The theory of roles, or the socio-psychological theory of symbolic interactionism (J. Mead, G. Bloomer, E. Hoffman, M. Kuhn, and others) considers a person from the point of view of her social roles. Refers to sociological concepts, because it claims that social environment is a decisive factor in the development of personality and highlights the importance of interpersonal interaction between people (interaction), role behavior.

Important in the theory of roles is the assertion that the basic mechanism and structure of the personality are associated with the role essence. The personality is considered as a set of its social roles. According to these views, a person in his life, in communication with other people, activities never remains "just a person", but always acts in one role or another, is the bearer of certain social functions and societies. standards.

Role play has great importance in the development of a person's personality The development of the psyche, mental activity, social needs occurs only in the performance of certain social role functions, and the socialization of a person is the formation of its social roles.

Social roles in the theory of roles are considered in three ways: 1) sociologically - as a system of role expectations, i.e., a role model set by society, which is of great importance for the formation of a person's personality and mastery of social roles; 2) in the socio-psychological - as the performance of the role and the implementation of interpersonal interaction; 3) in the psychological - as an internal or imaginary role, which is not always realized in role-playing behavior, but in a certain way influences it.

The relationship of these three aspects is the role mechanism of the personality. At the same time, social role expectations (expectations) that determine human behavior are considered to be the leading ones, for which the concept of interactionism by the founder himself, J. Mead, is called "social behaviorism". One of the most important concepts of the Theory of roles is "accepting the role of another", i.e., imagining oneself in the place of an interaction partner and understanding his role behavior. At the same time, a person brings his expectations in relation to this person in accordance with his social roles. Without such a correspondence, interaction cannot occur, and a person cannot become social being to realize the significance and responsibility of their own actions and deeds.

The characteristic of a small group as a set of subjects of communication suggests its consideration as a "system of systems". This means that a small group is a specific socio-psychological system that integrates individuals as "microsystems".

L.P. Bueva, who proposed this approach, considers the personality to be an open and dynamic system. It's hard to disagree with this.

I. S. Kon also understands personality as a system. He believes that, objectively, the personality system can best be described as the totality of its social roles. According to I.S. Kohn,

"the concept of personality means a holistic person in the unity of his individual abilities and the social functions (roles) performed by him."

Social functions reveal its belonging to a certain social group, they fix its rights and obligations in relation to the group. The personality is not limited to one role, the objective structure of the personality is revealed as the totality, the integrity of its roles in society.

In the literature, there are different points of view on the role behavior of the individual. Each of them reflects a subjective view of the essence and content of the concept of "role". But it is objective that sociology has developed a role theory of personality.

According to V. A. Yadov, the role theory of personality is a theory in which a personality is described by means of learned and accepted by the subject (internalized) or forced to perform (non-internalized) social functions and patterns of behavior - roles determined by the social status of the individual in society or social group.

The role theory of personality is an integration of the achievements of sociology and social psychology in the study of personality.

The main provisions of the role theory of personality were formed in social psychology by J. Mead, and in sociology by the social anthropologist R. Linton.

J. Mead focuses on "learning the role", mastering roles in the processes of interpersonal interaction (interaction), emphasizing the stimulating effect of "role expectations" on the part of "significant" for this individual persons with whom he enters into communication.

R. Linton singles out, first of all, the sociocultural nature of role prescriptions and their connection with the social position of the individual, as well as the maintenance of role requirements by a system of social and group sanctions.

Within the framework of the role theory of personality, such phenomena as

• "role conflict" - the experience by the subject of the ambiguity or inconsistency of role requirements from different social communities, of which he is a member; what creates a stressful situation;
• "integration and disintegration" of the role structure of the personality - as a consequence of the harmony or conflict of social relations.

Based on this theory, A. A. Nalchadpsyan developed the concept of role behavior. From his point of view, role behavior is the behavior of an individual in a group, determined by her status and the role she plays in accordance with this status.

