7. The concept of social role and the characteristics of its influence on the development of personality

A social role is the fixation of a certain position that an individual occupies in the system of social relations.

Social role is a socially necessary type of social activity and a way of behavior of an individual who carries the stamp of social assessment.

For the first time the concept of a social role was proposed by American sociologists R. Lintonomy, J. Mead .

Each individual performs not one, but several social roles.

In itself, the social role does not determine the activity and behavior of each individual carrier in detail: it all depends on how much the individual learns, internalizes the role.

The act of internalization is determined individually by the psychological characteristics of each particular carrier of a given role.

A social role leaves a “range of possibilities” for its performer, which can be called a “style of performing a role” .

The main characteristics of the social role are highlighted by the American sociologist T. Parsons .

This is the scale, method of production, emotionality, formalization, motivation.

The scale of the role depends on the range of interpersonal relationships.

The way in which the role is obtained depends on how inevitable the role is for the person.

Social roles vary in level of emotionality . Each role carries with it certain possibilities of the emotional manifestation of its subject.

The formalization of the social role is determined by the specifics of the interpersonal relations of the carrier of this role.

Some roles imply the establishment of only formal relations between people with strict regulation of the rules of behavior; others are just informal; others may combine formal and informal relationships.

Motivation depends on the needs and motives of the person.

Types of social roles are determined by the variability of social groups, types of activities and relationships in which the person is included.

Depending on social relations, social and interpersonal social roles are distinguished.

Social roles are related to social status, profession, or activity.

These are standardized impersonal roles, built on the basis of rights and obligations, regardless of who performs these roles.

Socio-demographic roles: husband, wife, daughter, son, etc.

Interpersonal roles are associated with interpersonal relationships that are regulated at the emotional level (leader, offended, etc.), many of which are determined by the individual characteristics of the person.

Among the individual-typical manifestations of personality, one can distinguish socially-typical roles.

In interpersonal relationships, each person acts in a dominant social role, a peculiar social role as the most typical individual image.

According to the degree of manifestation, active and latent roles are distinguished. Active roles are determined by a specific social situation and are performed at a given time; latent ones do not appear in the current situation, although the subject is potentially the carrier of this role.

According to the method of assimilation, the roles are divided into prescribed (determined by age, gender, nationality) and acquired , which the subject learns in the process of socialization.

The main characteristics of the social role are highlighted by the American sociologist T. Parsons : scale, method of production, emotionality, formalization, motivation.

The scale of the role depends on the range of interpersonal relationships.

The larger the range, the larger the scale.

For example, the social roles of spouses have a very large scale, since a wide range of relationships is established between a husband and wife.

On the one hand, these are interpersonal relations based on the diversity of feelings and emotions; on the other hand, relations are also regulated by normative acts and in a certain sense are formal.

In other cases, when relationships are strictly defined by social roles, interaction can only take place on a specific occasion.

Here the scale of the role is reduced to a narrow circle of specific issues and is small.

The way in which the role is obtained 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 the age and sex of a person and do not require special efforts for their acquisition.

There can only be the problem of compliance with its role, which already exists as a given.

Other roles are achieved or even won in the course of a person’s life and as a result of special efforts.

These are practically all roles associated with the profession and any achievements of a person.

Social roles vary significantly in terms of emotionality .

Each role carries with it certain possibilities of the emotional manifestation of its subject.

Expectations of others, social norms, customs, fashion can determine certain features of the emotional manifestation of a person in a particular situation.

Even the difference in historical eras can predetermine the diversity of people's emotional manifestations, due to their social roles.

Formalization as a descriptive characteristic of a social role is determined by the specifics of the interpersonal relations of the carrier of a given role.

Some roles imply the establishment of only formal relations between people with strict regulation of the rules of behavior; others are just informal; others can combine both formal and informal relationships.

Formal relations are often accompanied by non-formal ones, because a person, perceiving and appreciating the other, shows sympathy or antipathy towards him.

This happens when people interact for a while and relationships become relatively stable.

So, colleagues working together and related by formal relationships are likely to have some feelings towards each other, although the work involves coordination of actions primarily at the conventional level.

Here, the feelings of the participants in the interaction with each other act as a side, but relatively lasting effect.

Motivation depends on the needs and motives of the person. Different roles are due to different motives.

Parents, caring for the welfare of their child, are guided primarily by the feeling of love and care; the leader works in the name of the business, etc.

With different approaches to the interpretation of social roles are defined as:

1) fixing a certain position that an individual occupies in the system of social relations;

2) the function, normatively approved pattern of behavior expected from everyone occupying this position;

3) a socially necessary type of social activity and a way of behavior of an individual who carries the stamp of public assessment (approval, condemnation, etc.);

4) the behavior of the individual in accordance with its social status; a generalized way of performing a certain social function when a person is expected to take certain actions depending on their status in society and the system of interpersonal relations;

5) the system of expectations existing in society regarding the behavior of an individual occupying a certain position in his interaction with other individuals;

6) a system of specific expectations in relation to oneself of an individual who occupies a certain position, that is, how he represents a model of his own behavior in interaction with other individuals;

7) open, observable behavior of an individual occupying a certain position;

8) the idea of a prescribed pattern of behavior that is expected and required from a person in a given situation;

9) prescribed actions characteristic of those who occupy a certain social position;

10) a set of norms that determine how a person of a given social situation should behave.

