties and rights. So, the teacher is obliged to follow the director's orders, not to be late for his lessons, to conscientiously prepare for them, to orient students towards socially approved behavior, to be quite demanding and fair, he is forbidden to resort to physical punishment of students, etc. At the same time, he has the right to certain signs of respect associated with his role as a teacher: students must stand up when he appears, call him by his first name and patronymic, unquestioningly follow his orders related to the educational process, observe silence in the classroom when he speaks, and etc. Nevertheless, the fulfillment of a social role allows some freedom for the manifestation of individual qualities: the teacher can be harsh and soft, keep a strict distance from students and behave with them like an older comrade. A student can be diligent or negligent, obedient or daring. All these are acceptable individual shades of social roles.

The normative requirements associated with a social role, as a rule, are more or less known to the participants in role interaction, therefore they give rise to certain role expectations: all participants expect behavior from each other that fits into the context of these social roles. Thanks to this, the social behavior of people becomes largely predictable.

However, role requirements allow some freedom and the behavior of a group member is not determined mechanically by the role performed by him. Thus, cases are known from literature and life when, at a critical moment, a person takes on the role of a leader and saves the situation from whom, in his usual role in a group, no one expected this. E. Hoffman argues that an individual who performs a social role is aware of the existence of a distance between himself and his role. emphasized the variability of normative requirements associated with a social role. R. Merton noted their "dual character". For example, a research scientist is required to adhere to the provisions and methods established by science and at the same time to create and justify new ideas, sometimes to the detriment of the accepted ones; a good surgeon is not only one who performs conventional operations well, but also one who can take a risky unconventional decision, saving the patient's life. Thus, a certain amount of initiative is an integral part of the fulfillment of a social role.

An individual always simultaneously performs not one social role, but several, sometimes even many. The position of a person who performs only one role is always pathological and suggests that he lives in conditions of complete isolation from society (is a patient in a psychiatric clinic or a prisoner). Even in a family, a person plays not one, but several roles - he is a son, and a brother, and a husband, and a father. In addition, he performs a number of other roles in others: he is the boss for his subordinates, and the subordinate for his boss, and the doctor for his patients, and the teacher for his students at the medical institute, and the friend of his friend, and the neighbor of the inhabitants of his house, and a member of some political party, etc.

Role normative requirements are an element of the system of social norms adopted by a given society. Nevertheless, they are specific and valid only in relation to those who occupy a certain social position. Many role requirements are absurd outside of a specific role situation. For example, a woman who comes to see a doctor undresses at his request, fulfilling her role as a patient. But if a passer-by on the street turns to her with a similar demand, she will rush to run or call for help.

The relationship between special role norms and universally valid norms is very complex. Many role prescriptions are not related to them at all, and some role norms are of an exceptional nature, placing the people who perform them in a special position when general norms do not apply to them. For example, a doctor is required to keep medical secrecy, and a priest - the secret of confession, so they are not legally required to disclose this information when testifying in court. The discrepancy between general and role norms can be so great that the bearer of the role is almost exposed to public contempt, although his position is necessary and recognized by society (executioner, secret police agent).

Ideas about social role

It is believed that the concept of “social role” was introduced into sociology in the first half of the 19th century. American scientist R. Linton. The German philosopher F. Nietzsche uses this word quite in the sociological sense: “Care for the maintenance of existence imposes on the majority of male Europeans a strictly defined role, as they say, a career.”

From the point of view of sociology, any organization of a society or group presupposes the existence of a set of roles that differ from each other. In particular, the American sociologist P. Berger believes that modern society is a "network of social roles."

social role is a system of expected behavior, which is determined by normative duties and the rights corresponding to these duties. For example, an educational institution as a type of social organization requires the presence of a director, teachers and students. These social roles carry a specific set of duties and rights. The teacher is obliged to follow the director's orders, not to be late for his lessons, to prepare for them conscientiously, to orient students towards socially approved behavior, to be demanding and fair, he is forbidden to resort to physical punishment of students, etc. At the same time, he has the right to certain signs of respect associated with his role as a teacher: students must stand up when he appears, call him by his first name and patronymic, follow his orders related to the educational process, keep silence in the classroom when he speaks, etc. .P.

Nevertheless, the fulfillment of a social role allows some freedom for the manifestation of individual qualities: the teacher can be harsh or soft, keep a distance from students or behave with them like an older comrade. A student can be diligent or negligent, obedient or daring. All these are acceptable individual shades of social roles. Consequently, the behavior of an individual in a group is not determined mechanically by the social role he performs. So, from literature and life, there are cases when, at critical moments, people took on the role of leader and saved the situation from whom, due to their usual roles in the group, no one expected this.

