Diversity of social roles. Personality as a subject of social relations

In sociology, the concept of social role has appeared since the end of the 19th century, although this term officially appeared only at the end of the 20th century within the framework of the theory of R. Linton.

This science considers society or other organized group as a collection of individuals with a certain status and pattern of behavior. What is meant by the concepts of social statuses and roles, as well as what meaning they have for a person, we will describe further and give examples.

Definition

For sociology, the term “social role” means a model of behavior expected from a person that would correspond to the rights and normative responsibilities established by society. That is, this concept considers the connection between the function of an individual and its position in society or interpersonal relationships.

We can also say that a social role is specific algorithm actions prescribed to a person by society, which he must follow in order to carry out useful activities in society. In this case, a person tries on a model of behavior or a prescribed algorithm of actions either voluntarily or forcibly.

This definition first appeared in 1936, when Ralph Linton proposed his concept of how an individual interacts with society under the conditions of a limited algorithm of actions dictated by a specific community. This is how the theory of social roles appeared. It allows us to understand how a person can identify himself within certain social frameworks and how such conditions can affect his development as an individual.

Usually this concept is considered as one of the dynamic aspects of an individual’s status. When acting as a member of a society or group and accepting responsibility for performing certain functions, a person must follow the rules established by that very group. This is what the rest of the community expects from him.

If we consider the concept of a social role using the example of an organization, we can understand that the manager of an enterprise, training staff, and persons receiving knowledge are an active organized community, the norms and rules of which are prescribed for each participant. IN educational institution the principal gives orders that teachers must obey.

In turn, teachers have the right to demand that students follow the rules prescribed for their social status by the standards of the organization (do their homework, show respect to teachers, maintain silence during lessons, etc.) At the same time, a certain freedom is allowed for the student’s social role associated with its manifestation personal qualities.

For each participant role relationships the prescribed regulatory requirements and the individual shades of the status received by him are known. Therefore, the model of human behavior in a particular social circle is expected for other members of this group. This means that other members of the community can to a large extent predict the nature of the actions of each of its members.

Classification and varieties

Within the framework of its scientific direction, this concept has its own classification. So, social roles are divided into types:

1. Social or conventional roles determined by professional activity or a standardized system of relationships (educator, teacher, student, salesperson). They are built on the basis of rules, norms and responsibilities prescribed by the community. This does not take into account who exactly is performing a particular role.

In turn, this type is divided into basic socio-demographic patterns of behavior, where there are such social roles in the family as husband and wife, daughter, son, granddaughter, grandson, etc. If we take the biological component as a basis, we can also distinguish such social roles of the individual as woman/man.

2. Interpersonal – roles determined by the relationships between people limited conditions And individual characteristics each of them. These include any relationship between people, including conflict, arising on the basis emotional manifestations. In this case, the gradation may look like this: idol, leader, ignored, privileged, offended, etc.

The most obvious examples here are: the selection of an actor to play a specific role, taking into account his external data, abilities, and specific social and typical manifestations. Each actor tends to play a certain role (tragic, hero, comedian, etc.). A person tries on the most typical model of behavior or a unique role, which allows others to, to one degree or another, assume further actions person.

These types of social roles exist in every organized community, and there is a clear connection between the duration of the group's existence and the likelihood of typical manifestations in the behavior of its participants. It is worth noting that it is extremely difficult to get rid of a stereotype that has developed over the years, familiar to a person and society, over time.

Considering this topic, we cannot ignore the classification according to the characteristics of each specific role. The famous American sociologist T. Parsons was able to identify them in order to obtain the most full view about the term “social role of the individual”. For each model, he immediately proposed four distinctive properties.

1. Scale. This characteristic depends on latitude interpersonal relationships observed between members of a particular group. The closer the communication between people, the more significance there is in such relationships. Here you can cite clear example relationship between husband and wife.

2. Method of receipt. Referring to this criterion, we can identify the roles achieved by a person and assigned to him by society. We can talk about behavioral patterns characteristic of different age categories or representatives of a certain gender.

