Social roles
Social roles refer to the set of behaviors that are expected of individuals within social institutions. Society is like a stage and individuals are like actors within a society whereby, they have to play different roles within different social institutions. Each individual hold different status within distinct institutions of society. They have to perform set of roles associated with their ascribed or achieved status within a particular institution. For instance, within institution of family one may hold the status of brother or sister, son or daughter, father or mother. However, at work he/she could be a bank manager, janitor or president of the country. Whereby, parents’ responsibilities are to fulfill their children need of affection, nourishment, protection, education etc… whereas, children are supposed to respect and obey their parents. A person who occupy the status of father at home might be bank manager at work. At office he has to perform set of duties in accordance with his occupied status such as, supervision, hiring and training staff as well as, grow branch revenue.
Moreover, formal norms and customs of a given society specify social status and roles of individuals. Social Norms and customs vary from society to society. Individuals have to perform set of duties that are linked with his/her adhered status in accordance with societal norms and customs. Moreover, social norms and customs of societies do change with the passage of time. Due to which statuses and roles of individuals’ change as well. Not long ago current modern societies had differentiated the roles of individuals on the basis of gender for instance, within institution of family mother was supposed to perform household duties such as, taking care of children, cooking, cleaning etc… whereas, Father was supposed earn livelihood in order to support his family financially. Though, with the passage of time social structure of these societies evolved. As a result gender biased norms were eliminated and replaced by the norms according to which division of labor was determined based on individuals level of education and acquired skill set rather than their biological differences.
Role set
As discussed earlier an individual plays different roles within different social institutions. Sometimes, more than one role is associated with an individual status in a given institution; which is called as role set in sociology. For example an individual who occupy the status of field supervisor within a non-governmental organization is supposed to conduct awareness sessions, baseline survey, focus group discussions, and training sessions and formulate new strategies for the prevention of particular problem within a given community. These responsibilities are the role set of field supervisor within non-governmental organization.
Role conflict
Individual play different roles in different social institutions. When these roles come in conflict with one another is known as role conflict. Suppose if the Owner of an oil factory hires his friend to manage his business. Due to his friend maladministration company profit declines. As a businessman or owner he ought to fire his manager but as a friend he could not take away his friend livelihood.
Role strain
When individual is stressed out due to excessive responsibilities associated with his statuses within different instructions of society is called role strain. Suppose a women may hold the status of teacher and single mother with in a society. As a teacher at school her role expectations are to prepare and submit progress report to the school board, train new hired staff, prepare notes and teach students. Whereas, within institution of family as a single mother; she is supposed to make lunch for her children, drop them to school, help them in their homework etc… She might be stressed due to her overlapping roles and may not get enough time to manage both her social and professional life. Which implies that, she is experiencing role strain.
Role exit
Each individual plan to achieve a certain social status within a society, it might be to become a lawyer, doctor or engineer. He starts preparing to achieve that status via anticipatory socialization. However, after attaining desired status he may not get satisfaction and may decides to quiet his current status and try to obtain new status. For the attainment of new status an individuals has to perform new roles as well as abandon old ones. Abandoning old roles and initiating new responsibilities is known as role exit. For example a lawyer may not be happy with his current job and want to join Private Corporation as a business’s development officer. In order to attain new status he has to join business school and obtain professional degree in business administration. As well as, he has to quit his law practice or job.