The American sociologist R. Merton was the first to draw attention to the fact that everyone has not one social role, but several, and this provision became the basis role theory.

Thus, individuals as carriers of certain social statuses, entering into social relations, always simultaneously perform several social roles due to one or another social status. The position of a person who performs only one role is always pathological and suggests that he lives in isolation from society. Usually a person in society performs several roles. For example, the social status of a man allows him to have many social roles: in the family, he can be husband and father or son and brother; at work - a boss or a subordinate, and at the same time a boss for some and a subordinate for others; in professional activities, he can be a doctor and at the same time a patient of another doctor; a member of a political party and a neighbor of a member of another political party, etc.

In modern sociology, the set of roles corresponding to a certain social status is called role set. For example, the status of a teacher of a particular educational institution has its own distinctive set of roles that connects it with the holders of correlative statuses - other teachers, students, director, laboratory assistants, officials of the Ministry of Education, members of professional associations, i.e. with those who are somehow related to the professional activities of the teacher. In this regard, in sociology, the concepts of "role set" and "multiple roles" are distinguished. The latter concept refers to the various social statuses (a set of statuses) that an individual has. The concept of "role set" denotes only those roles that act as dynamic aspects of only a given social status.

behavior expected from someone who has a certain social status. It is limited by the totality of rights and obligations corresponding to this status.

Great Definition

Incomplete definition ↓

ROLE SOCIAL

a set of requirements imposed by the society on persons occupying certain social. positions. These requirements (prescriptions, wishes and expectations of appropriate behavior) are embodied in specific social. norms. The system of social sanctions of a positive and negative nature is aimed at ensuring the proper execution of requirements related to R.s. Arising in connection with a specific social. position given in society. structure, R.s. at the same time - a specific (normatively approved) way of behavior, obligatory for individuals performing the corresponding R.s. R.s performed by an individual become a decisive characteristic of his personality, without losing, however, their social-derived and, in this sense, objectively inevitable character. In the aggregate, R.s performed by people personify the dominant societies. relations. Social in their genesis, the requirements of the role become a structural element of the human personality in the course of the socialization of individuals and as a result of the internalization (deep internal assimilation) of the norms that characterize R.s. To internalize a role means to give it its own, individual (personal) definition, evaluate and develop a certain attitude towards social. position that forms the corresponding R.s. In the course of the internalization of the role, socially developed norms are evaluated through the prism of attitudes, beliefs, and principles shared by the individual. Society imposes R.s on an individual, but its acceptance, rejection, or performance always leaves an imprint on a person's real behavior. Depending on the nature of the requirements contained in the normative structure of R.s, the latter are divided into at least three categories: norms of proper (mandatory), desirable and possible behavior. Compliance with the mandatory regulatory requirements of R.s is ensured by the most serious negative sanctions, most often embodied in laws or other legal regulations. character. The norms of roles that embody the desired (from the point of view of about-va) behavior are most often provided with negative sanctions of an extra-legal nature (non-compliance with the charter of a public organization entails exclusion from it, etc.). In contrast, role standards, which formulate possible behavior, are provided primarily with positive sanctions (voluntary performance of the duties of those who need help entails an increase in prestige, approval, etc.). In the normative structure of the role, four constructive elements can be distinguished - description (of the type of behavior that is required from a person in this role); prescription (requirement in connection with such behavior); assessment (cases of fulfillment or non-fulfillment of the requirements of the role); sanction (favorable or unfavorable social consequences of actions within the framework of the requirements of R.c). See also: Role theory of personality, Theory of roles. Lit.: Yakovlev A.M. Sociology of economic crime. M., 1988; Solovyov E.Yu. Personality and law//The past interprets us. Essays on the history of philosophy and culture. M, 1991. S, 403-431; Smelzer N. Sociology M., 1994. A.M. Yakovlev.

Great Definition

Incomplete definition ↓

social role - sample behavior of a person that society recognizes as appropriate for the holder of this status.

Social role- this is a set of actions that a person occupying this status must perform. A person must fulfill certain material values ​​in social system.

This is a model of human behavior, objectively set by the social position of the individual in the system of social, public and personal relations. In other words, a social role is "the behavior that is expected of a person occupying a certain status". Modern society requires the individual to constantly change the model of behavior to perform specific roles. In this regard, such neo-Marxists and neo-Freudians as T. Adorno, K. Horney and others made a paradoxical conclusion in their works: the “normal” personality of modern society is a neurotic. Moreover, in modern society, role conflicts that arise in situations where an individual is required to simultaneously perform several roles with conflicting requirements are widespread.

