Role  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

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A role (sometimes spelled rôle as in French) or a social role is a set of connected behaviors, rights and obligations as conceptualized by actors in a social situation. It is an expected or free or continously changing behavior and may have a given individual social status or social position. It is vital to both functionalist and interactionist understandings of society. Social role posits the following about social behavior:

1. The division of labor in society takes the form of the interaction among heterogeneous specialized positions, we call roles.
2. Social roles included appropriate and permitted forms of behavior, guided by social norms, which are commonly known and hence determine the expectations for appropriate behavior in these roles.
3. Roles are occupied by individuals, who are called actors.
4. When individuals approve of a social role (i.e., they consider the role legitimate and constructive, they will incur costs to conform to role norms, and will also incur costs to punish those who violate role norms.
5. Changed conditions can render a social role outdated or illegitimate, in which case social pressures are likely to lead to role change.
6. The anticipation of rewards and punishments, as well as the satisfaction of behaving prosocially, account for why agents conform to role requirmeets.

See also

• Gender role
• Social status
• Transactional analysis
• Stereotypes
• Social position
• Conflict theory