Social roles and statuses of children and adults. Social role of the child

Social status– the social position of a person within a group or society, associated with certain of his rights and responsibilities.

Status types:

1) general(universal, basic) – a key status that determines the social status and importance of a person, associated with certain rights and responsibilities. This can be the status of a person (“Man – that sounds proud”), a member of a given society, a citizen (citizen of Russia), or the status position of an individual. For children, the main status is age; similarly, in many societies the primary status is gender. The basic status forms the frame within which our goals are formed and our learning takes place.

2) prescribed(ascriptive) – statuses inherited from birth, for example, nationality, social origin, place of birth.

3) purchased(achieved) – statuses acquired by an individual in society thanks to his own efforts, for example, professor, doctor, actor, student, policeman, pickpocket, etc.

Statuses can be formalized (for example, director of a plant) and informal (leader of a company of close friends), which depends on whether a particular function is performed within the framework of formalized or informal social institutions. Explicit status is a status position activated in a particular social context that is most important for actions and interactions in that particular area. Hidden statuses are all other positions that the subject occupies, but which are not currently activated. It is through an explicit position that others identify the subject, imagining him as a partner, establishing interaction with him. Easier and more correct “recognition” of the subject is facilitated by certain external attributes inherent in such an obvious position (for example, wearing a uniform). The life of each person consists of many social positions, which he occupies not simultaneously, but one by one (for example, a baby - a child - a teenager - a mature person - an old man). In all such cases, we are talking about a sequential change of status. When it comes to a professional context, about service, work, this sequence is called a career.

There is a hierarchy of statuses. The allocation of the main status self-determines a person socially. We must be able to orient ourselves, figure it out, and decide which statuses are the most important for us and which are less significant. The ranking of statuses is determined by social prestige. Prestige is a hierarchy of statuses shared by society and enshrined in culture and public opinion. A society needs a balance of statuses, otherwise it cannot function normally. Status has a significant impact on the perception of a person by others. One American researcher introduced the same man to students in several classes at his college. In one class this man was introduced as “a student from Cambridge”, in the second as a “laboratory assistant”, in a third as a “psychology teacher”, in a fourth as a “PhD from Cambridge”, in the last as a “professor from Cambridge” " After the foreign guest left, the students were asked to estimate his height as accurately as possible. It turned out that as he climbed the ladder of academic ranks, the guest invariably "increased in height", so that the last group estimated his height to be 5 inches higher than the first. Meanwhile, the height of the teacher, who went with the guest and whose title did not change, was assessed exactly the same in all classes.

64. Social role (French role) - it 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).

Social roles can be: Institutionalized: the institution of marriage, family (social roles of mother, daughter, wife) Conventional: accepted by agreement (a person may refuse to accept them).

The influence of social role on personality development . The influence of social role on personality development is quite large. Personality development is facilitated by its interaction with persons playing a range of roles, as well as by its participation in the largest possible role repertoire. The more social roles an individual is able to reproduce, the more adapted to life he is. Thus, the process of personality development often acts as the dynamics of mastering social roles. It is equally important for any society to prescribe roles according to age. Adaptation of individuals to constantly changing ages and age statuses is an eternal problem. Before an individual has time to adapt to one age, another one immediately approaches, with new statuses and new roles. As soon as a young man begins to cope with the embarrassment and complexes of youth, he already stands on the threshold of maturity; As soon as a person begins to show wisdom and experience, old age comes. Each age period is associated with favorable opportunities for the manifestation of human abilities, moreover, it prescribes new statuses and requirements for learning new roles. At a certain age, an individual may experience problems associated with adapting to new role status requirements. A child who is said to be older than his age, that is, has reached the status inherent in the older age category, usually does not fully realize his potential childhood roles, which negatively affects the completeness of his socialization. Often such children feel lonely and defective. At the same time, the status of an immature adult is a combination of adult status with attitudes and behavior characteristic of childhood or adolescence. Such a person usually has conflicts when performing roles appropriate to his age. These two examples show unsuccessful adaptation to the age statuses prescribed by society. Mastering a new role can make a huge difference in changing a person. In psychotherapy, there is even a corresponding method of behavior correction - image therapy (image - image). The patient is asked to enter a new image, to play a role, as in a play. In this case, the responsibility function is not borne by the person himself, but by his role, which sets new patterns of behavior. A person is forced to act differently based on a new role. Despite the conventionality of this method, the effectiveness of its use was quite high, since the subject was given the opportunity to release suppressed drives, if not in life, then at least during the game. The sociodramatic approach to the interpretation of human actions is widely known. Life is viewed as a drama, each participant in which plays his own specific role. Playing roles gives not only a psychotherapeutic, but also a developmental effect.

