Read also:
|
A person occupies a certain position in society, in sociology called the concept of “status”. A person has a whole set of statuses. At the same time he can be a son, father, husband, Kalmyk, deputy.
Statuses can be divided into two main groups: prescribed (ascriptive) and achieved. A person receives ascriptive status from birth - gender, race, surname. The achieved status (doctor, engineer, accountant, specialist) is acquired by the individual as a result of free choice and targeted efforts. To achieve the achieved statuses, it is necessary to obtain an education, pass a competitive selection when applying for a job, and endure probationary period constantly improve your professional skills. For each person, one of his statuses will be the main one. Thus, a man can identify his status with his place of work and position, a woman with her husband’s social position. Achieved statuses are associated with a person’s abilities. For example, when hiring, it is not so much the nobility of origin, gender or nationality that is taken into account, but the level vocational training and so on.
Sometimes statuses can be mixed. There are also temporary and permanent statuses. Temporary statuses are transient and not clearly defined. For example, a person loses his status as a young person when he enters adulthood; A university graduate who has received a diploma of education loses the status of a student.
Closely related to the concept of “status” is another category called role. A role is a system of instructions that is created as a result of the interaction process and depends on status. In other words, a role is a prescribed expectation of behavior in accordance with the status occupied. Status is a set of rights and responsibilities, and a role is an aspect of status.
Roles are divided into three groups:
1) psychosomatic, characterized by biological needs adapted to culture;
2) psychodramatic, in which the expectations of the social environment determine the behavior of the individual;
3) social, which are associated with expectations of behavior corresponding to a certain social status.
A person performs in accordance with his status social roles, and the set of roles performed by an individual is called a role set. This is due to the fact that in real life the individual interacts with persons endowed with various statuses. Throughout life, a person masters and changes many roles.
First he masters the role of a child, then a student, a comrade, a student, young worker, an experienced specialist, husband or wife, father or mother, etc.
The role theory of personality arose in American social psychology of the 30s (J. Mead) and was developed in various sociological movements (vs.-Parsons). Personality is a function of many social roles inherent in an individual in society. A social role is a model of behavior specified by the social position of an individual in the system of social relations.
Components of a social role:
1) role expectations (what is expected from a particular role);
2) role behavior (what he actually does within the framework of his role). Interpersonal role - functions performed by a person in personal relationships with other people. Role acceptance is an attempt to assume the behavior of a person in another situation or another role. Role playing is actions associated with actual role behavior, while role taking only pretends to be a game.
Roles can be understood as:
1) objectively (from the point of view of the social significance of the role);
2) subjectively (refracted in the consciousness of the individual).
Role conflict - contradictions that arise between functions performed by one person (example - conflict between professional and family life women). Mastering the rules of role behavior facilitates the existence of an individual in society and reduces the degree of conflict.
The role theory of personality is one of the approaches to the study of personality, according to which it is described through the social functions and patterns of behavior learned and accepted by it or forced to perform - roles. Such social roles arise from her social status. The main provisions of this theory were formulated by the American sociologist and social psychologist J.G. Mead in the books “Role, Self and Society” (1934), “The Study of Man” (1936). He believed that we all learn role behavior through the perception of ourselves as some person significant to us. A person always sees himself through the eyes of others and either begins to play along with the expectations of others, or continues to defend his role. In mastering role functions, Mead identified three stages: 1) imitation, ᴛ.ᴇ. mechanical repetition; 2) playing, ᴛ.ᴇ. transition from one role to another; 3) group membership, ᴛ.ᴇ. mastering a certain role through the eyes of a person who is significant for this person social group.
At the same time, the key concept of this theory - “social role” - was developed at the beginning of the 20th century. in the works of E. Durkheim, M. Weber, and later T. Parsons, R. Lipton and others. Social role(from French role) - a pattern of behavior that has been consolidated, established, selected as appropriate for people occupying a particular position (status) in the system public relations.
Social role is usually viewed in two aspects: role expectation and role performance. Role Expectation- this is the expected behavior pattern associated with the passed status, ᴛ.ᴇ. typical behavior (within the framework of norms and standards) for people of a given status in a given social system. In other words, this is the behavior that others expect from us, knowing our social status. Role-playing- this is the actual, real behavior of a person occupying one or another social position (social status).