Irving Hoffman, in his studies of interaction rituals, accepting and developing the basic theatrical metaphor, paid attention not so much to role instructions and passive adherence to them, but to the processes of active construction and maintenance of the “appearance” in the course of communication, to zones of uncertainty and ambiguity in interaction , mistakes in the behavior of partners.

The concept of " social role” was proposed independently by American sociologists R. Linton and J. Mead in the 1930s, and the first interpreted the concept of “social role” as a unit of social structure, described in the form of a system of norms given to a person, the second - in terms of direct interaction between people , "role-playing game", during which, due to the fact that a person imagines himself in the role of another, social norms are assimilated and the social is formed in the individual. Linton's definition of a social role as a "dynamic aspect of status" was entrenched in structural functionalism and was developed by T. Parsons, A. Radcliffe-Brown, R. Merton. Mead's ideas were developed in interactionist sociology and psychology. With all the differences, both of these approaches are united by the idea of ​​a social role as a key point at which the individual and society merge, individual behavior turns into social, and the individual properties and inclinations of people are compared with the normative settings that exist in society, depending on which people are selected. to certain social roles. Of course, in reality, role expectations are never unambiguous. In addition, a person often finds himself in a situation of role conflict, when his different social roles are poorly compatible.

Types of social roles in society

The types of social roles are determined by the variety of social groups, activities and relationships in which the individual is included. Depending on social relations, social and interpersonal social roles are distinguished.

• Social roles associated with social status, profession or type of activity (teacher, pupil, student, seller). These are standardized impersonal roles based on rights and obligations, regardless of who fills these roles. Allocate socio-demographic roles: husband, wife, daughter, son, grandson ... A man and a woman are also social roles that involve specific ways of behavior, enshrined in social norms and customs.
• Interpersonal Roles associated with interpersonal relationships that are regulated at an emotional level (leader, offended, neglected, family idol, loved one, etc.).

In life, in interpersonal relations, each person acts in some kind of dominant social role, a kind of social role as the most typical individual image familiar to others. It is extremely difficult to change the habitual image both for the person himself and for the perception of the people around him. The longer the group exists, the more familiar the dominant social roles of each member of the group become for others and the more difficult it is to change the stereotype of behavior familiar to others.

Characteristics of social roles

The main characteristics of the social role are highlighted by the American sociologist Talcott Parsons. He proposed the following four characteristics of any role:

• Scale. Some roles may be strictly limited, while others may be blurred.
• By way of getting. Roles are divided into prescribed and conquered (they are also called achieved).
• According to the degree of formalization. Activities can proceed both within strictly established limits, and arbitrarily.
• By type of motivation. The motivation can be personal profit, public good, etc.

Role scale depends on the range of interpersonal relationships. The larger the range, the larger the scale. So, for example, the social roles of spouses have a very large scale, since a wide range of relationships is established between husband and wife. On the one hand, these are interpersonal relationships based on a variety of feelings and emotions; on the other hand, relations are regulated by normative acts and in a certain sense are formal. The participants in this social interaction are interested in the most diverse aspects of each other's lives, their relationships are practically unlimited. In other cases, when the relationship is strictly defined by social roles (for example, the relationship of the seller and the buyer), the interaction can be carried out only on a specific occasion (in this case, purchases). Here the scope of the role is reduced to a narrow range of specific issues and is small.

How to get a role depends on how inevitable the given role is for the person. So, the roles of a young man, an old man, a man, a woman are automatically determined by the age and sex of a person and do not require much effort to acquire them. There can only be a problem of matching one's role, which already exists as a given. Other roles are achieved or even won in the course of a person's life and as a result of purposeful special efforts. For example, the role of a student, researcher, professor, etc. These are almost all roles associated with the profession and any achievements of a person.

Formalization as a descriptive characteristic of a social role is determined by the specifics of interpersonal relations of the bearer of this role. Some roles involve the establishment of only formal relations between people with strict regulation of the rules of conduct; others, on the contrary, are only informal; still others may combine both formal and informal relationships. Obviously, the relationship of a traffic police representative with a violator of traffic rules should be determined by formal rules, and relationships between close people should be determined by feelings. Formal relationships are often accompanied by informal ones, in which emotionality is manifested, because a person, perceiving and evaluating another, shows sympathy or antipathy towards him. This happens when people interact for a while and the relationship becomes relatively stable.

