Basic social roles of a person are examples. Social role is a person’s behavior in society associated with social status

Behavior is a form of interaction of an organism with the environment, the source of which is needs. Human behavior differs from the behavior of animals in its social conditioning, awareness, activity, creativity and is goal-oriented, voluntary in nature.

Structure of social behavior:

1) behavioral act - a single manifestation of activity, its element;

2) social actions - actions performed by individuals or social groups that have social significance and imply socially determined motivation, intentions, relationships;

3) an act is a conscious action of a person who understands it social significance and done in accordance with the accepted intention;

4) act - a set of actions of an individual for which he is responsible.

Types of social behavior of an individual:

1) according to the system public relations:

a) production behavior (labor, professional);

b) economic behavior (consumer behavior, distribution behavior, exchange behavior, entrepreneurial, investment, etc.);

c) socio-political behavior (political activity, behavior towards authorities, bureaucratic behavior, electoral behavior, etc.);

d) legal behavior (law-abiding, illegal, deviant, deviant, criminal);

e) moral behavior (ethical, moral, immoral, immoral behavior, etc.);

f) religious behavior;

2) by time of implementation:

› impulsive;

› variable;

› long-term implementation.

The subjects of regulation of an individual’s social behavior are society, small groups and the individual himself.

Social status

Social status (from the Latin status - position, state) of an individual is the position of a person in society, which he occupies in accordance with his age, gender, origin, profession, marital status.

Social status is a certain position in the social structure of a group or society, connected to other positions through a system of rights and responsibilities.

Sociologists distinguish several types of social statuses:

1) Statuses determined by the position of an individual in a group - personal and social.

Personal status is the position of a person that he occupies in the so-called small, or primary, group, depending on how his individual qualities are assessed in it.

On the other hand, in the process of interaction with other individuals, each person performs certain social functions that determine his social status.

2) Statuses determined by time frames, influence on the life of the individual as a whole - main and non-main (episodic).

The main status determines the main thing in a person’s life (most often this is the status associated with the main place of work and family, for example - good family man and irreplaceable worker).

Episodic (non-main) social statuses influence the details of human behavior (for example, pedestrian, passenger, passerby, patient, participant in a demonstration or strike, reader, listener, TV viewer, etc.).

3) Statuses acquired or not acquired as a result of free choice.

Prescribed (assigned) status is a social position that is pre-prescribed to an individual by society, regardless of the individual’s merits (for example, nationality, place of birth, social origin, etc.).

Mixed status has the features of a prescribed and achieved status (a person who has become disabled, the title of academician, Olympic champion, etc.).

Achieved (acquired) is acquired as a result of free choice, personal efforts and is under the control of a person (education, profession, material wealth, business connections, etc.).

In any society there is a certain hierarchy of statuses, which represents the basis of its stratification. Certain statuses are prestigious, others are the opposite. This hierarchy is formed under the influence of two factors:

a) the real usefulness of those social functions that a person performs;

b) a value system characteristic of a given society.

If the prestige of any statuses is unreasonably overestimated or, conversely, underestimated, it is usually said that there is a loss of status balance. A society in which there is a similar tendency to lose this balance is unable to ensure its normal functioning.

Prestige is society’s assessment of the social significance of a particular status, enshrined in culture and public opinion.

Each individual can have a large number of statuses. The social status of an individual primarily influences his behavior. Knowing the social status of a person, you can easily determine most of the qualities that he possesses, as well as predict the actions that he will carry out. Such expected behavior of a person, associated with the status that he has, is usually called social role.

Social role- This is a model of behavior focused on a certain status.

A social role is a pattern of behavior recognized as appropriate for people of a given status in a given society.

Roles are determined by people's expectations (for example, the idea that parents should take care of their children, that an employee should conscientiously carry out the work assigned to him, has taken root in the public consciousness). But each person, depending on specific circumstances, accumulated life experience and other factors, fulfills a social role in his own way.

When claiming this status, a person must fulfill all the role requirements assigned to this social position. Each person has not one, but a whole set of social roles that he plays in society. The totality of all human roles in society is called a role system or role set.

Role set (role system)

A role set is a set of roles (role complex) associated with one status.

Each role in the role set requires a special manner of behavior and communication with people and is, therefore, a set of relationships that are unlike others. In the role set, one can distinguish basic (typical) and situational social roles.

Examples of basic social roles:

1) hard worker;

2) owner;

3) consumer;

4) citizen;

5) family member (husband, wife, son, daughter).

Social roles can be institutionalized or conventional.

Institutionalized roles: institution of marriage, family (social roles of mother, daughter, wife).

