Man is a very complex, multifaceted creature and therefore it is very difficult to create some kind of “complete” description of him, a “complete” model, most likely almost impossible. But at the same time, sometimes it is useful to simply take a certain image, a metaphor and, with its help, try to imagine some part of life. For example, one way to describe our life, our behavior is to introduce the concept of Role. A role is something we play; it seems to have its own purpose, its own direction. On the one hand, this is very convenient: the role has a more or less suitable set of behavior options for many situations. More precisely, a Role is a template by which behavior in a given situation is built. Plus, the Role is not us. And the mistakes made during execution are not our mistakes. It's Role's fault. The problem with the Role is its narrow focus and, very often, lack of flexibility and isolation. Usually, the developments and achievements of one Role are not available to another. One more thing: an ordinary person is used to playing 3-4 roles. A good actor has 7-9 types in his repertoire. But a very big plus of Raleigh is that they are well known. Their sets of rules of behavior and goals are regularly told by friends and acquaintances, discussed in the press and shown on television. A huge number of writers have devoted themselves to describing the most common Roles and their conflicts with each other. (As you understand, some Roles are written down that they absolutely cannot stand some other Roles). So, we can say that a Role is a template.
And I want to immediately note that I personally do not think that the Role is something bad and wrong. This is a very convenient thing, the only question is to learn how to use it with maximum efficiency.
And like any template, it has its advantages and disadvantages. And I am in no way suggesting that we abandon Roles (if such a thing is even possible).
The only question is who controls whom: you are Role or she is you.
Definition of the concept of social role
A social role is a dynamic characteristic of a social position, which is expressed in a set of behavior patterns. Those, in turn, are consistent with social expectations, which are set by special norms addressed from the corresponding group to a person with a certain social position.
We can shorten this definition a little:
Social role is a set of expectations that society places on people when they occupy certain social positions in the hierarchy.
The same person can have different roles. For example, in the family there is a mother or father, and at work there is a boss or a subordinate.
The more roles one person has, the more interesting and rich his life.
The concept of social role can be divided into the following elements:
- behavioral reactions - actions, speech, deeds;
- appearance - a doctor must wear a robe, a policeman must wear a uniform;
- human motivation - members of a social group approve or disapprove of a person’s actions and actions based on his motivation.
Summary
Each of us has our own purpose in life, for which we came into this world, and its fulfillment fills us with great happiness. And in order to find it, you must first find, love and accept yourself.
If you've been pushing yourself into the background your entire life, it's time to change that. In addition to the described practice, there are many ways to do this - psychological work, trainings, courses, constellations, astrology. It doesn't matter what you choose, the main thing is to try and get started.
This is a very interesting process - extracting yourself from yourself. You have a lot of interesting things ahead, I even envy you a little. Good luck!
Vadim Kurkin
Characteristics of a social role
American sociologist Talcott Parsons identified such characteristics of a social role as scale, method of obtaining, formalization and motivation.
The scope of the role depends on the range of interpersonal relationships. That is, the wider the range, the larger the scale.
For example, the social role of the spouse has a large scope, since there is a wide range of relationships between husband and wife. On the one hand, these are interpersonal relationships that are based on a variety of feelings and emotions; on the other hand, relations are regulated by regulations and can even be called formal. Participants in such social interaction are interested in different 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, between a seller and a buyer), interaction occurs only for a specific reason (for example, a purchase). In this case, the scope of the role is reduced to a limited range of issues and is small.
The way a role is acquired depends on how inevitable the role is for the person. Thus, the roles of a young man, an old man, a man, a woman are automatically determined by age and gender and do not require special efforts to acquire them. In this situation, the problem can only be in the context of compliance with one’s role, which already exists as a given.
Other roles are achieved or even won over the course of a person's life and as a result of deliberate efforts. For example, the role of student, graduate student, scientist and other roles related to profession and achievements.
Formalization as a descriptive characteristic of a social role is determined by the specifics of interpersonal relationships. Some roles involve only formal relationships between people with regulation of rules of behavior; others are only informal; still others may combine both formal and informal relationships.
For example, the relationship between a traffic police representative and a traffic rule violator 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.
Motivation depends on the needs and motives of a person. Different roles are driven by different motives. The motivation can be personal profit, public good, etc. When parents care about the welfare of their child, they are guided by a feeling of love and care, and the leader works for the sake of the cause.
Who we are and how we define ourselves
Each of us fills our own lives with a certain content, based on values and worldview.