In order to illustrate the influence of role expectations on people's behavior, let us turn to the “prison” experiment of the American researcher Philip Zimbardo. This experiment began when an advertisement was posted in one of the prestigious American colleges: “For psychological studies of prison life, male students are required, completely healthy in physical and mental respects...”. The experiment was planned to be carried out over one to two weeks. After the participants were selected, they were divided into two parts in arithmetic order. One part was appointed "prisoners", the other - "jailers". Then everyone was transported to prison, where the jailers began to perform their duties. They stripped and searched the “prisoners” and took them to their cells, although no one ordered them to do this. On the whole, the first day went well with a good-natured and jocular attitude on both sides. Moreover, already on the second day the relationship deteriorated so much that the experimenters had to restrain the “jailers” from being too harsh. On the sixth day, the experiment had to be stopped because everyone was injured. This experiment showed that functional expediency (the importance of maintaining order) and sociocultural traditions (how one should behave) predetermined the behavior of its participants. They “entered the role” and role expectations determined quite typical and easily recognizable behavior. Good relations burst when these good guys found themselves in different social roles. It was the “grip” of social roles that predetermined the behavior of the participants in this experiment. Let us note that there is never an identity between role expectation and role performance, although there is a tendency to achieve it. In the normative structure of a social role, four elements are usually distinguished: 1) a description of the type of behavior corresponding to this role; 2) instructions, requirements associated with this behavior; 3) assessment of the performance of the prescribed role; 4) sanctions, which can be both negative and positive.
Each person has many social statuses, and each of his statuses corresponds to a spectrum of roles. The set of roles corresponding to this status is usually called role set. However, it can be stated that each person performs many social roles in society. In this regard, the problem of role conflict arises.
Role conflict - This is a clash of role demands placed on a person, caused by the multiplicity of roles simultaneously performed by him, as well as other reasons. Having general idea about the essence of role conflicts, they can be classified.
First of all, these are conflicts caused by differences in the understanding of one’s role between the individual and those around him. For example, a university teacher believes that he can achieve deep understanding of the program of his subject by students without severe pressure on them, but a different methodological approach prevails at the department.
Secondly, there is conflict between different aspects of the same role. For example, a lawyer is required to take all measures to justify his client, but as a lawyer, he is also expected to fight offenses that undermine the foundations of society.
Thirdly, this is a conflict between the qualities necessary to fulfill a given social role and the expectations of people significant to this person. Thus, among athletes, such character traits as firmness, will, independence, emotional restraint, and the desire to win are highly valued. At the same time, researchers Stein and Hoffman (1978) found that girls find these traits unpleasant. They are more attracted to sincerity, depth of feelings, and the ability to empathize. As a result, athletes are forced to choose between high achievements in sports and attention from the fair sex.
Fourthly, this is a conflict caused by opposing demands for the performance of the same role on the part of different people. For example, from a woman her boss demands high dedication at work, and her husband demands high dedication at home.
Fifthly, there is a conflict between personal qualities individuals and role requirements. It's no secret that there are many people who occupy positions for which they do not have the necessary qualities. As a result, they are forced to painfully rebuild, as they say, “to step over themselves.”
Role conflicts give rise to role tension, which manifests itself in various everyday and professional troubles. For this reason, it is important to know some ways reducing role tension. One is that certain roles are recognized as more important than others. So, in some cases you have to choose what is more important: family or work. For women, it is considered normal to choose the first, and for men - the second. The separation between two role systems, in particular family and work, reduces role conflict.
6.7.The theory of the "mirror self"
One of the first theories of personality in sociology and psychology was the theory of the “mirror self.” It didn't come from internal characteristics of a person, but from the recognition of the decisive role of the interaction of individuals who act in relation to each of them as “mirrors” of his Self. "I" (image of "I")- This is the central concept of a number of interpretations of personality. "I" is the self, ᴛ.ᴇ. integral integrity, “single personality,” “authenticity” of the individual, his identity with himself, on the basis of which he distinguishes himself from the outside world and other people.
W. James, one of the founders of this theory, distinguished the “social I” in the Self, which was what those around him recognize a given person. A person has as many “social selves” as there are individuals and groups whose opinions are important to him.