The family, as a social object, is a unique organization with its own set of statuses and roles.

The definition of “status” provides information about the position that a person occupies in society, and the definition of “role” provides a certain model of behavior.

Whether we like it or not, every person in the family has his own role and status, which implies certain responsibilities and requirements from other family members

A family, as an association of close people, is characterized by paired roles and statuses.

Husband-wife status. This is a marital status, confirmed by a marriage certificate issued at the registry office.
Parent-child status. This is a status between a parent and a child, for example, “mother-daughter”.
Children's statuses. For example, "brother-sister".
The status of the family is “grandmother-grandson”, “aunt-nephew”.

The listed statuses cannot be paired, because there cannot be a “mother-daughter” status in the absence of a child, and there cannot be a “husband-wife” status in the absence, for example, of a husband.

Unfortunately, in some cases, a man has to take on the role of a wife - cook dinners, raise children, but he cannot completely replace a woman. Or, during a divorce, a woman has to take on part of the functions performed by a man, but she is also unable to replace her father. Often scandals and disagreements in the family occur due to the incorrect role of one of the spouses. This distorts the family system, making it vulnerable and unstable, so it is very important to stick to your roles.

An adult plays the role of a child. It is very strange to observe families where the wife constantly plays the role of a little failed girl. The husband, accordingly, accepts the role of her parent - indulges her whims, calms her down, lifts her spirits, and in every possible way shows his guardianship over her.

It is even more strange to see a picture where a man took the role of a child, and a woman took the role of his mother. Nowadays, marriages that look more like adoption are becoming more and more common. Of course, some women themselves bring the family to such a state, some simply have an irresistible desire in their nature to take someone under their wing, protect them from storms and misfortunes, in general, to take care of them in every possible way.

And sometimes a man also harbors a “sick” need for maternal support, which he finds in a woman. But think for yourself, in the family the man is the core, the head of the family, but what will happen if he becomes completely infantile and incapable of both providing for the family and making the right decisions?

The child takes on the role of an adult. Such situations most likely arise with the birth of a younger child. The eldest takes on the role of an adult, cares for the baby to the best of his ability, teaches him to distinguish colors and draw, read and write copybooks. If this is allowed by the parents, who, of course, take on most of the care for the child, then this situation is not so bad.

What's wrong with children becoming closer to each other, talking, spending time together, learning to explore the world together. Strengthening fraternal relations will certainly have a beneficial effect on intra-family relationships. It’s another matter when the eldest child (usually a guy), when his parents divorce, takes on the role of man and breadwinner in the house.

In such a situation, we see a double-edged sword. Of course, it is very good that the guy awakens responsibility not only for himself, but also for his family. This is a good school of life in which a boy becomes a real man. The negative aspects include the fact that early growing up can lead to such troubles as disappointment in family life, or fatigue from the worries placed on him, which can be transferred both to the family he created and to the future in general.

Ersatz parent. This term means the assumption of parental responsibilities by a grandparent, or, for example, a nanny. Of course, each family has its own situation and its own vision of this role. For some parents, a career is the main goal in life, and the child can grow up without their participation.

Here, some hire nurses and nannies, and some enlist the support of relatives and grandparents. And there are other situations - a grandmother, for example, takes on unnecessary obligations to care for the baby, despite the mother’s resistance.

Nowadays, as hard as it may be to say, many people do not fulfill their role in the family. It’s worth calmly analyzing and figuring out whether this is happening on purpose, and you are in complete control of the process, or whether these are forced measures, or whether this role was imposed on you.

It should be remembered that playing a role that is not yours, unfortunately, leaves an indelible imprint on the psyche of both the child and the adult. Also, incorrect roles can lead to discord and conflicts in the family. Therefore, it is important to stop yourself in time and figure out whether you have occupied the right niche.