A person’s gender ideas regarding his role are reinforced by school. The biological characteristics of the individual and the gender stereotypes established in society predetermine further formation under the influence of the environment.

It would be appropriate to note that at present the behavior model is not as tied to the characteristic manifestations of a particular gender than before. Thus, the social role of women now includes not only the duties of mother and housewife, but also extends to other areas.

In turn, with the changing conditions of modern society, the concept of the male social role has also changed. However, the family model of behavior for both parties is theoretically balanced, but in fact it is unstable.

These are models prescribed by society for every person who will not have to make any effort to receive justification from the environment. The achieved roles can be considered the results of an individual’s activities, indicating his social status (for example, career growth).

3. The degree of formalization on which the formation of personality and its functions depends. Regarding this criterion, the social status of an individual can be formed under the influence of regulatory requirements, or it can develop arbitrarily. For example, relationships between people in a military unit are regulated by regulations, while friends are guided by personal feelings and emotions.

4. Type of motivation. Each person, when choosing a model of behavior, is guided by a personal motive. This could be financial gain, career advancement, the desire to be loved, etc. In psychology, there are two types of motivation - external, which arises under the influence of the environment, and internal, which is determined by the subject himself.

The process of choosing and becoming a role

The role of man in social environment does not occur spontaneously. The process of its formation goes through several stages, culminating with the individual in society.

First, a person learns basic skills - by practicing, he applies those acquired in childhood theoretical knowledge. Also to initial stage refers to the development of thinking abilities that will be improved throughout the rest of a person’s life.

At the next stage of development, the social personality awaits education. Throughout almost his entire life, an individual receives new skills and knowledge from educators, teachers, educators and, of course, parents. As you grow older new information the individual will receive from his environment, from the means mass media and other sources.

An equally important component of individual socialization is education. Here the main character is the person himself, choosing the most typical skills for himself and the direction for further development.

The next stage of socialization is protection. It implies a set of processes aimed at reducing the significance of factors that could traumatize a person in the process of his formation. Using certain social methods of protection, the subject will protect himself from the environment and conditions in which he will be morally uncomfortable.

The final phase is adaptation. In the process of socialization, a person has to adapt to his environment, learn to communicate with other members of society and maintain contact with them.

The processes by which the social role and social status of an individual are determined are very complex. But without them, a person cannot become a full-fledged person, which is why they are so significant in everyone’s life. Sociologists argue that there are two phases that contribute to an individual’s adaptation to his social role:

• Adaptation. During this period, a person learns the rules and norms of behavior, established by society. By mastering new laws, a person begins to behave accordingly.
• Interiorization. It provides for the acceptance of new conditions and rules while simultaneously abandoning old principles.

But “failures” in the process of socialization of the individual are also possible. Often they occur against the background of the subject’s reluctance or inability to fulfill the conditions and requirements that the social role of a person in society provides for.

Role conflicts are also associated with the fact that each participant in society tends to play several roles at once. For example, the demands placed on a teenager by parents and peers will be different, and therefore his functions as a friend and son cannot meet the expectations of both the former and the latter.

The definition of conflict in this case is tantamount to a complex of complex emotional states. They can arise in a subject due to a discrepancy or contradiction in the demands placed on him by different social circles of which he is a member.

At the same time, all a person’s roles are very important to him. At the same time, he can identify the significance of each of them in completely different ways. The individual manifestation of social roles by the subject has a specific shade, which directly depends on the acquired knowledge and experience, as well as on the desire and desire of the person to meet the expectations of the society of which he is a member. Author: Elena Suvorova

A social role in the most common understanding is the behavior of people occupying a certain position in society. In essence, this is a set of requirements that society places on a person and the actions that he must perform. And even one person can have quite a few social roles.