The social status of a person- this is the social position that he occupies in the structure of society. Simply put, it is the place that an individual occupies among other individuals. For the first time this concept was used by the English lawyer Henry Maine in the middle of the 19th century.

Each person simultaneously has several social statuses in different social groups. Consider the main types of social status and examples:

1. born status. Invariable, as a rule, the status received at birth: gender, race, nationality, belonging to a class or estate.
2. acquired status. What a person achieves in the course of his life with the help of knowledge, skills and abilities: profession, position, title.
3. prescribed status. The status that a person acquires due to factors beyond his control; for example - age (an elderly man can do nothing with the fact that he is elderly). This status during life changes and passes into another.

Social status gives a person certain rights and obligations. For example, having reached the status of a father, a person receives the obligation to take care of his child.

The totality of all the statuses of a person that he possesses at the moment is called status set.

There are situations when a person in one social group occupies a high status, and in another - a low one. For example, on the football field you are Cristiano Ronaldo, and at the desk you are a loser. Or there are situations when the rights and obligations of one status interfere with the fulfillment of the rights and obligations of another. For example, the President of Ukraine, who is engaged in commercial activities, which he does not have the right to do under the constitution. Both of these cases are examples of status incompatibilities (or status mismatches).

The concept of social role.

social role is a set of actions that a person is obliged to perform according to the achieved social status. More specifically, it is a pattern of behavior that results from the status associated with that role. Social status is a static concept, while social role is dynamic; as in linguistics: the status is the subject, and the role is the predicate. For example, the best player in the world in 2014 is expected to perform well. An excellent game is a role.

Types of social role.

generally accepted system of social roles developed by the American sociologist Talcott Parsons. He divided the types of roles according to four main characteristics:

By the scale of the role (that is, by the range of possible actions):

• wide (the roles of husband and wife imply a huge number of actions and diverse behavior);
• narrow (the roles of the seller and the buyer: gave money, received goods and change, said “thank you”, a couple more possible actions and, in fact, that’s all).

How to get a role:

• prescribed (roles of a man and a woman, a young man, an old man, a child, etc.);
• achieved (the role of a schoolchild, student, worker, employee, husband or wife, father or mother, etc.).

By the level of formalization (formality):

• formal (based on legal or administrative norms: police officer, civil servant, official);
• informal (arising spontaneously: the role of a friend, "the soul of the company", a merry fellow).

By motivation (according to the needs and interests of the individual):

• economic (the role of the entrepreneur);
• political (mayor, minister);
• personal (husband, wife, friend);
• spiritual (mentor, educator);
• religious (preacher);

In the structure of a social role, an important point is the expectation by others of a certain behavior from a person according to his status. In case of non-fulfillment or one's role, various sanctions are provided (depending on a specific social group) up to the deprivation of a person of his social status.

Thus the concepts social status and role are inextricably linked, since one follows from the other.

A social role is a social function of an individual, a way of behaving people in accordance with accepted standards, depending on their status or position in society, in the system of interpersonal relations.

A social role is a method, algorithm, pattern of activity and behavior of an individual, voluntarily or forcibly accepted by it in the implementation of certain social functions, approved and prescribed by society or a social group. A social role is a model of a person's behavior determined by his status.

There is a point of view that a social role is a set of social norms that society or a group induces or forces an individual to master. Usually, a social role is defined as a dynamic aspect of status, as a list of real functions assigned by a group to its member as a set of expected behavioral stereotypes associated with the performance of a particular job.

The American social psychologist T. Shibutani introduces the concept of a conventional role. He tries to distinguish between social and conventional roles, but this cannot be done strictly and clearly enough.

A conventional role, according to T. Shibutani, is an idea of ​​a prescribed pattern of behavior that is expected and required from a subject in a given situation, if the position taken by him in a joint action is known. It seems that its conventional role, with very minor errors, can be considered a synonym for the social role. It is very important that, in the understanding of T. Shibutani, roles are defined as a template, an algorithm of mutual rights and obligations, and not just as a behavioral standard. Duty, he notes, is what the subject feels compelled to do, based on the role he plays, and other people expect and require him to do in a certain way. However, it is impossible to completely separate the pattern from behavior: it is behavior that ultimately acts as a measure of whether the conventional role is adequately or inadequately realized.