Conventional roles are accepted by agreement (a person can refuse to accept them).

Social roles are associated with social status, profession or type of activity (teacher, student, student, salesperson).

Man and woman are also social roles, biologically predetermined and presupposing specific modes of behavior, enshrined in social norms or customs.

Interpersonal roles are associated with interpersonal relationships that are regulated at the emotional level (leader, offended, family idol, loved one, etc.).

Role behavior

The real role must be distinguished from the social role as a model of behavior. role behavior, which means not socially expected, but actual behavior of the performer of a specific role. And here a lot depends on personal qualities individual, on the degree of his assimilation social norms, from his beliefs, attitudes, value orientations.

Factors that determine the process of realizing social roles:

1) biopsychological capabilities of a person, which can facilitate or hinder the fulfillment of a particular social role;

2) the nature of the role accepted in the group and the features of social control designed to monitor the fulfillment of role behavior;

3) a personal model that defines a set of behavioral characteristics necessary for successful performance of the role;

4) the structure of the group, its cohesion and the degree of identification of the individual with the group.

In the process of implementing social roles, certain difficulties may arise related to the need for a person to fulfill different situations many roles → in some cases, a discrepancy between social roles, the emergence of contradictions and conflict relations between them.

Any social role, according to T. Parsons, can be described using five main characteristics:

level of emotionality - some roles are emotionally restrained, others are relaxed;

method of receipt - prescribed or achieved;

scale of manifestation - strictly limited or blurred;

degree of formalization - strictly established or arbitrary;

motivation - for general profit or for personal benefit.

Social role

Social role- a model of human behavior, objectively determined by the social position of the individual in the system of social, public and personal relations. A social role is not something externally associated with social status, but an expression in action of the agent's social position. In other words, a social role is “the behavior that is expected of a person occupying a certain status.”

History of the term

The concept of “social role” was proposed independently by American sociologists R. Linton and J. Mead in the 1930s, with the former interpreting 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 latter - 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 "social role" as a "dynamic aspect of status" was entrenched in structural functionalism and developed by T. Parsons, A Radcliffe-Brown, R. Merton. Mead's ideas were developed in interactionist sociology and psychology. Despite all the differences, both of these approaches are united by the idea of ​​​​a “social role” as a nodal 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 attitudes existing in society, depending on which people are selected for 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” turn out to be poorly compatible. Modern society requires an individual to constantly change his behavior pattern to perform specific roles. In this regard, such neo-Marxists and neo-Freudians as T. Adorno, K. Horney and others in their works made a paradoxical conclusion: 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 have become widespread. Irwin Goffman, in his studies of interaction rituals, accepting and developing the basic theatrical metaphor, paid attention not so much to role prescriptions and passive adherence to them, but to the very processes of active construction and maintenance. appearance"in the course of communication, to areas of uncertainty and ambiguity in interaction, errors in the behavior of partners.

Definition of the concept

Social role- a dynamic characteristic of a social position, expressed in a set of behavior patterns that are consistent with social expectations (role expectations) and set by special norms (social prescriptions) addressed from the corresponding group (or several groups) to the holder of a certain social position. Holders of a social position expect that the implementation of special instructions (norms) results in regular and therefore predictable behavior, which can be used to guide the behavior of other people. Thanks to this, regular and continuously planable social interaction (communicative interaction) is possible.

Types of social roles

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

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

Characteristics of a social role

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

• By scale. Some roles may be strictly limited, while others may be blurred.
• By method of receipt. Roles are divided into prescribed and conquered (they are also called achieved).
• According to the degree of formalization. Activities can take place either within strictly established limits or arbitrarily.
• By type of motivation. Personal profit may serve as motivation, public good etc.

Scope of the role depends on range interpersonal relationships. The larger the range, the larger the scale. For example, the social roles of spouses have a very large scale, since the widest 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, relationships are regulated regulations and in a certain sense are formal. Participants of this social interaction They are interested in various aspects of each other’s lives, their relationships are practically unlimited. In other cases, when relationships are strictly defined by social roles (for example, the relationship between a seller and a buyer), interaction can only be carried out for a specific reason (in this case, purchases). Here the scope of the role is limited to a narrow range of specific issues and is small.

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

Formalization as a descriptive characteristic of a social role is determined by the specifics of interpersonal relationships of the bearer of this role. Some roles involve the establishment of only formal relationships between people with strict regulation of rules of behavior; others, on the contrary, are only informal; still others may combine both formal and informal relationships. It is obvious that the relationship between the traffic police representative and the rule violator traffic 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 have been interacting for a while and the relationship has become relatively stable.