In addition to this, each person can have and big amount statuses, and the people around them, in turn, have every right to expect others to properly fulfill their social roles. Viewed from this point of view, social role and status are two sides of the same “coin”: while status is a set of special rights, responsibilities and privileges, then role is actions within this set.

Social role includes:

• Role Expectation
• Execution of the role

Social roles can be conventional or institutionalized. Conventional roles are accepted by people by agreement, and they can refuse to accept them. And institutionalized ones involve the adoption of roles determined by social institutions, for example, family, army, university, etc.

Typically, cultural norms are learned by an individual through , and only a few norms are accepted by society as a whole. Acceptance of a role depends on the status that this or that person occupies. What may be quite normal for one status may be completely unacceptable for another. Based on this, socialization can be called one of the fundamental processes of learning role behavior, as a result of which a person becomes part of society.

Types of social roles

The difference in social roles is due to the variety of social groups, forms of activity and interactions in which a person is involved, and depending on which social roles can be individual and interpersonal.

Individual social roles are interconnected with the status, profession or activity in which a person is engaged. They are standardized impersonal roles, built on the basis of duties and rights, regardless of the performer himself. Such roles can be the roles of husband, wife, son, daughter, grandson, etc. – these are socio-demographic roles. The roles of men and women are biologically defined roles that imply special behavioral patterns fixed by society and culture.

Interpersonal social roles are interconnected with relationships between people regulated by emotional level. For example, a person can play the role of leader, offended, idol, loved one, condemned, etc.

IN real life, in progress interpersonal interaction all people act in some dominant role, typical for them and familiar to those around them. Changing an established image can be very difficult, both for the person and for those around him. And the longer it exists specific group people, the more familiar the social roles of each become for its members, and the more difficult it is to change the established behavioral stereotype.

Basic characteristics of social roles

The basic characteristics of social roles were identified in the mid-20th century by American sociologist Talcott Parsons. They were offered four characteristics that are common to all roles:

• Scope of the role
• How to get a role
• Degree of formalization of the role
• Type of role motivation

Let's touch on these characteristics in a little more detail.

Scope of the role

The scope of the role depends on the range of interpersonal interactions. If it is large, then the scale of the role is also large. For example, marital social roles differ on a huge scale, because There is a wide range of interaction between spouses. From one point of view, their relationships are interpersonal and based on emotional and sensory diversity, but on the other hand, their relationships are regulated by normative acts, and to some extent they are formalized.

Both sides of this social interaction They are interested in all sorts of areas of each other’s lives, and their relationship is practically unlimited. In other situations, where relationships are strictly determined by social roles (client-employee, buyer-seller, etc.), interaction is carried out exclusively for a specific reason, and the scale of the role is reduced to a small range of issues relevant to the situation, which means it is very very limited.

How to get a role

The method of obtaining a role depends on the general degree of inevitability for a person of a particular role. For example, the role of a young man, a man or an old man will be automatically determined by age and gender, and no effort is required to acquire it, although the problem may lie in the person's conformity to his role, which is a given.

And if we talk about other roles, then sometimes they need to be achieved and even conquered in the process of life, making specific, targeted efforts for this. For example, the role of a professor, specialist or even student needs to be achieved. Most of social roles are associated with people's achievements in professional and other areas.

Degree of formalization of the role

Formalization is a descriptive characteristic of a social role and is defined when one person interacts with others. Some roles may involve the establishment of only formal relationships between people, and are distinguished by specific rules of behavior; others may be based on informal relationships; and the third ones will generally be a combination of the features of the first two.

Agree that the interaction between a law enforcement officer and a police officer should be determined by a set of formal rules, and the relationship between lovers, having messed up, should be based on feelings. This is an indicator of the formalization of social roles.

Type of role motivation

What motivates a social role will depend on the motives of each specific person and his needs. Different roles will always have different motivations. Thus, when parents care about the welfare of their child, they are guided by feelings of care and love; when a seller seeks to sell a product to a client, his actions may be determined by the desire to increase the organization’s profits and earn his percentage; the role of a person who selflessly helps another will be based on the motives of altruism and performing good deeds, etc.