So, you sorted everything out, and in the process you found out that the role you occupy in the family is not yours. Undoubtedly, you must take certain measures. What should be the next steps?

Determine the reason why you found yourself in this role. Think about how this happened, was it a forced measure, or was it imposed on you from the outside?
Evaluate the positive and negative aspects of your role. For example, for a woman living with an alcoholic, the undoubted disadvantage is that her man is no longer the head of the family, he causes her harm and damage. And a possible plus for her is clear superiority over him, the ability to control his actions.
Consider if you do not play a distorted role, whether you will be able to get what you get from your current one.
Try to change your behavior and your niche in the family. Of course, before doing this, it is necessary to conduct a global analysis of the situation and find motivation within yourself for further change. Take your pros and cons from the situation, always remember that the experience you acquire is an undoubted investment in your future life.

This article examines the main options for statuses and roles. Of course, there may be atypical cases that need to be considered in particular. If there is no longer an idyll in your family, if you are increasingly quarreling over trifles, think that perhaps this is because you are “out of place” in the family, and it is very important to realize this as quickly as possible, before there are serious consequences.

In this lesson we will try to determine who we are in society, how people around us may perceive us, how the process of distribution of social roles and the emergence of statuses for this or that person occurs.

Topic: Social sphere

Lesson: Social roles and statuses

If you try to describe in words who you are, you will get the following: you are an eighth grade student, a boy or a girl. You are an athlete and, for example, play football or swim. Are you a son or daughter, grandson or granddaughter? You are citizens of Russia. This chain is already clear by analogy. You can define a huge series of statuses for yourself, because each of the statuses we have listed implies some information and a certain pattern of behavior, certain actions and certain expectations towards you.

Many of you probably love movies. At least each of you has seen at least one movie. All of them star actors. And the question arises why the same person in different films can so easily transform into different people. In one film he plays a positive character, in another - a negative one, and in the third film he is a generally neutral character, playing a cameo role, simply showing himself, but from a completely different side.

Rice. 1. Evgeny Leonov as Yegor Zaletaev in the film “Don’t Cry!” ()

Rice. 2. Evgeny Leonov as “Assistant Professor” Bely in the film “Gentlemen of Fortune” ()

Rice. 3. Evgeny Leonov as the King in the film “An Ordinary Miracle” ()

In theatrical art, it is believed that the ideal actor will be a person who is deprived of an independent personality. Such a person does not have his own views on life, he does not associate himself with the people around him. This person takes a work or script, reads about the character, draws himself into this character, passes it through himself and then plays the life of this person. And then the effect of absolute perception is obtained, the viewer believes this character, worries about him, empathizes with him, cries and laughs with him and even begins to believe in his reality. But it's just a game. This, on the one hand, is the happiness of a professional actor. On the other hand, the misfortune lies in the fact that a person devoid of personality, individuality is, in fact, a nobody.

In fact, all people play. The whole world is a theater. A person’s problem is that he needs to define for himself some kind of role and social status, which he will have to bear throughout his life, and not during an hour and a half of a film or three hours of a performance. That is why a person’s choice in life must be wise. In our lives, issues of self-identification and the search for the meaning of life are the most important.

A student's small group is a class. This is a formal group because class is a formal division. Accordingly, within the framework of this formal division, we grade students according to their social status. That is, there is a status of excellent students, who are sometimes unfairly called nerds; there is the status of poor students, unfairly called a swamp. But the good thing about life is that any social status can be changed. It is good to be an excellent student: this means that the student knows a lot and is very hardworking. If a student, by the will of fate or because of his laziness, finds himself in the camp of a swamp, then he can overcome this social status and rise, because a person has the tools to do this.

There is a wide range of statuses: prescribed, achieved, mixed, personal, professional, economic, political, demographic, religious and consanguineous, which are classified as types 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, from 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. But his temporary status as a passerby or patient, of course, is not. So the person has basic(determining his life activity) and non-core(affecting details of behavior) statuses. The first are significantly different from the second.

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 ranks high in one group and low in the second;

When the rights and responsibilities of one person's status conflict with or interfere with the rights and responsibilities 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.