Some people need a grandiose super task that would make their existence conscious, others stopped asking philosophical questions in their youth, having come to terms with the fact that they are too complex. But everyone seeks and finds the meaning of life: in religion, philosophy, profession or relationships. Many people define themselves through the roles they play in society. When such a person is asked “Who are you?”, he answers: “I am the boss”, “I am the husband”, “I am a single mother”, as if he does not think of himself as anyone or anything else. And it would seem – what’s special? A mother, a wife or a leader are still completely socially acceptable ways of expressing oneself...
But what if tomorrow such a person will not be a boss, or a mother, or a wife? The children will leave, the company will go bankrupt, and the husband will leave for another? What's left?
But all these things are possible, and many are even inevitable. The most common situation is the departure of mature children, when it turns out that all this time the mother and father were only concerned with them, seeing themselves exclusively as parents. It seems to them that their life is ruined, and they begin to accuse their children of ingratitude. And no one is to blame. They themselves upset the balance by making their parenting functions more important than themselves.
Types of social roles
There are several classifications of social roles. Let's look at some of them.
By type of social relations
- Professional roles are associated with a person’s status and his professional activities. Such roles are characterized by depersonalization and independence from the performer (salesman, builder, teacher, driver).
- Socio-political roles - political leader, authoritative person, citizen.
- Family and household roles - husband, wife, daughter, son, father, mother.
- Situational roles - arise within the framework of changing circumstances, during joint activities (passenger, pedestrian, spectator).
By type of social values
- Represented social roles are the expectations of a person and members of his social group.
- Subjective social roles are a person’s ideas about his relationship to other people.
- The social roles played are behavioral attitudes that depend on a person’s position in society.
By type of role received
- Social roles prescribed by a public institution (woman - mother, daughter, wife, grandmother).
- Conventional social roles are the result of the adoption of a social agreement on a voluntary basis (professional).
Variety of statuses
There is a wide range of statuses: prescribed, achieved, mixed, personal, professional, economic, political, demographic, religious and consanguineous, which belong to the variety of basic statuses.
In addition to them, there are a huge number of episodic, non-main statuses. These are the statuses of a pedestrian, passer-by, patient, witness, participant in a demonstration, strike or crowd, reader, listener, television viewer, etc. As a rule, these are temporary states. The rights and obligations of holders of such statuses are often not registered in any way. They are generally difficult to detect, say, in a passerby. But they exist, although they influence not the main, but the secondary traits of behavior, thinking and feeling. Thus, the status of a professor determines a lot in the life of a given person. What about his temporary status as a passerby or a patient? Of course not.
So, a person has basic (determining his life activity) and non-basic (affecting the details of behavior) statuses. The first are significantly different from the second.
Behind each status - permanent or temporary, basic or non-basic - there is a special social group or social category. Catholics, conservatives, engineers (main statuses) form real groups. For example, patients, pedestrians (non-primary statuses) form nominal groups or statistical categories. As a rule, holders of non-main statuses do not coordinate their behavior with each other in any way and do not interact.
People have many statuses and belong to many social groups, the prestige of which in society is not the same: businessmen are valued higher than plumbers or general workers; men have more social “weight” than women; belonging to a titular ethnic group in a state is not the same as belonging to a national minority, etc.
Over time, public opinion is developed, transmitted, supported, but, as a rule, no documents record a hierarchy of statuses and social groups, where some are valued and respected more than others.
A place in such an invisible hierarchy is called rank , which can be high, medium or low. Hierarchy can exist between groups within the same society (intergroup) and between individuals within the same group (intragroup). And a person’s place in them is also expressed by the term “rank”.
The discrepancy between statuses causes a contradiction in the intergroup and intragroup hierarchy, which arises under two circumstances:
- when an individual occupies a high rank in one group and a low rank in the second;
- when the rights and obligations of one person's status conflict with or interfere with the rights and obligations of another.
A highly paid official (high professional rank) will most likely also have a high family rank as a person who provides material wealth for the family.
But it does not automatically follow from this that he will have high ranks in other groups - among friends, relatives, colleagues. Although statuses do not enter into social relations directly, but only indirectly (through their bearers), they mainly determine the content and nature of social relations.
A person looks at the world and treats other people in accordance with his status. The poor despise the rich, and the rich disdain the poor. Dog owners do not understand people who love cleanliness and order on their lawns. A professional investigator, although unconsciously, divides people into potential criminals, law-abiding and witnesses. A Russian is more likely to show solidarity with a Russian than with a Jew or Tatar, and vice versa.
Political, religious, demographic, economic, professional statuses of a person determine the intensity, duration, direction and content of social relations of people.
Role (French role) is an image embodied by an actor.
A social role is the behavior expected of someone who has a certain social status. Social roles are a set of requirements imposed on an individual by society, as well as actions that a person occupying a given status in the social system must perform. A person can have many roles.