Concept social role associated with norms and expectations, includes the following "blocks":

• represented role (the system of expectations of the individual and certain groups);
• subjective role (those expectations (expectations) that a person associates with his status, i.e. his subjective ideas about how he should act in relation to persons with other statuses);
• role played (the observed behavior of a person who has given status, in relation to another person with a different status).

The style of role behavior is the "personal coloring" of the performance of the role, depending on the temperament, character, motivation and other characteristics of the individual, on her knowledge and skills.

The role behavior of the personality is two-dimensional: these are actions

1. from regulatory requirements (I am in the role offered by the circumstances),
2. from personal claims (I as such).

The first plan of behavior is a social form of role-playing actions. Second plan - psychological way role-playing self-realization.

• personal concept;
• role expectations;
• personal role specificity;
• personal strategy for the implementation of the role;
• personal cognitive program.

The concept of social role involves understanding the following four points:

• firstly, the fact that the social role is regulated by certain rights and obligations both in society as a whole and in small groups into which the individual is included by his life activity;
• secondly, that the person himself has a certain opinion about how he will play his role;
• thirdly, that various roles have different significance for the individual;
• fourthly, the fact that the role of the individual is manifested in her real behavior.

The acceptance of a role by a person - in addition to dependence on social factors - depends on her gender, age, typological characteristics. nervous system abilities, health status, etc.

There is a normative structure for the performance of a social role, consisting of a description of behavior (corresponding to this role); instructions (requirements for this behavior); assessing the performance of the assigned role; sanctions (for violation of prescribed requirements). Each the social system has its own "set of roles", which is determined:

• firstly, the stable expectations of society or a group regarding the behavior of a person with a certain status;
• secondly, the aggregate value orientations personalities, called "internalized" (internally accepted) role;
• thirdly, by the fact that there are always people whose behavior and internal appearance are considered as the ideal embodiment of the role and serve as a role model.

The performance of social roles can cause the following conflicts:

• intrapersonal (caused by contradictions in the requirements for the behavior of the individual in its various social roles).
• intra-role (arises as a result of contradictions in the requirements for the performance of a social role by different participants in the interaction);
• personality-role (a consequence of the mismatch of a person's ideas about himself and his role functions);
• innovative (as a result of a discrepancy between previously formed value orientations and the requirements of a new social situation).

We have always been interested in the communicative roles of the individual: it is their analysis that makes it possible to approach a small group as a set of subjects of communication. But this is a first-level approach, i.e. subjective. Within its framework, we developed a morphology of the role, including

1. role-playing strategy (a way to attach to a communication partner);
2. role task (a goal to be achieved in a problem situation);
3. role-playing program (a system of purposeful, ordered actions);
4. role-playing actions (means to achieve the goal);
5. role competence (knowledge of the conditions of action);
6. role freedom (possible and unacceptable in the performance of the role);
7. role mood (psycho-emotional state corresponding to the situation of interaction).

The role, according to the modern concept of role behavior, is a way of behavior set by society. It consists of two variables: the basic psychological attitudes of our "I" and the expectations of other people.

While role behavior typically consists of conscious role play, in some cases it is highly conscious. With this behavior, the player constantly examines his own efforts and creates a desirable image of his own "I". In any case, the individual performance of a role by a person has a certain “personal coloring”, depending both on his knowledge and ability to be in this role, on its significance for him, character, motivation, other personality traits, and sociocultural influences.

As researchers T.V. Kazakov and S.I. Raikov, each individual during his life learns to play a variety of roles, thereby mastering the norms of culture. Role-playing learning, in their opinion, has two aspects:

1. Fulfillment of duties and exercise of rights in accordance with the role played.

2. Acquisition of attitudes, feelings and expectations, appropriate for this role.

Learning to fulfill social roles can only be successful with consistent preparation for the transition from one role to another throughout the life of the individual. The study of practice shows that role-playing learning is characterized by discontinuity, which leads to role-playing tension. Role tension arises due to a misunderstanding of the future role, as well as poor preparation for it and, as a result, poor performance of this role. Another source of role tension is that the moral preparation of the individual for the performance of roles includes mainly formal rules. social behavior. This often ignores learning informal modifications of these rules that really exist in the world around us. In other words, role-learning individuals tend to learn an ideal picture of the surrounding reality, rather than real culture and real human interactions.