Social roles are not rigid models of behavior

People can perceive and perform their social roles differently. If a person perceives a social role as a rigid mask, the image of which he must conform to always and everywhere, he can completely break his personality and turn his life into suffering. And this should not be done under any circumstances, besides, a person almost always has the opportunity to choose (unless, of course, the role is determined natural causes, such as gender, age, etc., although these “problems” are now being successfully solved by many people).

Any of us can always master new role, which will affect both the person himself and his life. There is even a special technique for this called image therapy. It means a person “trying on” a new image. However, a person must have the desire to enter a new role. But the most interesting thing is that responsibility for behavior lies not with the person, but with the role that sets new behavioral patterns.

Thus, a person who wants to change begins even in the most familiar and ordinary situations, revealing his hidden potential and achieving new results. All this suggests that people are capable of “making” themselves and building their lives the way they want, regardless of social roles.

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Every person living in society is included in many different social groups (family, study group, friendly company, etc.). In each of these groups he occupies a certain position, has a certain status, and is subject to certain requirements. Thus, the same person should behave in one situation like a father, in another - like a friend, in a third - like a boss, i.e. act in different roles. Social role is a way of behavior of people that corresponds to accepted norms, depending on their status or position in society, in the system of interpersonal relations. Mastering social roles is part of the process of socialization of the individual, an indispensable condition for a person to “grow into” the society of his own kind. Socialization is the process and result of an individual’s assimilation and active reproduction of social experience, carried out in communication and activity. Examples of social roles are also gender roles (male or female behavior), professional roles. By observing social roles, a person learns social standards of behavior, learns to evaluate himself from the outside and exercise self-control. However, since in real life a person is involved in many activities and relationships, he is forced to fulfill different roles, the requirements for which may be contradictory, there is a need for some mechanism that would allow a person to maintain the integrity of his “I” in conditions of multiple connections with the world (i.e., remain himself while playing various roles). Personality (or rather, the formed substructure of orientation) is precisely the mechanism, the functional organ that allows you to integrate your “I” and your own life activity, carry out a moral assessment of your actions, find your place not only in a separate social group, but also in life in general, to develop the meaning of one’s existence, to abandon one in favor of another. Thus, a developed personality can use role behavior as a tool for adaptation to certain social situations, while at the same time not merging or identifying with the role. The main components of a social role constitute a hierarchical system in which three levels can be distinguished. The first is peripheral attributes, i.e. those, the presence or absence of which does not affect either the perception of the role by the environment or its effectiveness (for example, the civil status of a poet or doctor). The second level involves those attributes of the role that influence both perception and effectiveness (for example, long hair a hippie or an athlete in poor health). At the top of the three-level gradation are the role attributes that are decisive for the formation of personal identity. The role concept of personality arose in American social psychology in the 30s of the 20th century. (C. Cooley, J. Mead) and became widespread in various sociological movements, primarily in structural-functional analysis. T. Parsons and his followers consider personality as a function of the many social roles that are inherent in any individual in a particular society. Charles Cooley believed that personality is formed on the basis of many interactions between people and the world around them. In the process of these interactions, people create their “mirror self,” which consists of three elements: 1. how we think others perceive us (“I’m sure people notice my new hairstyle”); 2. how we think they react to 3. what they see (“I’m sure they like my new hairstyle”); 4. how we respond to the reactions we perceive from others (“I guess I’ll always wear my hair like this”). This theory places importance on our interpretation of other people's thoughts and feelings. American psychologist George Herbert Mead went further in his analysis of the process of development of our “I”. Like Cooley, he believed that the “I” is a social product, formed on the basis of relationships with other people. At first, as small children, we are not able to explain to ourselves the motives for the behavior of others. Having learned to comprehend their behavior, children thereby take the first step into life. Having learned to think about themselves, they can think about others; the child begins to acquire a sense of his “I”. According to Mead, the process of personality formation includes three different stages. The first is imitation. At this stage, children copy the behavior of adults without understanding it. This is followed by the play stage, when children understand behavior as the performance of certain roles: doctor, fireman, race driver, etc.; during the game they reproduce these roles.