Children's status is usually subordinate to adults, and children are expected to be respectful towards the latter. The status of soldiers is different from that of civilians; The role of soldiers is associated with risk and fulfillment of the oath, which cannot be said about other groups of the population. Women have a different status from men and are therefore expected to behave differently than men.
Each individual can have a large number of statuses, and others have the right to expect him to fulfill roles in accordance with these statuses. In this sense, status and role are two sides of the same phenomenon: if status is a set of rights, privileges and responsibilities, then a role is an action within the framework of this set of rights and responsibilities.
The social role consists of:
- from role expectation (expectation) and
- performance of this role (game).
Cultural norms are learned primarily through role learning.
For example, a person who masters the role of a military man becomes familiar with the customs, moral norms and laws characteristic of the status of this role. Only a few norms are accepted by all members of society; the acceptance of most norms depends on the status of a particular individual. What is acceptable for one status is unacceptable for another. Thus, socialization as the process of learning generally accepted ways and methods of actions and interactions is the most important process of learning role behavior, as a result of which the individual truly becomes a part of society.
Let's look at some definitions of social role:
- fixation of a separate position occupied by one or another individual in the system of social relations;
- function, a normatively approved pattern of behavior expected of everyone occupying a given position;
- a socially necessary type of activity and a way of personal behavior that bears the stamp of public evaluation (approval, condemnation, etc.);
- behavior of an individual in accordance with his social status;
- a generalized way of performing a certain social function, when a person is expected to perform certain actions;
- a stable stereotype of behavior in certain social situations;
- a set of objective and subjective expectations (expectations) derived from the socio-political, economic or any other structure of society;
- social function of the individual, corresponding to the accepted ideas of people depending on their status or position in society, in the system of interpersonal relations;
- the system of expectations existing in society regarding the behavior of an individual occupying a certain position in his interaction with other individuals;
- a system of specific expectations towards himself of an individual occupying a certain position, i.e. how he represents the model of his own behavior in interaction with other individuals;
- open, observable behavior of an individual occupying a certain position;
- an idea of the prescribed pattern of behavior that is expected and required from a person in a given situation;
- prescribed actions characteristic of those who occupy a certain social position;
- a set of norms that determine how a person of a given social status should behave.
Thus, a social role is interpreted as an expectation, activity, behavior, idea, stereotype, social function, and even a set of norms. We consider the social role as a function of the social status of the individual, realized at the level of social consciousness in expectations, norms and sanctions in the social experience of a particular person.
Social role and social status
Social status is a person’s position in society, which corresponds to his age, gender, profession, origin and marital status.
To achieve a certain status, a person must adhere to one or another type of behavior, conform to the role, that is, perform specific actions.
For example, the coach of a basketball team is an authoritative status in a sports society. To lead the team to victory, he needs to train and train athletes. Thus, the social role represents a full range of actions to achieve social position and maintain it in the future.
We conclude: social status is a position, and a role is a pattern of behavior that is associated with status.
Social role theory
The American sociologist Merton was the first to draw attention to the fact that any social status has a whole set of social roles. This discovery formed the basis of his theory.
Currently, in science, such a set is called a role set . It is assumed that the richer it is, the better for the realization of the person himself. If a person has a small number of roles, then in this case we can talk about severe isolation from society.
Balance is the basis of everything
Something similar can happen with any role. But this does not mean that you need to avoid them. Moreover, it’s unlikely that you won’t be able to avoid trying them on yourself at all. Our whole life consists of roles; we constantly enter into relationships with others, performing certain functions. And in fact, the more there are, the more fulfilling the life and the more stable the psychological state.
If, for example, you are a wife, a mother, a successful worker, a member of an embroidery club, and are also into sports, then you have five roles at once, giving you a healthy sense of your own importance and a certain place in life. In addition, a large number of roles provides some guarantee of stability - since it is unlikely that they will all disappear at the same time. After all, a person, having lost support in one area, can at least rely on others.
As with everything, balance is important here. There is nothing wrong with roles if you understand what is happening, realize what you are trying on and why, remember your purpose and live for it, remaining in the center of what is happening. But often the meaning of a person’s life is determined by roles with which he completely merges and no longer thinks of himself in any other way. Dissolving into the image of an exemplary wife or a caring father, we do not know ourselves, we do not know how to be ourselves and with ourselves. And when something changes, disaster occurs. We become defenseless and feel a huge inner emptiness.
And if you enjoy the game, but are able to live without it, then you are the master of the situation. And here we come to what position to act from.
It is important to distinguish yourself from the role, understand and remember your interests, your essence. To do this, you need to study yourself, be interested in yourself.
Concept in psychology
Society is a mechanism that has a complex set of rules and relationships that have developed during its development and represents a certain set of values and attitudes. In this mechanism, everyone is a participant in the existence of a social group. Therefore, specific expectations are imposed on him - how he should behave, in accordance with the ideas of others about correct behavior.