Motivation depends on the needs and motives of the person. Different roles are driven by different motives. Parents, caring for the well-being of their child, are guided primarily by a feeling of love and care; the leader works for the sake of the cause, etc.

Role conflicts

Role conflicts arise when the duties of a role are not fulfilled due to subjective reasons(unwillingness, inability).

see also

Bibliography

• "Games People Play" E. Berne

Notes

Links

Wikimedia Foundation.

2010.

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This is a very popular topic right now. personal growth. A lot of different trainings and methods of personality development have been created. It is expensive, and the efficiency is catastrophically low, it is difficult to find a qualified specialist.

Let's understand the concepts in order to avoid wandering in search of the most effective way become more successful. The process of personality development includes the development of social roles and communication skills(creating, maintaining and developing quality relationships).

It is through various social roles that personality manifests itself and develops. Mastering a new role can radically change your life. Successful implementation of a person’s basic social roles creates a feeling of happiness and well-being. The more social roles a person is able to reproduce, the better adapted he is to life, the more successful he is. After all happy people have good family, successfully cope with their professional responsibilities. Take an active and conscious part in the life of society. Friendly company, hobbies and hobbies significantly enrich a person’s life, but cannot compensate for failures in the implementation of social roles that are significant to him.

The lack of fulfillment of significant social roles, misunderstanding or their inadequate interpretation creates in a person’s life a feeling of guilt, low self-esteem, a feeling of loss, self-doubt, and the meaninglessness of life.
By observing and mastering social roles, a person learns standards of behavior, learns to evaluate himself from the outside, and exercise self-control.

Social role

is a model of human behavior, objectively determined by the position of the individual in the system of social and personal relations.

Let's just say that society has set a certain faceless template of expected behavior, within the framework of which something is considered acceptable and something beyond the norm. Thanks to this standard, completely predictable behavior is expected from the performer of a social role, which others can be guided by.

This predictability makes it possible to maintain and develop interaction. A person’s consistent fulfillment of his social roles creates orderliness in everyday life.
A family man plays the roles of son, husband, father, brother. At work, he can simultaneously be an engineer, a production site foreman, a trade union member, a boss and a subordinate. IN social life: passenger, driver of a personal car, pedestrian, buyer, client, patient, neighbor, citizen, benefactor, friend, hunter, traveler, etc.

Of course, not all social roles are equivalent for society and are equivalent for the individual. Family, professional, and socio-political roles should be highlighted as significant.

What social roles are significant to you?

In the family: husband/wife; father mother; son daughter?

In the profession and career: a conscientious worker, an expert and specialist in his field, a manager or entrepreneur, a boss or a business owner?

In the socio-political sphere: member of a political party/charitable foundation/church, non-partisan atheist?

Without which social role would your life be incomplete?

Wife, mother, businesswoman?

Every social role has meaning and significance.

For society to function and develop normally, it is important that all its members master and fulfill social roles. Since behavior patterns are established and passed down from generation to generation in the family, let's look at family roles.

According to the study, the majority of men marry to have a permanent partner for sex and entertainment. In addition, for a man, a wife is an attribute of success that supports his status. Hence, the meaning of the wife's social role is to share the hobbies and interests of your husband in order to look decent at any age and at any period of life. If a man does not receive sexual satisfaction in marriage, he will have to look for a different meaning of marital relations.

Social role of mother provides care for the child: health, nutrition, clothing, home comfort and education as a full-fledged member of society. Often women in marriage replace the role of wife with the role of mother, and then wonder why the relationship is destroyed.

Social role of the father is to ensure protection and safety for your children, to be the highest authority in how children evaluate their actions, and to be able to maintain hierarchy.

The task of parents, both father and mother– while growing up, help the child form a personality capable of living and creating results in his life independently. To instill moral and spiritual standards, the foundations of self-development and stress resistance, to establish healthy models of relationships in the family and society.

Sociological research states that most women marry to have status married woman, a reliable rear for raising children in a full-fledged family. She expects admiration and openness in relationships from her husband. Hence, social role of husband to have a legally registered marriage with a woman, to take care of the wife, and to participate in raising children throughout their growing years.

Social roles of adult daughters or sons imply an independent (financially independent) life from parents. In our society, it is believed that children should take care of their parents at a time when they become helpless.

A social role is not a rigid model of behavior.

People perceive and perform their roles differently. If a person perceives a social role as a rigid mask, the behavioral stereotypes of which he is forced to obey, he literally breaks his personality and life turns into hell for him. Therefore, as in the theater, there is only one role, and each performer gives it his own original features. For example, a research scientist is required to adhere to the principles and methods established by science and at the same time create and justify new ideas; a good surgeon is not only one who performs conventional operations well, but also one who can make an unconventional decision, saving the patient’s life. Thus, initiative and authorial handwriting are an integral part of fulfilling a social role.

