Theories and concepts of social roles
"Role" is a term in drama, which refers to the role played by actors. Some scholars introduced it into sociology in the 1920s and 1930s, and then developed it into one of the basic theories of sociology. Social role refers to a set of rights and obligations norms and behavior patterns consistent with people's social status and identity. It is people's behavior expectation for people with specific identities, and it forms the foundation of social groups or organizations. Specifically, it includes the following four meanings:
(1) Role is the external expression of social status; (2) Role is a set of norms and behavior patterns of people's rights and obligations; (3) Role is people's expectation of people's behavior in a specific position; (d) Role is the foundation of social groups or social organizations.
In society, roles do not exist in isolation, but are linked with other roles. Such a set of interrelated, interdependent and complementary roles is called role set. It is impossible for anyone to assume only one social role, but always a variety of social roles, and the various roles he assumes are always associated with more social roles, which constitute a role set.
Types of social roles
From different angles, social roles can be divided into many types:
(A) the primary role and self-induction. The so-called pre-assigned role, also known as belonging role, refers to the social role based on innate or physiological factors such as blood, heredity and so on. For example, a person has been given the roles of race, nationality, family background, gender and so on from birth. The so-called self-induced role, also known as self-acquired role or achievement role, refers to the social role obtained mainly through individual activities and efforts. The acquisition of self-directed role is the result of personal activities and personal choices.
(2) Conscious role and unconscious role. This is based on people's psychological state when they assume social roles. The so-called conscious role means that when people assume a certain role, they clearly realize that they are shouldering certain rights and obligations, and the people around them are the audience of their own role, so they try their best to infect the surrounding audience with their own actions. In social life, everyone often experiences this conscious role. The so-called unconscious role means that when people assume a role, they don't realize that they are playing this role, but they just do it according to their habitual behavior. Generally speaking, when the above-mentioned reasons for forming conscious roles do not exist, people will easily form unconscious roles.
(3) Prescribed roles and open roles. This is a distinction made from the degree of standardization of social roles. The so-called prescriptive role refers to a strictly and clearly defined role, that is, rights and obligations, and what to do and what not to do are clearly defined. People who belong to such roles, such as police, judges, party and government cadres at all levels, party member, league members and so on. The so-called open role refers to those social roles that are not strictly and clearly defined. The undertaker of this role can engage in activities according to his own understanding of the role and the expectation of the society for the role. For example, parents, couples, children, relatives, friends, classmates, customers, passengers and many other roles in daily life are open.
(4) utilitarian role and expressive role. This is a distinction from the goals pursued by social roles. The so-called utilitarian role refers to those social roles whose goal is to pursue interests and practical interests. The value of this role behavior lies in the acquisition of practical benefits. Such as businessmen, entrepreneurs, managers and other social roles engaged in production and business activities for the purpose of profit belong to this category. The role of utilitarian role in society is mainly to achieve the goal of efficiency. The so-called expressive role refers to a social role that does not aim at obtaining economic benefits or remuneration, but expresses social system and order, social behavior norms, values and ideology and morality. Such as party and government cadres, judges, police, scholars, professors, artists and so on.
The play of social roles
As long as they are members of society, they will assume some social roles. When a person has the conditions to play a role, to play this role, and to act according to the code of conduct required by this role, this is the play of social roles.
On the social stage, people can't play any role at will. This is like an actor who wants to play a role in a play, first of all, he must be recognized and determined by the director and relevant personnel. To play a role on the social stage, a person must first have a definite process, or "identification", that is, to prove that a person's actual status, identification ability and other conditions are consistent and equivalent to his role. For each individual, the determination of social role is to answer: "Who am I?" problem Answering "Who am I?" I decide my actual position and relationship with others, thus playing a certain role.
After people have determined the role they want to play, a direct question is how to express this role. First of all, just like the performance on the stage needs decoration, the performance of social roles also needs scenery and props, but the difference is that what is needed on the social stage is physical objects. Generally speaking, scenery or Taoism has two functions: one is symbolic, and the other is practical. Secondly, a character's more direct performance is his own appearance and demeanor. Generally speaking, a person's clothes, dressing, appearance and appearance often leave a deep impression on people and can arouse people's association with their inner qualities. In addition, in the role performance, we should pay attention to the distinction between before and after: the so-called stage performance refers to the performance when people play these roles; The so-called backstage performance refers to the preparatory activities before performing a role. In people's lives, there are differences between these two behaviors.
Role-playing is not only manifested in the above static aspects, but also a dynamic process. In this process, role-playing usually goes through three stages: expectation, understanding and practice.
The quality and level of a person's role is largely related to the role distance. Role distance is the gap between a person's own quality, ability and level and the role he wants to play. Since a person plays a social role, since the role is not entirely his own, there will always be differences between a person and the role to be played, so the role distance is universal. Gofman believes that in any case, the role distance does not include those behaviors unrelated to the role, but only those behaviors related to a specific role.
Social role disorder
People's role in society has never been smooth sailing. Just as the operation of society often leads to uncoordinated factors, the play of social roles often leads to contradictions, obstacles and even failures, which is the imbalance of roles. Common role barriers are as follows:
The so-called role conflict refers to the contradiction, opposition and conflict between roles or within roles in social role playing, which hinders the smooth progress of role playing. When I was talking about character set, I mentioned two situations of character set, namely, a group of roles that different people assume and multiple roles on one person. From these two situations, there are two different types of role conflicts: one is the conflict between roles, that is, the conflict between different role bearers, which is often caused by the opposition of role interests, the difference of role expectations and people's failure to act according to role norms. Such as leaders and the masses, waiters and customers, mother-in-law, parents and children. The other is the conflict within the role, that is, the conflict within a person due to the collection of various social status and social roles.
The so-called unclear role means that the public or the actor of the role is not clear about the code of conduct of a role, and does not know what the role should do, what not to do and how to do it. The rapid change of society is often the main reason for the unclear social role. During the period of rapid social and cultural changes, many social roles are changing. People will feel that the behavior norms of many characters are beyond their previous habits. As a result of this development, many people feel "don't know" what the code of conduct of these roles should look like.
The so-called role interruption refers to the contradiction between two roles that one person has successively assumed. With the change of age and various conditions in life, people will always take turns to assume various roles. Under normal circumstances, when people take on a role, they often make some material and spiritual preparations for taking on a later role, so there will be no interruption of the role. Role interruption occurs because people are not prepared for the role they will take in the later stage when they take on the previous role, or a set of behavior norms of the previous role directly conflicts with the behavior required by the new role in the later stage. For example, a young student who is eager to go to college suddenly becomes an unemployed youth because he didn't score in the college entrance examination, which he never expected in the past.
Role failure is a very serious disorder in the process of role playing. It means that the role player can't perform successfully for various reasons, and finally has to stop performing halfway, or although he hasn't quit the role yet, it is already full of difficulties, and every step forward will encounter more contradictions. Judging from the result of role failure, it can usually be divided into two situations. One is that the undertaker of the role has to quit the role halfway; The other is that although it is still in a certain role, its performance has been proved to be a failure by practice.