Social role - sample human behavior that society recognizes as appropriate for the holder of this status.

Social role- this is a set of actions that a person occupying this status must perform. A person must fulfill certain material values ​​in social system.

This is a model of human behavior, objectively determined by the social position of the individual in the system of social, public and personal relations. In other words, a social role is “the behavior that is expected of a person occupying a certain status.” Modern society requires an individual to constantly change his behavior pattern to perform specific roles. In this regard, such neo-Marxists and neo-Freudians as T. Adorno, K. Horney and others in their works made a paradoxical conclusion: the “normal” personality of modern society is a neurotic. Moreover, in modern society wide use received role conflicts that arise in situations where an individual is required to simultaneously perform several roles with conflicting requirements.

Erving Goffman, in his studies of interaction rituals, accepting and developing the basic theatrical metaphor, paid attention not so much to role prescriptions and passive adherence to them, but to the very processes of active construction and maintenance. appearance"in the course of communication, to areas of uncertainty and ambiguity in interaction, errors in the behavior of partners.

The concept " social role"was proposed independently by American sociologists R. Linton and J. Mead in the 1930s, with the former interpreting the concept of “social role” as a unit of social structure, described in the form assigned to a person system of norms, the second - 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, learning occurs social norms and the social is formed in the individual. Linton's definition of the social role as a “dynamic aspect of status” was entrenched in structural functionalism and was developed by T. Parsons, A. Radcliffe-Brown, and R. Merton. Mead's ideas were developed in interactionist sociology and psychology. Despite all the differences, both of these approaches are united by the idea of ​​a social role as a nodal point at which the individual and society meet, individual behavior turns into social, and individual properties and the inclinations of people are compared with the normative attitudes existing in society, depending on which people are selected for certain social roles. Of course, in reality role expectations are never clear cut. In addition, a person often finds himself in a situation of role conflict, when his different social roles turn out to be poorly compatible.

Types of social roles in society

The types of social roles are determined by the variety of social groups, types of activities and relationships in which the individual is included. Depending on the public relations distinguish social and interpersonal social roles.

• Social roles connected with social status, profession or type of activity (teacher, student, student, seller). These are standardized impersonal roles, built on the basis of rights and responsibilities, regardless of who plays these roles. There are socio-demographic roles: husband, wife, daughter, son, grandson... Man and woman are also social roles, implying specific modes of behavior, fixed social norms, customs.
• Interpersonal roles associated with interpersonal relationships that are regulated at the emotional level (leader, offended, neglected, family idol, loved one, etc.).

In life, in interpersonal relationships, each person acts in some dominant social role, a unique social role as the most typical individual image, familiar to others. Changing a habitual image is extremely difficult both for the person himself and for the perception of the people around him. The longer a group exists, the more familiar the dominant social roles of each group member become to those around them and the more difficult it is to change the behavior pattern habitual to those around them.

Characteristics of social roles

The main characteristics of a social role were highlighted by American sociologist Talcott Parsons. He proposed the following four characteristics of any role:

• By scale. Some roles may be strictly limited, while others may be blurred.
• By method of receipt. Roles are divided into prescribed and conquered (they are also called achieved).
• According to the degree of formalization. Activities can take place either within strictly established limits or arbitrarily.
• By type of motivation. The motivation can be personal profit, public good, etc.

Scope of the role depends on the range of interpersonal relationships. The larger the range, the larger the scale. For example, the social roles of spouses have a very large scale, since the widest range of relationships is established between husband and wife. On the one hand, these are interpersonal relationships based on a variety of feelings and emotions; on the other hand, relationships are regulated regulations and in a certain sense are formal. Participants in a given social interaction are interested in the most different sides each other's lives, their relationship is practically unlimited. In other cases, when relationships are strictly defined by social roles (for example, the relationship between a seller and a buyer), interaction can only be carried out on a specific occasion (in in this case- purchases). Here the scope of the role is limited to a narrow range of specific issues and is small.