The social role is interpreted as expectation, activity, behavior, performance, stereotype, social function.

The diversity of ideas about the social role suggests that in psychology, the idea of J. Mead was very convenient to describe the behavior of the individual in its various social functions.

T. Shibutani believed that social roles have the function of securing optimal ways of behavior in certain circumstances, developed by mankind for a long time.

The orderliness of everyday life is determined by the sequence in which a person performs certain social roles that are associated with rights and duties.

Responsibility is what a person is forced to do on the basis of a social role, regardless of whether he likes it or not.

Carrying out their duties in accordance with the social role, each person has the right to make his own demands on the other.

Responsibilities are always accompanied by rights.

The harmony of rights and obligations implies the optimal fulfillment of a social role, any imbalance in this ratio may indicate that the social role is not completely assimilated.

The social role has two aspects of learning: role-playing and role-playing .

The influence of the social role on the development of personality is great.

Personality development is promoted by its interaction with persons playing a variety of roles, as well as its participation in the greatest possible role-playing repertoire.

The more social roles an individual is able to reproduce, the more adapted to life he is.

The process of personal development often acts as the dynamics of the development of social roles.

Mastering a new role can drastically affect a person.

In psychotherapy, there is an appropriate method of behavior correction - imagotherapy.

The patient is offered to enter a new image, to play a role. The basis of imago therapy is the psychodrama method of D. Moreno .

He treated people for neurosis, giving them the opportunity to play those roles that they would like, but could not fulfill in life.

The developing personality contributes to the "execution" of the social role of individual identity.

This is not only due to the specifics of character, temperament, personal characteristics.

Role self-manifestation is always determined by the internal structure of the psyche by the exteriorization that has developed under the influence of the interiorization of the external social activity of a person.

In a person's life, mastering a social role is a complex and contradictory phenomenon.

D. A. Leontiev identified two aspects of the development of social roles: technical and semantic .

The technical aspect includes the perception of the essence of the role of the subject and mastering its content.

Semantic aspect is connected with the attitude of a person to his own role.

First of all, the individual must master the content of the role, that is, master it technically.

Most often, this development goes through the mechanism of imitation.

Many social roles are assimilated easily, some require special efforts and abilities.

The semantic side of a social role is to assume a role for oneself.

Sometimes there is a situation when the content of the role is fully understood, but there are internal obstacles to its adoption.

A person seeks to prove to himself and others that he is more than a role.

On the other hand, the role can so captivate that the individual completely subordinates himself to it.

Three problems arise in the assimilation of a social role: the problem of the difficulty of assimilating a role, the problem of not accepting a role, the problem of violating a measure in its assimilation .

A person is engaged in mastering new roles all his life, as his age, position in the family, professional status, interpersonal relations, etc., change.

Mastering can be simple and easy, and can be accompanied by significant difficulties.

The level of acceptance of a social role by a person may also vary.

The role can be used as a means to achieve a certain goal, it can also become the goal itself, the end result to which the subject strives for a long time.

In this case, the role may “conquer” the personality: behind the role, the personality will no longer be visible.

Mastering a wide range of social roles is the most adaptive for a person, since it contributes to its development.

Role conflict - a situation in which an individual who has a certain status, is faced with incompatible expectations.

The situation of role conflict is caused by the fact that the individual is not able to fulfill the requirements of the role.

In role theories, it is customary to single out conflicts of two types: inter-Role and intra- Role .

Inter-rollers include conflicts caused by the fact that an individual has to perform too many different roles at the same time and therefore is unable to meet all the requirements of these roles, either because he does not have enough time and physical abilities for this, or different roles present him with incompatible requirements.

In studies of inter-role conflict, the work of the American social psychologist, W. G. Good, “The Theory of Role Tension” should be highlighted.

He calls role-playing tension a state of an individual in a situation of inter-role conflict and proposes a theory, the essence of which boils down to identifying ways to relieve this tension.

To do this, you need to get rid of a number of roles, and put time and energy into performing the rest depending on the importance of this role for the individual, positive and negative sanctions, which may result in the failure to fulfill certain roles; the reactions of others to the rejection of certain roles.

When it comes to inter-role conflicts, a marginal person is most often cited as an example.

An analysis of the intra-wolf conflict reveals the contradictory requirements imposed on carriers of the same role by different social groups.

A classic in this area is the study of M. Komarovskaya , which was conducted among students of an American college.

The results of the study showed the contradictory expectations of the requirements for college students from parents and college students.

Role conflicts are frequent.

This is due to the complexity of social relations, the increasing differentiation of the social structure and the further division of social labor.

Role conflicts, according to researchers, have a negative effect on the implementation of the interaction, so social psychologists are trying to develop some common concepts that justify ways to eliminate role conflicts.

One of these concepts is the theory of W. Good's role tensions.

A similar approach can be found in the works of N. Gross , W. Mason .

They identify three groups of factors related to the problem of eliminating role conflicts.

The first is related to the subjective attitude to the role of its performer.

The second group includes sanctions (positive and negative), which can be applied for the performance or non-performance of the role.

To the third group of factors, the authors attribute the type of orientation of the performer to a role, among which they single out two: an orientation toward moral values ​​and a pragmatic orientation.

Based on the analysis of these factors, it is possible to predict which way to solve the role conflict will be chosen by one or another performer of the role.