This idea was developed by C.H. Cooley, an American sociologist and social psychologist. He considered the ability of an individual to distinguish himself from a group and become aware of his Self as a sign of a truly social being. Required condition This, according to Cooley, is the individual’s communication with other people and the assimilation of their opinions about him. There is no sense of I without the corresponding feelings of We, He or Οʜᴎ. The conscious actions of an individual are always social. Οʜᴎ means for a person to correlate his actions with those ideas about his Self that other people have. Other people are the mirrors in which an individual’s image of himself is formed.
According to Cooley, personality is the totality of a person’s mental reactions to the opinions of people around him. His own self is the summation of the impressions that he thinks he makes on others. “I” includes: 1) the idea of “how I appear to another person”, 2) the idea of “how this other evaluates my image”, 3) the resulting specific “feeling of I” such as pride or humiliation - “ self-respect." All this adds up to the human “sense of personal certainty” - the “mirror self”.
“I” acts as a synthesis of the social and individual in a person, the guarantor and result of his interaction with society. At the same time, society is revealed to the individual in the form of social aspects of his own personality. It practically does not exist outside the consciousness of the individual. Thus, the concept of “I” is essentially a product of the imagination.
The theory of the “mirror self” was developed by J. Mead, who introduced the concept of “stages” of the formation of the self. Stages of accepting the role of another, others and, finally,
“generalized other” expressed different stages of the individual’s transformation into a reflective social self, and developed the individual’s skills in relating to himself as a social object.
SECTION 7. SOCIAL GROUPS, INSTITUTIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS
The role theory of personality is an approach to the study of personality, according to which a person is described by means of social functions and patterns of behavior learned and accepted by him (internalization) or forced to perform - roles that arise from his social status in a given society or social group. The main provisions of the theory of social roles were formulated by the American social psychologist J. Mead and anthropologist R. Linton. The first focused on the mechanisms of “role learning”, mastering roles in the processes of interpersonal communication (interaction), emphasizing the stimulating effect of “role expectations” on the part of persons significant to the individual with whom he enters into communication. The second drew attention to the socio-cultural nature of role prescriptions and their connection with the social position of the individual, as well as the purpose of social and group sanctions. Within the framework of role theory, the following phenomena were experimentally identified: role conflict - the subject’s experience of ambiguity or confrontation of role requirements on the part of different social communities of which he is a member, which creates stressful situation; integration and disintegration of the role structure of the individual - consequences of harmony or conflict social relations.
There are different leading social roles arising from social structure society, and roles that arise relatively arbitrarily in group interactions and imply an active social connotation of their implementation. These features of the role approach are most clearly presented in the concept of the West German sociologist R. Dahrendorf, who considers a person as a deindividualized product of role prescriptions, which in certain conditions reflects the alienation of the individual.
Overcoming the one-sidedness of the role approach to the study of personality involves the analysis of its properties (self-awareness, worldview, personality disposition), expressed in a variety of creative manifestations, including active formation new social necessary functions and patterns of behavior (social creativity), personalized performance of social functions, taking into account socio-local conditions to achieve socially significant goals.
The role is most often understood as social function, a model of behavior objectively specified by the social position of an individual in the system of social or interpersonal relationships. The performance of the role must correspond to accepted social norms and the expectations of others, regardless of individual characteristics personality, since the social role arises from supra-individual social relations and relationships between people carrying out joint activities. There are various theories of individual role behavior. For example, the concept of symbolic interactionism is associated with the introduction by the American psychologist J. Mead of the concept of “exchange of symbols,” which are expressed in verbal and other forms by ideas about the interaction partner and his expectation of certain actions on the part of the subject.
The fulfillment of a social role is associated both with the interests of large communities arising from the common conditions of their life, and with spontaneously arising joint activities(during the game, communication, etc.). In the latter case, the social role has a subjective connotation, which manifests itself in the style of role behavior, the level of activity of performance, which in turn depends on the individual personal characteristics of the subject and on how deeply he perceives this social role. An individual’s acceptance of a social role depends on many conditions, among which the conformity of the role with the needs and interests of the individual in self-development and self-realization is crucial. Creation favorable conditions for self-realization and personal development leads to the fact that the role-based coloring of social behavior is preserved. The latter is regulated not so much by the requirements of fulfilling a given role, but by a conscious sense of purpose and flexible, creative use of objective resources to achieve a socially significant goal.
