Role

This article is about the Sociology term. For the Performing Arts term, see Role (performing arts).

Role in functionalist and consensus theory

The functionalist approach, which is largely borrowed from anthropology, sees a "role" as the set of expectations that society places on an individual. By unspoken consensus, certain behaviours are deemed "appropriate" and others "inappropriate". For example, it is appropriate for a doctor to dress fairly conservatively, ask a series of personal questions about one's health, touch one in ways that would normally be forbidden, write prescriptions, and show more concern for the personal wellbeing of his clients than is expected of, say, an electrician or a shopkeeper.

Related Topics:
Approach - Anthropology - Expectation - Society - Individual - Consensus - Behaviour - Doctor - Question - Health - Prescription - Concern - Wellbeing - Client - Electrician - Shopkeeper

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Notice that "role" is what the doctor does (or, at least, is expected to do), while status is what the doctor is. In other words, "status" is the position an actor occupies, while "role" is the expected behaviour attached to that position. Roles are not limited to occupational status, of course, nor does the fact that one is cast in the role of "doctor" during working hours prevent one from taking other on other roles at other times: husband, golf club president, father, and so on.

Related Topics:
Status - Position - Actor - Husband - President - Father

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Roles can be semi-permanent ("doctor", "mother", "child"), or transitory. A well-known example is the sick role as formulated by Talcott Parsons in the late 1940s. A person who is judged to be "sick" is exempted from his usual roles; is not held personally responsible for his incapacity; can only take on the sick role on condition that he wants to eventually get well and return to a "normal" role; and he must co-operate with his officially designated helpers (doctors and others).

Related Topics:
Talcott Parsons - 1940s - Responsible - Incapacity - Helper

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Role conflict is a special form of social conflict that takes place when one is forced to take on two different and incompatible roles at the same time. Consider the example of a doctor who is himself a patient, or who must decide whether he should be present for his daughter's birthday party (in his role as "father") or attend an ailing patient (as "doctor"). (Also compare the psychological concept of cognitive dissonance.)

Related Topics:
Social conflict - Doctor - Patient - Birthday party - Psychological - Cognitive dissonance

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In the functionalist conception, role is one of the important ways in which individual activity is socially regulated: roles create regular patterns of behaviour and thus a measure of predictability, which not only allows individuals to function effectively because they know what to expect of others, but also makes it possible for the sociologist to make generalisations about society. Collectively, a group of interlocking roles creates a social institution: the institution of law, for example, can be seen as the combination of many roles, including "police officer", "judge", "criminal", and "victim".

Related Topics:
Conception - Activity - Pattern - Behaviour - Measure - Predictability - Sociologist - Generalisation - Society - Group - Social institution - Institution - Law - Combination - Police officer - Judge - Criminal - Victim

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Roles, in this conception, are created by society as a whole, are relatively inflexible, are more-or-less universally agreed upon, and individuals simply take their designated roles on and attempt to fulfil them as best they can. Although it is recognised that different roles interact ("teacher" and "student"), and that roles are usually defined in relation to other roles ("doctor" and "patient", or "mother" and "child"), the functionalist approach has great difficulty in accounting for variability and flexibility of roles, and finds it difficult to account for the vast differences in the way that individuals conceive different roles. Taken to extremes, the functionalist approach results in "role" becoming a set of static, semi-global expectations laid down by a unified, amorphous society: as simply prescriptions for correct behaviour. The distinction between "role" and norm and culture thus becomes sterile.

Related Topics:
Doctor - Patient - Mother - Child - Difficulty - Variability - Flexibility - Difference - Expectation - Prescription - Correct behaviour - Distinction - Norm - Culture

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Nevertheless, although the classic functionalist approach to "role" is no longer regarded as an especially useful tool in the modern sociologist's approach to understanding societies, it remains a fundamental concept which is still taught in most introductory courses and is still regarded as important, particularly so when considering relatively homogenous, united societies like the middle-class post-war USA that gave birth to it.

Related Topics:
Functionalist - Tool - Course - USA

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More broadly, "role" in this static, defined-by-the-whole-of-society sense, is a concept that has crossed over from academic discourse into popular use. It has become commonplace to speak of particular "roles" as if they were indeed fixed, agreed on by all, and uncontroversial: "the role of the teacher" or "a parent's role", for example. Notice that this everyday usage nearly always employs "role" in a normative way, to imply that "this is the proper behaviour" for a teacher or a parent, or even for an entire institution such as the government.

Related Topics:
Sense - Concept - Academic discourse - Commonplace - Institution - Government

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