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A role (also rôle or social role) is a set of connected behaviors, rights, obligations, beliefs, and norms as conceptualized by people in a social situation. It is an expected or free or continuously changing behavior and may have a given individual social status or social position.
Some have suggested that a role is a characteristic behavior or expected behavior, a part to be played, or a script for social conduct. In sociology, there are different categories of social roles: cultural roles: roles given by culture (e.g. priest) social differentiation: e.g. teacher, taxi driver; situation-specific roles: e.g. eye witness
According to Erving Goffman a role set is the various kinds of relevant audiences for a particular role. [1] Robert K. Merton describes "role set" as the "complement of social relationships in which persons are involved because they occupy a particular social status."
Critics of the theory argue that performance expectations could be "epiphenomenal", and do not serve as a mediator. The meta-analysis finds support for the theory (i.e., status predicts expectations, and expectations predict behavior, but status has little effect on behavior beyond that which can be attributed to expectations).
In her studies Lindemann also found that occupation and education influence significantly the subjective social position. As expected, managers and professionals and higher educated people identify with the middle or higher strata, while unskilled workers and low educated people relate with the lower positions in social hierarchy. [2]
Examples of achieved status include being an Olympic medalist, college graduate, technical professional, tenured professor, or tournament winner. Status is important sociologically because it comes with achieved rights, obligations, behaviors, and duties that people occupying a certain position are expected or encouraged to perform.
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An example of ascribed irreversible status is age. His conclusion is based on the fact that an ascribed status within a social structure is indicative of the behavior that one can exhibit but it does not explain the action itself. Ascribed status is an arbitrary system of classifying individuals that is not fixed in the way that most people think.