So, a social role is a set of norms that determine the behavior of those acting in social environment persons depending on their status or position, and the behavior itself that implements these norms. In a role description, society or any social group appears as a set of certain social positions (worker, scientist, etc.), being in which a person is obliged to obey the “social order” or the expectations of other people associated with this position. By fulfilling this “social order”, a person carries out one of several possible options playing a role (say, a lazy or diligent student).
American sociologists (R. Linton, J. Mead) interpret the social role differently - as a unit of social structure (R. Linton) or in terms of direct interaction between people ( role playing game), during which, due to the fact that a person imagines himself in the role of another, assimilation occurs social norms and the social is formed in the individual. In reality, role expectations are never straightforward. In addition, a person often finds himself in a situation of role conflict when he different roles turn out to be poorly compatible.
Human activity is not limited to role-playing, i.e. patterned behavior; Outside the social role, various types of deviant and spontaneous behavior remain, including innovative human activity that creates new norms and new roles. In the same way, the structure of personality is not reduced to a set of social roles: their internalization (assimilation) and subordination always presuppose a specific individuality that develops over the course of time. life path individual and characterized by great stability.
The role theory of personality, contributed to by such American sociologists as Ralph Linton, George Mead, Robert Merton, Talcott Parsons, Erving Goffman, had a significant influence on the development of the sociology of personality. This theory is based on the recognition that a person, in interaction with other people, carries out such actions that meet the totality of requirements presented to him by a certain social community or society as a whole, depending on his social status. The behavior expected by the social environment from an individual with a certain status is his social role. However, a person in his life interacts not with one individual or one social group, but with many individuals and groups. Each such community presents it with its own, often contradictory, demands. Therefore, an individual has to perform not one, but several, sometimes many, social roles. The same person, interacting with different individuals and groups, can play in one case the role of a student, in another - a friend or comrade, in a third - a brother, in a fourth - a son, in a fifth - a member of a football team, in a sixth - a member of a subcultural groups, etc. It is in the process of mastering and performing various roles that the most important social quality, which alone makes an individual a person - selfhood, i.e. self-identification of an individual with himself.
As J. Mead established, vital role In the development of this process during the childhood period of personality formation, play is performed, during which the child learns to take on the role of another and perceive his “I” not only as himself, but also as an object of someone’s expectations. “The child plays that he is a mother, a teacher, a policeman, that is, there is the adoption of various roles,” writes J. Mead. But that's only simplest form formation of the child's self. This process becomes more complex when the game becomes a competition, where each participant must be ready to accept the attitude of any other participant in the competition, and these different roles must be in a certain relationship with each other.
friend. In such a competition, the child must have some organization of these roles; otherwise he will not be able to participate in this competition. Competition represents a transition in a child's life from the stage of accepting the roles of others in play to the stage of an organized role, which is essential for self-awareness."
The formation of self-awareness, the formation of the individual’s self is thus associated with a whole set of social roles performed by it. These roles interact with each other in a certain way, forming, according to R. Merton’s definition, a kind of “role set”, denoting a set of roles characteristic of a given individual in certain situations. As a result, the role requirements, social in their genesis, internalized by the individual as norms dictated to him by society, become structural components of the human personality. The structure and essence of personality are connected with the roles it performs not only by external, superficial connections like a mask on the face of a clown, but also by very deep ones, rooted in the self of a person. In certain situations, a gap between the role-mask and the essence of a person may occur; in other cases, the mask, merging too closely with the personality, can deform and depersonalize it. This was shown with the greatest depth of penetration into the intricacies of the human psyche by F.M. Dostoevsky in the novel "Demons" on life destiny Nikolai Stavrogin, who has “a stone mask instead of a face.” Having hidden and then suppressed the human appearance, the mask in this case frees the hero of the novel from truly human feelings and attachments, makes him involved in the inhuman social demon of “permissiveness,” deforms and depersonalizes the personality, leading to its disintegration and destruction.
The theory of personality as a subject and object of activity was developed in Marxist sociology, the role theory of personality by C. Cooley, R. Dahrendorf, R. Minton, R. Merton and others.
In Western sociology, sociological concepts of personality are a collective concept that unites a number of theories that recognize the human personality as a specific formation derived from certain factors.
Mirror Self Theory;
Role theory;
Separate branches of neobehaviorism in sociology;
Reference group theories;
Installations and some others.