Role regulation is a formal procedure by which a person is relieved of personal responsibility for the consequences of performing a particular role. In practice, this looks like a person's reference to the influence of organizations, by virtue of which he is forced to act in a certain way.

In general, role behavior is determined by the following factors:

§ constant socio-cultural changes;

§ the relationship of the individual with other members of the social group to which he is a member;

§ the individual's assimilation of socio-cultural values ​​and norms, which are regulated mainly through learning to play roles;

§ the social status of the individual in society;

§ the expectations of others in relation to the individual.

The study of role behavior through socio-psychological conditions was carried out by the authors of these lines in the labor collective of one of the enterprises in the city of Tambov and made it possible to identify a number of socio-psychological conditions that determine role behavior. The authors grouped these conditions into three groups.

1. Conditions determined by the process of socialization:

§ the influence of social stereotypes (the presence of a social stereotype plays a significant role in a person's assessment of the world around him, in his response to a changing reality, to the process of his knowledge);

§ the influence of social values ​​that a person acquires in the process of socialization (social values ​​are more or less generally recognized behavioral standards, that is, beliefs shared by a social group about the ways and means that lead to the achievement of a goal; social values ​​answer the question of how refer to what already is and what can be);

§ the influence of social norms that a person assimilates and implements in his role behavior.

2. The condition of role tension (affects the occurrence or elimination of role tension):

§ the influence of the socio-psychological climate of the team, which affects the degree of trust and exactingness of group members to each other, the degree of pressure of leaders on subordinates, etc.;

§ the pressure of surrounding circumstances, which leads to role tension and role conflict;

§ the interaction of the personality of the performer of the role with other participants, because the concept of a role includes a set of expectations of each person in relation to both his own behavior and the behavior of other people when interacting in a certain situation;

§ the degree of correspondence between the expectations of other people and their own ideas about themselves and their role (the higher this degree of correspondence, the more effective role behavior);

§ Correspondence of a person's role with his personal potential;

§ the degree of awareness of the personality of their roles (on how much a person understands the specifics of his role, how much he represents a line of behavior appropriate for himself, to what extent it is interpreted by him, the quality of its performance largely depends).

3. Condition of role self-realization:

§ activity of the individual (under the activity of the individual is understood the ability of a person to produce socially significant transformations, manifested in creativity, role behavior, communication; the activity of the individual in role behavior can be expressed in the choice of a particular role, her awareness of her role, the choice of a model for her performance, conscious submission their role behavior to the expectations of others);

§ the level of a sense of responsibility (responsibility determines the attitude of the individual to his role duties, since it serves as a means of internal control of the internal regulation of the behavior of the individual;

§ Ability to adapt to changing situations.

Thus, role-playing games are always improvisation, drawing material from the social practice of human life with the introduction of three elements: fantasy, historical truth and real reality. The unifying spontaneous moment of the three elements is imagination.

6. Role theories of personality

Role theory of personality- this is an approach to the study of personality, according to which a personality is described by means of learned and accepted by it or forced to perform social functions and patterns of behavior - roles that follow from its 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, anthropologist R. Linton. The first focused on the mechanisms of "learning the role", mastering roles in the processes interpersonal communication(interactions), emphasizing the stimulating effect of "role expectations" on the part of significant persons for 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 to the appointment of social and group sanctions. Within the framework of the role theory, the following phenomena were experimentally identified: role conflict - the experience by the subject of ambiguity or confrontation of role requirements from different social communities, of which he is a member, which creates a stressful situation; integration and disintegration of the role structure of the personality are the consequences of the harmony or conflict of social relations.