Society always places certain expectations on one social status or another. All people position themselves in life in some way. If we return to the example of an excellent student, he studies well, gets high grades, and completes all his homework. In fact, there is an excellent student who only gets A's, and there is a person who positions himself as an excellent student, that is, as a person with a wide range of knowledge.

Sometimes a student may not get all A's in a quarter or semester, but the attitude towards him will not change after that, because he has already defined a social role for himself. That is social role It differs from social status in that a role is the expectations of others from the social status that a person has achieved. The main characteristics of a social role are highlighted by American sociologist Talcott Parsons. He suggested the following four characteristics of any role.

a) By scale. Some roles may be strictly limited, while others may be blurred.

b) By method of receipt. Roles are divided into prescribed and conquered (they are also called achieved).

c) According to the degree of formalization. Activities can take place either within strictly established limits or arbitrarily.

d) By type of motivation. The motivation can be personal profit, public good, etc.

The scope 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 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, relations are regulated by regulations and, in a certain sense, are formal. The participants in this social interaction are interested in a variety of 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 be carried out only 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.

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

The most striking and typical social roles and statuses are the following:

1. Social roles and statuses determined by age. With age comes the formation of a person, his awareness of himself in the world around him, his changes in relation to others. The age ladder leaves a very significant imprint on the social status that a person carries within himself.

Rice. 5. Representatives of three generations ()

On the other hand, a person realizes himself in the world around him, consistent with precisely this status and the corresponding social role. The child is expected to act in accordance with his social role: he is a son, a student, a football player, for example. And he lives in accordance with his social experience: if he goes to a football match with adults, then he may lose. But this will be a good lesson for the future, because the child will see how to play better and will gain experience. But when a loss happens to an older, more experienced player, it is perceived completely differently in terms of what the emotional effect is. It turns out that age gradation is a very important point in determining the social role and status of a person.

2. Another type of social gradation is determined by gender. If a person was born a boy, then from childhood he is taught to be a man: he is given not dolls, but cars, soldiers, construction sets, that is, the so-called “men's gifts.” The boy must grow up to be a male protector, a male breadwinner of family well-being in the future.

The same applies to a girl, but in this case there is a slightly different gradation. The girl is a future mother, a keeper of the home, and, accordingly, she is given gifts that will help her successfully fulfill her social role in the future.

Prescribed and achieved statuses are fundamentally different, but interact and complement each other. For example, it is much easier for a man to achieve the status of president or head of a company than for a woman. One can argue about different possibilities for achieving high statuses by the son of a major leader, on the one hand, and the son of a peasant, on the other. The basic social position of a subject in society is partly prescribed, and partly achieved through the abilities and aspirations of the subject himself. In many respects, the boundary between prescribed and achieved statuses is arbitrary, but their conceptual separation is necessary for study and management.

Since each person has a wide range of statuses, it means that he also has many roles corresponding to one or another status. Therefore, in real life there are often role conflicts. In the most general form, two types of such conflicts can be distinguished: between roles or within one role, when it includes incompatible, conflicting responsibilities of the individual. Social experience shows that only a few roles are free from internal tensions and conflicts, which can lead to refusal to fulfill role obligations and psychological stress. There are several types of defense mechanisms that can be used to reduce role tension. These include:

- “rationalization of roles”, when a person unconsciously looks for the negative aspects of a desired but unattainable role in order to calm himself down;

- “separation of roles” - involves temporary withdrawal from life, exclusion of undesirable roles from the individual’s consciousness;

- “role regulation” - is a conscious, deliberate release from responsibility for fulfilling a particular role.

Thus, in modern society, each individual uses mechanisms of unconscious defense and conscious involvement of social structures in order to avoid the negative consequences of role conflicts.

Even if we recognize ourselves as people playing one or another social role, we understand what our social status is at certain periods of life, still the search for ourselves remains the main thing in life.

In the next lesson we will talk about nations and ethnicity, we will study the term “interethnic relations”, how they arise and develop. This lesson is important and will be useful for later social studies courses.

Bibliography

1. Kravchenko A.I. Social science 8. - M.: Russian word.

2. Nikitin A.F. Social studies 8. - M.: Bustard.

3. Bogolyubov L.N., Gorodetskaya N.I., Ivanova L.F. / Ed. Bogolyubova L.N., Ivanova L.F. Social science 8. - M.: Education.