What is a social role? In the first half of the 20th century, this quality was represented as a system of norms established by society. At the same time, it was also designated as a game where the individual learns the relevant laws and becomes part of society. Today we can say that this is an attempt by the individual to combine the individual with what is considered generally accepted.
Thus, this is the expectation of the surrounding reality that a person, as a bearer of a certain status, will adjust his behavior in accordance with it.
How to determine your position
This is quite easy to do. It is enough to try to “fit” yourself into the system of relations with society. Remember that the concept begins where the specific responsibilities are present:
- Children are required to obey their parents, and adults are required to help children.
- A pedestrian should take into account traffic signals and walk on the pedestrian area, and the driver should follow the traffic rules set forth by law.
- The student is required to attend lectures, pass sessions and behave correctly in class.
- A friend is expected to provide support and share hobbies and interests.
Due to the diversity of roles, an individual must constantly change his own behavior model. So, a professor at the university should be strict and all-knowing, and when he comes home and turns into a spouse and father, he shows care and love. These requirements are contradictory and it is often difficult for many to 100% comply with their positions.
Principles of a person’s worldview
As we have already found out, a person’s worldview represents a whole complex of ideas of a given person about the world around him and himself.
Based on this definition, the following principles :
- it includes knowledge that justifies the attitude towards the world and is necessary for self-determination,
- develops not as a result of assimilation of various knowledge and bringing it into the system, but as a result of expanding the area of self-determination of the individual and giving them special value,
- its formation is carried out due to dissatisfaction with one’s interests , thoughts and actions, their instability and banality,
- cannot be formed immediately in finished form;
the creation process is gradual throughout life. Reflection and theoretical thinking are helpful. - is distinguished by its individual and creative character . That is, these are not internalized mass stereotypes.
The role of education in human life
The soul placed in the body is like a diamond in the rough, and it must be polished, otherwise it can never shine, and it is obvious that if intelligence distinguishes us from animals, then education makes this difference even greater and helps us to go further from animals than other.
Daniel Defoe
Education is an important process during which a person gains knowledge, learns to interact, becomes involved in culture and adopts the values of society.
You can learn in different ways. Software training at school or universities will help you gain general knowledge. But you can broaden your horizons and become a truly valuable specialist only through additional self-study.
The role of education in human life: arguments
Important arguments that are worth remembering when things get hard and a crazy thought appears: “Why study at all?”:
- training, especially higher education, helps to build a successful career and achieve professional heights;
- an educated person is confident in himself and his abilities, knows how to set goals, achieve them and solve life problems;
- training forms such personal qualities of a person as self-discipline, good manners, balance, flexibility of views, curiosity, sociability and determination;
- Constant learning is the key to a rich and vibrant life.
One of the trends in the modern world is the idea of continuous learning. This means that a person needs to study throughout his life in order to maintain knowledge at the proper level, learn new things and keep pace with technological progress.
Components
What does a worldview include?
This concept consists of complex elements that include beliefs, values, knowledge, ideals, norms, emotions and feelings.
In general, they can be divided into the following categories:
- Cognitive . Represents generalized knowledge, both everyday and professional. These are ideas about how everything works, how life arose, what a person is like, how society works, etc.
- Value-normative. These are norms, ideals and values. This includes ideas about the meaning of life, goals, good and evil, morality, religion, etc.
- Emotionally-volitional. This category includes beliefs, beliefs, and personal opinion. This implies not only the intellectual base of the individual, but also his emotional state.
- Practical . The category under consideration is understood not only as a set of knowledge, values, beliefs and personal views. It is also a real willingness to behave in a certain way in certain circumstances.
Read about psychological compatibility of temperaments here.
Species and types
The whole complex can be described by just five properties:
- Possible closeness of relationships between people. Between the interaction of teacher and student there arises subordination and communication standards established by the educational organization. But spouses or friends are connected much deeper.
- Acquisition method. There are requirements received due to circumstances beyond the individual’s control: gender, age. But there are those that a person achieves through effort: a position in the service, education.
- The scale of expressed feelings during contact between individuals. In relationships between seller and buyer or between colleagues, it is not customary to show strong emotions. Another thing is a family, where the emotional involvement in the lives of its members is greater.
- Conditions of interaction: presence or absence. A chef in a restaurant must prepare delicious food for customers, and a policeman must maintain order and ensure that people follow the laws. A woman in a family circle feeds her household, but she is not obliged to do this at a formal level.
- Motives and intentions. A businessman conducts his activities with the goal of making a profit. But if a clergyman sets such a task for himself, it will be perceived negatively, since society expects selfless actions from him.