The leading social roles arising from social structure society, and roles that arise relatively arbitrarily in group interactions and suggest an active social coloring of their implementation. These features of the role approach are most convexly presented in the concept of the West German sociologist R. Dahrendorf, considering a person as a deindividualized product of role prescriptions, which under certain conditions reflects the alienation of the personality.

Overcoming the one-sidedness of the role approach to the study of personality involves an analysis of its properties.

The role is most often understood as a social function, a model of behavior objectively set by the social position of the individual in the system of social or interpersonal relationships. The performance of the role must comply with the accepted social norms and the expectations of others, regardless of individual characteristics personality.

There are various theories of the role behavior of a person (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 from the subject.

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Currently in social science There are two types of role theories: structuralist and interactionist. Structuralist role theory firmly stands on sociological positions. Theoretical basis sociological role theory was laid down by many authors - M. Weber, G. Simmel, T. Parsan and others. All of them developed the problems of the relationship between individuals and society and the influence of society on the individual. Most of these authors considered the objective aspects of role theories and practically did not touch on its subjective aspects. Only Weber once noted that sociology must take into account the subjective motivation of the performer of the role in order to explain his behavior.

Modern interactionist role theories are based on the socio-psychological concepts of J. Mead, associated with the concept of "role", introduced by him into the everyday life of social psychology. Mead did not give a definition of the concept of role in the presentation of his concepts, using it as very amorphous and indefinite. In fact, this concept was taken from the theater or everyday life, where it was used as a metaphor for a number of phenomena of social behavior, such as manifestations of similar behavior in the most various people in similar circumstances. Mead used this term when he developed the idea of ​​"taking the role of the other" to explain the act of interacting individuals in the process of verbal communication.

According to J. Mead, "accepting the role of another", i.e. the ability to look at oneself from the side through the eyes of a communication partner is a necessary condition for the successful implementation of any act of interaction between people. As "accepting the role of the other," Mead featured only children's role-playing games, which he considered one of the most important means of socializing the individual. This, in fact, limits his reasoning about the social role of the individual. Later, the concepts of "role" and "social role" began to be widely used and developed in Western sociology and social psychology. A significant contribution to the development of role theory was made by the social anthropologist R. Linton. He proposed the so-called status-role concept. According to Linton, such terms as "status" and "role" are very convenient to determine the relationship of an individual with various systems of society. Status, according to Linton, is the place that an individual occupies in a given system. And the concept of role is used by him to describe the total amount of cultural patterns of behavior associated with a certain status. According to Linton, therefore, the role includes the attitudes, values ​​and behavior prescribed by society for each of all people with a certain status. Because a role is external behavior, it is a dynamic aspect of status, something that an individual must do in order to justify the status they hold. Therefore, when studying a social role, one can single out sociological and socio-psychological aspects that are closely interrelated. The sociological approach to the social role, as a rule, is related to its impersonal, content and normative side, i.e. to the type and content of activity, to the proposed performance of a certain social function, as well as to the norms of behavior required by society for the performance of this social role, is associated primarily with the study of subjective factors of the social role, i.e. with the disclosure of certain socio-psychological mechanisms and patterns of perception and performance of social roles. It is typical for interactionists to attach particular importance to the socio-psychological side of role theory.

As can be seen, in most cases, the role of the individual in its socio-psychological consideration is associated with his position, status. At the same time, interactionists often consider status not as an objective position of an individual in a system of certain social relations, but primarily as a subjective category, i.e. "set" or "organization of role expectations", which are divided into expectations-rights and expectations-duties of an individual in the performance of a particular role. Although the socio-psychological analysis of a social role presupposes consideration, first of all, of the subjective factors of role behavior, however, true penetration into the essence of these factors requires not their absolutization, but a close connection of the subjective aspects of role behavior with objective ones. public relations, since it is the latter that is ultimately decisive for the formation in public consciousness expectations, requirements, rights and obligations, ways of behavior corresponding to a particular role.

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