Another American psychologist, T. Parsons, defines a role as a structurally organized, normatively regulated participation of a person in a specific process of social interaction with certain specific role partners. He believed that any role can be described by the following five main characteristics: emotionality; different roles require different degrees of manifestation of emotionality; way of obtaining: some roles are prescribed, others are won; structured: some of the roles are formed and strictly limited, the other is blurred; formalization: part of the roles is implemented in strictly established patterns, algorithms set from the outside or by the subject himself, the other is implemented spontaneously, creatively; motivation: a system of personal needs that are satisfied by the very fact of performing roles.

Social roles are distinguished by their significance. The role is objectively set by a social position, regardless of the individual characteristics of the person occupying this position. The performance of a social role must comply with accepted social norms and expectations (expectation) of others.

There is practically no complete coincidence between role expectation and role performance. The quality of the performance of the role depends on many conditions, especially the correspondence of the role to the interests and needs of the individual. An individual who does not live up to expectations enters into a conflict with society and incurs social and group sanctions.

Since each person plays several roles, role conflict is possible: parents and peers, for example, expect different behavior from a teenager, and he, playing the roles of a son and a friend, cannot simultaneously meet their expectations. Role conflict is the experience by the subject of the ambiguity or inconsistency of role requirements on the part of different social communities of which he is a member.

The following conflicts are possible:

Intrapersonal: caused by conflicting requirements for the behavior of the individual in different social roles, and even more so - the water social role;

Intra-role: arises as a result of contradictions in the requirements for the performance of a social role by different participants in the interaction;

Personal-role: arises due to a mismatch between a person's ideas about himself and his role functions;

Innovative: appears as a result of a discrepancy between previously formed value orientations and the requirements of a new social situation.

Each person has a certain idea of ​​​​how he will perform this or that role. Different roles are important to the individual in different ways.

The role structure of the personality can be integrated or disintegrated, depending on the harmony or conflict of social relations.

The internal structure of the personality (picture of the world, desires, attitudes) may be conducive to one social role and not contribute to the choice of other social roles. Role expectations are also not random situational factors, they follow from the requirements of the social, including corporate, system.

Depending on the norms and expectations attributed to a particular social role, the latter can be:

Represented roles (the system of expectations of the individual and certain groups);

Subjective roles (expectations that a person associates with his status, i.e. his subjective ideas about how he should act in relation to persons with other statuses);

Played roles (the observed behavior of a person with a given status in relation to another person with a different status).

There is a normative structure for the performance of a social role, which consists of:

Descriptions of behavior (characteristic of this role);

Prescriptions (requirements for this introduction);

Evaluation of the performance of the prescribed role;

Sanctions for violation of prescribed requirements.

Since personality is a complex social system, we can say that it is a combination of social roles and its individual characteristics,

People identify with their social role in different ways. Some merge with it as much as possible and behave in accordance with its instructions everywhere and everywhere, even where it is absolutely not required. It happens that different social roles inherent in the same subject have a different rank, different personal significance, relevance. In other words, the subject does not identify himself equally with all his roles: with some, personally significant, - more, with others - less. There is such a strong distancing from the role that we can talk about its movement from the actual part of the sphere of consciousness to the periphery, or even about its displacement from the sphere of consciousness completely.

The experience of practicing psychologists suggests that if an objectively relevant social role is not recognized as such by the subject, then within the framework of this role, he manifests internal and external conflicts.

Various roles are mastered in the process of socialization. As an example, here is the role repertoire of a small group:

Leader: a member of the group, for whom the rest recognize the right to make responsible decisions in situations that are significant for it, decisions that affect the interests of group members and determine the direction and nature of the activities and behavior of the entire group (more on this in the topic “Leadership as a socio-psychological phenomenon”) ;

Expert: a group member who has special knowledge, abilities, skills that the group requires or which the group simply respects;

Passive and adaptable members: they tend to maintain their anonymity;

- "extreme" member of the group: lagging behind everyone due to personal limitations or fears;

Opponent: an oppositionist who actively opposes the leader;

Martyr: crying out for help and refusing it;

Moralist: member of the group who is always right;

Interceptor: a party member who seizes the initiative from the leader;

Favorite: a member of the group, awakening tender feelings and constantly in need of protection;

Aggressor;

Jester;

provocateur;

Defender;

whiner;

Rescuer;

Pedant;

Victim, etc.

The group is always striving to expand the repertoire of roles. The individual performance of a role by a person has a personal coloring, which depends on his knowledge and ability to be in this role, on its significance for him, on the desire to more or less meet the expectations of others (for example, it is easy to become a father, it is difficult to be a father).