In the theory of the mirror “I” (Cooley, J. Mead), personality was considered as a function derived from the completely socially determined “I” of a person. Similar views were defended by supporters of role theory (R. Linton, Moreno, T. Parsons, etc.): personality is a function of the totality of social roles that an individual performs in society. Since roles are associated with a person’s being in social groups, then personality is a derivative of the totality of a person in social groups, then personality is thereby a derivative of the totality of those groups in which the individual is included.
Basic provisions of the role theory of personality
The role theory of personality considers human behavior as the play of actors; the role requires certain behavior from the actors, which corresponds or does not correspond to the expected.
The classic definition of role theory (social role) was given in 1936 by R. Linton. In the understanding of R. Linton, the concept of role refers to such situations of social interaction when certain behavioral stereotypes are regularly reproduced over a long period of time. Linton gave a sociological interpretation of the concept of role, highlighting statuses in the structure of social relations, i.e. certain positions and the associated sets of rights and obligations.
T. Shibutani distinguishes 2 types of roles - conventional and interpersonal.
A conventional role is a prescribed pattern of behavior that is expected and required of a person in a given situation. interpersonal roles determined by the interaction of people with each other: “The concept of “social status,” which refers to a person’s position in society, should not be confused with the concept of “conventional role,” which refers to the contribution a participant makes to an organized enterprise. Status, once established, remains relatively constant. It can increase, but slowly and decreases only in connection with actions regarded as degradation. But each person plays many roles every day. A limited set of interrelated roles is associated with a certain position in society
There are 4 elements in the structure of a social role:
A description of the type of behavior appropriate for the role.
Requirements associated with this behavior.
Assessing the performance of the assigned role.
Sanctions within the requirements of the social system.
An attempt to systematize roles was made by T. Parsons. Any of the roles is described by five main characteristics:
Emotional;
Method of receipt;
Scale;
Formalization;
Motivation.
Russian scientist I.S. Kohn emphasizes “the main concept for describing personality is the concept of social role”
I.S. Kon notes that before reacting to an external symbol, a person must coordinate his reaction with the logic of the role he has assumed. I.S. Cohn comes to the conclusion that the process of personality formation means its adaptation to various social roles and the creation of its own role system, where a person identifies himself with various roles. Developing this idea, V.A. Yadov writes: “Despite the limitations and incompleteness of such a representation, which minimizes the subjective principle (it comes down to the adaptive activity of individuals), the role reflection of personality covers important points human essence. The latter, as is well known, lies not in the properties of individuality, but in the social, generalized properties of people, making them a product of a given system of social relations. The socially typical dominates the individually unique.
In the role theory of T. Parsons, the utilitarian idea of the social system as a system of rational role relations is overcome, and the mechanisms of emotional and normative regulation of role interactions are laid out. A role is defined as behavior normatively regulated by generally accepted values. Roles are divided into those prescribed by nature, i.e. by birth, age, sex, caste and attainment: “Within the category of non-social objects as units there is a further division which is not directly relevant to the classification of modalities: this is the distinction between organisms and other non-social objects. In conceptualizing them, action theory does not view the actor as an organism; the generally accepted (though usually implicit) assumption that he is such is the fundamental error that biologizes the analysis of behavior. But the specific individual who performs the behavior still always represents a certain aspect of the organism. It must be distinguished from other objects because in its personal aspect it is “attached” to a separate organism. This is, of course, equally true for the ego and the other. The qualities and capacities for action of an organism provide criteria that can be an extremely important focus for the orientation of action, again both for the ego’s own organism and for the organism of the “other.”
For example, the significance of one's own gender for the personal structure of the ego, as well as in his own "acceptance" of his sexual role, can be analyzed in terms of the role of certain "characteristics" of his body as the object of his orientation, thanks to which he "counts himself" among others. persons of the same sex as different from persons of the opposite sex. The same applies, of course, to abilities or properties such as physical strength or dexterity."
Interactionist concepts shift the emphasis from standardized role behavior to specific, situational properties of people's interactions.
The most important category of interactionists D. Mead, G. Blumer, T. Kuhn, I. Goffman is “role behavior”. Interactionalists divide roles into conventional ones, which are standardized and impersonal, built on the basis of rights and responsibilities, and “interpersonal roles,” in which rights and responsibilities depend entirely on the individual characteristics of the participants in the interaction.