Role theory is generally concerned with explaining the relationship between the individual and society. It has guided empirical research on a range of topics, including the structure of interaction in small groups, the maintenance of gender differences, the development of commitment to deviant behavior, the genesis and resolution of conflict in organizations, and the construction of personal identity. Although the development of role theory has occurred primarily within sociology, it originated in several different social science disciplines. The first significant contributions were published in the 1930s with independent work by the anthropologist Ralph Linton (18931953), the psychotherapist Jacob Moreno (1889-1974), and the social philosopher George Herbert Mead (18631931). Of these three, Mead’s contributions have been the most significant as he was an important influence on the emerging new discipline of sociology. Within sociology, there have been two distinct traditions of role theory; these have been nominally categorized as the structural and interactionist schools.
THE STRUCTURAL SCHOOL
Starting in the 1950s and continuing through the 1960s, role theory was associated mostly with the work of the American sociologist Talcott Parsons (1902-1979). During this period, Parsons and his associates were developing a comprehensive theory of society that came to be known as structural functionalism. Under structural functionalism, society is viewed as a complex system of structures and processes with layers of interconnected subsystems, institutions, values, positions, and roles. In Parsons’s scheme, the role concept is used to explain how individual desires and motivations are reconciled with the collective needs of society. This occurs in part through the process of socialization, where kinship, educational, and religious institutions transmit societal values. When individuals are properly socialized, they fulfill the expectations and needs of an orderly social system by playing the roles associated with their position in society. Parsons argued, for example, that the preponderance of men in the occupational system of the 1940s was functional in that it eliminated competition for status between husband and wife. While the husband achieved status through his role as provider in a high-prestige job, the wife achieved a functionally equivalent status in her role as homemaker where prestige could be achieved through superiority in personal appearance, house furnishings, and other artistic pursuits.
In the structural tradition, roles are typically defined as the socially shared expectations and behaviors associated with a position in society. Because individuals have multiple positions in society, however, there are times when role expectations pull in competing directions so that fulfilling one role may mean failing to fulfill another. This dilemma has been called role conflict, and it can take several different forms. One of these is role overload, which occurs when there is not enough time or energy to play all the roles in one’s role set. Related structural interpretations of role theory have been concerned with differentiating among the different types of roles, describing changes in roles, and explaining why people often deviate from role expectations.
THE INTERACTIONIST SCHOOL
By the middle of the 1960s a competing version of role theory was in development. The so-called interactionist school emerged initially as a critique of the dominant structural perspective. The interactionist critics argued that the structural approach to role theory put too much emphasis on societal consensus, relied naively on the existence of widespread conformity with social norms, and held an overly mechanical and deterministic view of social behavior.
The American sociologist Ralph H. Turner spearheaded the development of the interactionist approach by introducing the idea of role making. According to Turner, in everyday situations there is always a degree of uncertainty and discretion. Since roles can only suggest general patterns of action, individuals must cooperate to create and modify roles in particular settings. Research has shown this to be true even in strict, hierarchical organizations such as the military and correctional institutions, where positions are rigidly defined and rules are enforced within a clear authority structure. From the interactionist perspective, understanding the process by which individuals learn to coordinate their actions and construct role-related behavior is crucial.
The central idea in the coordination of joint action is a process called role taking, a concept developed in the seminal work of Mead. Role taking, sometimes called taking the role of other, occurs when an actor anticipates the behavior of others in specific situations and adjusts his or her action accordingly. This uniquely human ability develops along with language and other basic skills of symbolic interaction. Once in place, a capacity for role taking enables mutual understanding, coordinated action, and the development of common plans. It is also fundamental to the more complex process of building and maintaining large social institutions. Thus, in contrast to the top-down structural approach to role behavior that focuses on role playing, the interactionists present a bottom-up approach that stresses the creative aspects of role making.
INTEGRATION
After the 1980s, differences between structuralists and interactionists gave way to more synthetic approaches where ideas from both theoretical traditions were integrated. Thus, there developed a general acknowledgment that social roles can profoundly limit and structure patterns of social behavior while at the same time they can serve as resources for enabling and facilitating other actions. Rather than emphasizing role playing or role making, it became more productive to see roles as social resources that are deployed by institutions and persons in different ways; in short, the emphasis was now on role using.
Although role theory is no longer central to most comprehensive theories of society, as it was for Parsons and Mead, it does continue to generate a stream of work at different levels of analysis. At the social psychological level, for example, scholars have found that social roles are central components of one’s overall identity, and evidence shows that roles have profound influence on people’s behavior in social settings, on how they organize and process information, and on their political, economic, and moral priorities. At the macro and institutional level, research has documented the increasing proliferation of new, more specialized roles in modern society as well as the changing nature of traditional roles resulting from economic and cultural globalization.