Each social role has a prescribed set of rights and responsibilities.

A duty is what a person does based on the norms of a social role, regardless of whether he likes it or not. Since duties are always accompanied by rights, fulfilling their duties in accordance with their social role, a person has the right to present his demands to his interaction partner. If there are no responsibilities in a relationship, then there are no rights. Rights and responsibilities are like two sides of the same coin - one is impossible without the other. Harmony of rights and responsibilities presupposes optimal fulfillment of a social role. Any imbalance in this ratio indicates poor assimilation of the social role. For example, often in cohabitation (the so-called civil marriage), a conflict arises at the moment when the partner is presented with the demands of the social role of the spouse.

Conflicts are inherent in the fulfillment of social roles and, as a result, psychological problems.

1. Each individual has his or her own performance of generally accepted social roles. It is impossible to achieve complete agreement between a given standard and personal interpretation. Proper fulfillment of the requirements related to the social role is ensured by the system social sanctions. Often fear of not meeting expectations leads to self-condemnation: “I’m a bad mother, a worthless wife, a disgusting daughter”...
2. Personal-role conflict arises if the requirements of a social role contradict the life aspirations of the individual. For example, the role of a boss requires a person to have strong-willed qualities, energy, and the ability to communicate with people in various, including critical, situations. If a specialist lacks these qualities, he will not cope with his role. People say about this: “The hat doesn’t suit Senka.”
3. When a person has several social roles with mutually exclusive requirements or he does not have the opportunity to fulfill his roles in full, interrole conflict. At the heart of this conflict is the illusion that “the impossible is possible.” For example, a woman wants to be an ideal housewife and mother, while successfully managing a large corporation.
4. If different representatives of a social group place different demands on the performance of one role, intra-role conflict. For example, a husband believes that his wife should work, but his mother believes that his wife should stay at home, raise children, and do housework. The woman herself thinks that it is important for a wife to develop creatively and spiritually. Staying inside a role conflict leads to personality destruction.
5. Having matured, a person actively enters into the life of society, striving to take his place in it and satisfy personal needs and interests. The relationship between the individual and society can be described by the formula: society offers, the individual seeks, chooses his place, trying to realize his interests. At the same time, she shows and proves to society that she is in her place and will perform her assigned role well. The inability to choose a suitable social role for oneself leads to a refusal to perform any social functions - to self-destruction .
   • For men, such psychological trauma is fraught with reluctance to have a wife and children, refusal to protect their interests; self-affirmation through humiliation of the defenseless, a tendency to a passive lifestyle, narcissism and irresponsibility.
   • For women, the lack of fulfillment of certain social roles leads to uncontrolled aggression not only towards others, but also towards themselves and their children, even to the point of abandoning motherhood.

What to do to avoid problems?

1. Determine for yourself the SIGNIFICANT social roles and the way to actualize them.
2. Describe the model of behavior in a given social role, based on the meaning and significance of this role.
3. State your system of ideas about how to behave in a given social role.
4. Describe the perception of people significant to you about this social role.
5. Assess actual behavior and look for discrepancies.
6. Adjust your behavior so that your boundaries are not violated and your needs are met.

Functions of social role

In sociology, functions indicate what consequences (for society and its individual members) actions performed by a particular person have.

Personal behavior, priorities and attitudes, choices and emotions are determined by a number of factors:

• position in society;
• environmental conditions;
• type of activity performed;
• internal qualities of the individual, the spiritual world.

Due to the fact that people need each other to satisfy their individual needs, certain relationships and interactions are established between them. At the same time, each person fulfills his social role.

Throughout life, an individual masters many social roles, which he is often forced to play simultaneously. This allows for coexistence different people in one society as comfortable and possible.

The social role performs a number of important functions:

1. Sets certain rules of the game: duties and norms, rights, interactions between roles (boss-subordinate, boss-client, boss-tax inspector, etc.). Social adaptation implies mastering and studying the rules of the game - the laws of a given society.
2. Allows you to realize different sides of your personality. Different roles (friend, parent, boss, public figure, etc.) enable a person to demonstrate different qualities. The more roles an individual masters, the more multifaceted and rich his personality will become, the better he will understand others.
3. Provides an opportunity to demonstrate and develop potential qualities inherent in a person: softness, toughness, mercy, etc. Only in the process of fulfilling a social role can a person discover his capabilities.
4. Allows you to explore the resources of each person’s personal capabilities. Teaches you to use the best combination of qualities for adequate behavior in a given situation.

