Table of Contents

Meaning of Role

Definition of Role

Characteristics of the Role

3
1. Action Aspect of Status

2. Changing Concept of Role

3
3. Limited Field of Operation
3
4. Roles are not Performed 100% for the Fulfillment of the Expectations
4
5. Difference in the Importance of Role

Types of Role

1.

Ascribed Role

2.

Achieved Role

Summary/Conclusion of Role

References

Meaning of Role:
The position or the situation that a person occupies in society is called status. As a result of that
status and position he is expected to discharge certain functions. These functions are known as
roles. In life, we have a great variety of roles father, mother, businessman, shop assistant,
consumer, bus-driver, teacher, voter, and politician and so on. These roles are an integral part of
group behaviour.
According to Linton. The term role is used to designate the sum total of the cultural pattern
associated with a particular status. It thus includes attitude, values and behaviour ascribed by the
society to any and all person occupying this status. In so far as it represents overt behaviour
and a role has the dynamic aspect of the status: what is the individual has to do in order to
validate the occupation of the status.
A role is, as Ogburn and Nimkoff say, a set of socially expected and approved behavior patterns,
consisting of both duties and privileges associated with a particular position in a group. Role is
the behavioural enacting of the patterned expectations attributed to that position, In role
performance, the emphasis is on quality. Ones role as a father implies a more specific and
particular manner of performance.
Roles are allocated according to the positions (called status) people occupy in the social system.
Each status has its own set of role requirements. Social groups operates harmoniously and
effectively to the extent that performance conform to the role requirements. Role is
sociologically important because it demonstrates how individual activity is socially determined
and thus follows a regular patterns.
A role exists in a particular setting in relation to other roles. Thus, the role bf father implies the
role of child, the role of worker implies the role of employer, and the role of doctor implies the
role of patient.

www.yourarticlelibrary.com/sociology/role-the-meaning...role-in-sociology/8537

Definition of Role :
The culturally defined set of behaviours that are considered appropriate
within a given society.
OR
The part each person must play to create with the status for an individual in
society.
OR
According to Shakespeare " The world is a stage and all the men and women
merely players.

Characteristics of the Role:

Characteristics of the role may be studied in the following heads:
1. Action Aspect of Status:

The role is in fact the action aspect of status. In involves various types of actions that a person
has to perform in accordance with the expectations of the society. These actions are dependent
not on the individuals will but on the social sanction. That is why it is said that every social role
has a cultural basis.
2. Changing Concept of Role:

Social roles as already stated, are in accordance with the social values, ideals, patterns etc. These
ideals, values and objects change and so the concept of the role also changes. The role which is
justified at a particular time may not be justified at some other time.
3. Limited Field of Operation:

Every role has a limited area of operation and the role has to be confined within that. For
example an officer has a role to play in the office but when he reaches his family, that role
ceases.

4. Roles are not Performed 100% for the Fulfillment of the Expectations:

It is not possible for anyone to perform his role fully in accordance with the expectations of the
society. There is bound to be some distinctions. For example one may not be able to perform his
role to the full satisfaction of the children.
5. Difference in the Importance of Role:

From the socio-cultural point of view all the roles are not equally important. Some of the roles
are more important while the others are less. The, roles that are most important are called key
roles while the roles that are of general importance, are called general roles.
A role (also rle or social role) is a set of connected behaviours, rights, obligations, beliefs, and
norms as conceptualized by people in a social situation. It is an expected or free or continuously
changing behaviour and may have a given individual social status or social position. It is vital to
both functionalist and interactionistunderstandings of society. Social role posits the following
about social behaviour:
1. The division of labour in society takes the form of the interaction among heterogeneous
specialised positions, we call roles.
2. Social roles included appropriate and permitted forms of behaviour, guided by
social norms, which are commonly known and hence determine the expectations for
appropriate behaviour in these roles.
3. Roles are occupied by individuals, who are called actors.
4. When

individuals

approve

of

social

role

(i.e.,

they

consider

the

role legitimate and constructive), they will incur costs to conform to role norms, and will
also incur costs to punish those who violate role norms.
5. Changed conditions can render a social role outdated or illegitimate, in which case social
pressures are likely to lead to role change.
5

6. The anticipation of rewards and punishments, as well as the satisfaction of behaving

prosocially, account for why agents conform to role requirements.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roll

Types of Role:
In broader sense the role can be classified into two categories.
1. Ascribed Role
2. Achieved Role
1.

Ascribed Role:

Ascribed roles are assigned to an individual automatically at the time of one's birth. In this
category race, sex and caste are included, as the role in these categories are fixed and rigid. The
role result in different types of personalities. For example, the personality of a boy is quite
different from a girl in Pakistanis society.
The ascribed roles are contrary to individual freedom of occupational choice, social mobility and
equality of educational opportunity.
Such a rigid system of social stratification kills the initiative of talented persons.
2.

Achieved Role:

Achieved roles are left open to an individual's initiative, abilities or efforts. For example every
person is free to complete for the president ship of Pakistan, if he or she fulfills the basic
qualification laid down for the office in the constitution. In the same way an individual can
achieve the role of a doctor, professor, engineer etc after having requisite qualification in every
competitive society there are multifarious roles, which are achieved by competition.
It should also be taken into consideration that "free competition" to achieved these roles
(achieved roles ) may be an "ideal pattern" and the "real culture pattern" may be quite different.
For example, American society is a free and a competitive society but a black man cannot
compete for the president ship of United States of America.
Role is the changing aspect of status. The roles offer from society to society and in the same way
(normal or abnormal ) personalities also differ from place to place. Roles are learnt in most of the
cases during the course of socialisation an individual.
Dr. Anwar Alam University of Peshawar May 2008.

Suummary/Conclusion of Role :
All the participants in a collective activity have particular roles to pay. These roles form a
system. The teller's role and the customer's role are interdependent aspects of a collective
activity. Each require some thing from the other e.g the role of a banker and the role of a
customer , the role of a doctor, and patient, the role of a father and son,mother, daughter, brother
and sister etc.
Every person has it's own role in society. If everyone try to play their own role in society then
there will be prosperous development of society. Society will maintain only if evey individual of
society play their role. It is not possible that a society will remain stable without the role of
women. As every men has a specific role in society, similarly every woman has a specific and
most important role in society. Without the combination of men and women society will be
nothing. In order to maintain a prosperous society men and women both have to play their role.

References
Dr. Anwar Alam University of Peshawar May 2008.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roll
www.yourarticlelibrary.com/sociology/role-the-meaning...role-in-sociology/8537