Homework

1. What is the difference between social role and social status?

2. Give examples of social hierarchy.

3. * What social roles do you personally play? What statuses do you have? Express your thoughts in the form of an essay.

A person interacts with different people and social groups every day. It rarely happens that he fully interacts only with members of one group, for example a family, but at the same time he can also be a member of a work collective, public organizations, etc. Entering simultaneously into many social groups, he occupies the corresponding position in each of them. position determined by relationships with other members of the group. To analyze the degree of inclusion of an individual in various groups, as well as the positions that he occupies in each of them, the concepts of social status and are used.

Status (from Latin status - position, condition) - position.

Social status is usually defined as the position of an individual or group in a social system, which has characteristics specific to this system. Each social status has a certain prestige.

All social statuses can be divided into two main types: those that are prescribed to the individual by society or a group, regardless of his abilities and efforts, and those that the individual achieves through his own efforts.

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.

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.

The 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:

1. when an individual occupies a high rank in one group, and a low one in the second;
2. when the rights and obligations of one person's status conflict with or interfere with the rights and obligations of another.

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.

Political, religious, demographic, economic, professional statuses of a person determine the intensity, duration, direction and content of social relations of people.

Role (French role) - 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).

Social roles can be institutionalized and conventional:

Institutionalized: the institution of marriage, family (social roles of mother, daughter, wife),
Conventional: accepted by agreement (a person can refuse to accept them).

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 expectations, norms and sanctions in the social experience of a particular person.

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.

Social roles are associated with social status, profession or type of activity (teacher, student, student, salesperson). These are standardized impersonal roles, built on the basis of rights and responsibilities, regardless of who plays these roles. There are socio-demographic roles: husband, wife, daughter, son, grandson... Man and woman are also social roles, biologically predetermined and presupposing specific modes of behavior, enshrined in social norms and customs.

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

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.

The main characteristics of a social role are highlighted by American sociologist Talcott Parsons.

He suggested the following four characteristics of any role.

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

The scope 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 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, relations are regulated by regulations and, in a certain sense, are formal. The participants in this social interaction are interested in a variety of 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.

The influence of social role on personality development is quite large. Personality development is facilitated by its interaction with persons playing a range of roles, as well as by its participation in the largest possible role repertoire. The more social roles an individual is able to reproduce, the more adapted to life he is. Thus, the process of personality development often acts as the dynamics of mastering social roles.

It is equally important for any society to prescribe roles according to age. Adaptation of individuals to constantly changing ages and age statuses is an eternal problem. Before an individual has time to adapt to one age, another one immediately approaches, with new statuses and new roles. As soon as a young man begins to cope with the embarrassment and complexes of youth, he already stands on the threshold of maturity; As soon as a person begins to show wisdom and experience, old age comes. Each age period is associated with favorable opportunities for the manifestation of human abilities, moreover, it prescribes new statuses and requirements for learning new roles. At a certain age, an individual may experience problems associated with adapting to new role status requirements. A child who is said to be older than his age, that is, has reached the status inherent in the older age category, usually does not fully realize his potential childhood roles, which negatively affects the completeness of his socialization. Often such children feel lonely and defective. At the same time, the status of an immature adult is a combination of adult status with attitudes and behavior characteristic of childhood or adolescence. Such a person usually has conflicts when performing roles appropriate to his age. These two examples show unsuccessful adaptation to the age statuses prescribed by society.

Mastering a new role can make a huge difference in changing a person. In psychotherapy, there is even a corresponding method of behavior correction - image therapy (image - image). The patient is asked to enter a new image, to play a role, as in a play. In this case, the responsibility function is not borne by the person himself, but by his role, which sets new patterns of behavior. A person is forced to act differently based on a new role. Despite the conventionality of this method, the effectiveness of its use was quite high, since the subject was given the opportunity to release suppressed drives, if not in life, then at least during the game. The sociodramatic approach to the interpretation of human actions is widely known. Life is viewed as a drama, each participant in which plays his own specific role. Playing roles gives not only a psychotherapeutic, but also a developmental effect.