The relationship between social role and social status

Social status influences individual behavior. Knowing the social status of a person, one can predict what qualities are characteristic of him, what actions can be expected from him. The expected behavior of an individual associated with his status is called a social role.

Definition 2

A social role is a pattern of behavior that is recognized as the most appropriate for an individual of a given status in society. A role specifies exactly how to act in a given situation.

Any individual is a reflection of the totality of social relations of his historical period.

Social role and social status in communication perform the following functions:

• regulatory function - helps to quickly select the necessary interaction scenario without spending large resources;
• adaptation function – allows you to quickly find suitable model behavior when changing social status;
• cognitive function – the ability to recognize one’s personal potential, carry out processes of self-knowledge;
• function of self-realization - manifestation best qualities person, achieving desired goals.

The process of learning social roles allows one to assimilate cultural norms. Each status of a given role is characterized by its own norms, laws, and customs. The acceptance of most norms depends on the status of the individual. Some norms are accepted by all members of society. Those norms and rules that are acceptable for one status may be unacceptable for another. Socialization teaches role behavior and allows the individual to become a part of society.

Note 1

From the many social roles and statuses offered to an individual by society, he can choose those that will most fully help him apply his abilities and realize his plans. The acceptance of a certain social role is greatly influenced by biological and personal characteristics, social conditions. Any social role only outlines a pattern of human behavior; the individual chooses the ways of fulfilling the role himself.

Every person living in society is included in many different social groups (family, study group, friendly company, etc.). In each of these groups he occupies a certain position, has a certain status, and certain requirements are imposed on him. Thus, the same person should behave in one situation like a father, in another - like a friend, in a third - like a boss, i.e. act in different roles. Social role is a way of behavior of people that corresponds to accepted norms, depending on their status or position in society, in the system of interpersonal relations. Mastering social roles is part of the process of socialization of the individual, an indispensable condition for a person to “grow into” the society of his own kind. Socialization is the process and result of assimilation and active reproduction by an individual social experience carried out in communication and activity. Examples of social roles are also gender roles (male or female behavior), professional roles. By observing social roles, a person learns social standards of behavior, learns to evaluate himself from the outside and exercise self-control. However, since in real life a person is involved in many activities and relationships, is forced to perform different roles, the requirements for which may be contradictory, there is a need for some mechanism that would allow a person to maintain the integrity of his “I” in conditions of multiple connections with the world (i.e. to remain himself , playing various roles). Personality (or rather, the formed substructure of orientation) is precisely the mechanism, the functional organ that allows you to integrate your “I” and your own life activity, carry out a moral assessment of your actions, find your place not only in a separate social group, but also in life in general, to develop the meaning of one’s existence, to abandon one in favor of another. Thus, developed personality can use role behavior as a tool for adaptation to certain social situations, while at the same time not merging or identifying with the role. The main components of a social role constitute a hierarchical system in which three levels can be distinguished. The first is peripheral attributes, i.e. those, the presence or absence of which does not affect either the perception of the role by the environment or its effectiveness (for example, civil status poet or doctor). The second level involves those attributes of the role that influence both perception and effectiveness (for example, long hair a hippie or an athlete in poor health). At the top of the three-level gradation are the role attributes that are decisive for the formation of personal identity. The role concept of personality originated in the American social psychology in the 30s of the XX century. (C. Cooley, J. Mead) and became widespread in various sociological movements, primarily in structural-functional analysis. T. Parsons and his followers consider personality as a function of the many social roles that are inherent in any individual in a particular society. Charles Cooley believed that personality is formed on the basis of many interactions between people and the world around them. In the process of these interactions, people create their “mirror self,” which consists of three elements: 1. how we think others perceive us (“I’m sure people notice my new hairstyle”); 2. how we think they will react to 3. what they see (“I’m sure they like my new hairstyle"); 4. how we respond to our perceived reactions of others ("I guess I'll always wear my hair like this"). This theory places importance on our interpretation of other people's thoughts and feelings. American psychologist George Herbert Mead went further in his analysis the process of development of our “I.” Like Cooley, he believed that the “I” is a social product, formed on the basis of relationships with other people. At first, as small children, we are not able to explain to ourselves the motives of the behavior of others. children thereby take the first step in life. Having learned to think about themselves, they can think about others; the child begins to acquire a sense of his own “I”. According to Mead, the process of personality formation includes three different stages. The first is imitation. copy the behavior of adults without understanding it. Then comes the play stage, when children understand behavior as performance. certain roles: doctor, fireman, racing driver, etc.; during the game they reproduce these roles.