How to get a role depends on how inevitable the role is for the person. Thus, the roles of a young man, an old man, a man, a woman are automatically determined by the age and gender of a person and do not require special efforts to acquire them. There can only be a problem of compliance with one’s role, which already exists as a given. Other roles are achieved or even won during the course of a person's life and as a result of targeted special efforts. For example, the role of a student, researcher, professor, etc. These are almost all roles related to the profession and any achievements of a person.

Formalization as a descriptive characteristic of a social role is determined by the specifics of interpersonal relationships of the bearer of this role. Some roles involve the establishment of only formal relationships between people with strict regulation of rules of behavior; others, on the contrary, are only informal; still others may combine both formal and informal relationships. It is obvious that the relationship between the traffic police representative and the rule violator traffic should be determined by formal rules, and relationships between close people should be determined by feelings. Formal relationships are often accompanied by informal ones, in which emotionality is manifested, because a person, perceiving and evaluating another, shows sympathy or antipathy towards him. This happens when people have been interacting for a while and the relationship has become relatively stable.

IN scientific literature, and even more so in everyday life, widely use the concepts: “person”, “individual”, “individuality”, “personality”, often without making distinctions, whereas there is a significant difference between them.

Human — biosocial being, the highest level of the animal type.

Individual- a single person.

Individuality- a special combination in a person of the natural and social, inherent in a specific, individual individual, distinguishing him from others. Each person is individual, figuratively speaking, has his own face, which is expressed by the concept of “personality”.

This is a complex concept, the study of which takes place at the intersection of the natural and the social. Moreover, representatives of different schools and directions view it through the prism of the subject of their science.

1. Social-biological school (S. Freud etc.), is associated with the struggle in our consciousness of unconscious instincts and moral prohibitions dictated by society.
2. Theory of the “mirror self” (C. Cooley, J. Mead), in which “I” is part of the personality, which consists of self-awareness and the image of “I”. According to this concept, personality is formed in the process of its social interaction and reflects a person's ideas about how he is perceived and evaluated by other people. In the course of interpersonal communication, a person creates his mirror self, which consists of three elements:

• ideas about how other people perceive him;
• ideas about how they evaluate it;
• how a person responds to the perceived reactions of other people.

Thus, in theory “mirror self” personality acts as a result of social interaction, during which the individual acquires the ability to evaluate himself from the point of view of other members of a given social group.

As we see, Mead’s concept of personality, in contrast to S. Freud’s theory, is completely social.

1. Role theory (Ya. Moreno, T. Parsons), according to which personality is a function of the totality of social roles that an individual performs in society.
2. Anthropological School (M. Lundman), which does not separate the concepts of “person” and “personality”.
3. Marxist sociology in the concept of “personality” reflects the social essence of a person as a set of social relations that determine the social, psychological and spiritual qualities of people, socialize their natural and biological properties.
4. Sociological approach, which many modern sociologists are guided by, is to represent each person as an individual, to the extent of mastering, acquiring socially significant features and qualities. These include the level of education and professional training, the body of knowledge and skills that allow people to realize various positions and roles in society.

Based on the above theoretical principles, it is possible to determine personality How individual manifestation of the totality of social relations, social characteristics of a person.

As an integral social system, a personality has its own internal structure, consisting of levels.

Biological level includes natural, common personality qualities (body structure, gender and age characteristics, temperament, etc.).

Psychological level personality is united by its psychological characteristics (feelings, will, memory, thinking). Psychological characteristics are closely related to the heredity of the individual.

Finally, social level personalities is divided into three sublevel:

1. actually sociological (motives of behavior, interests of the individual, life experience, goals), this sublevel is more closely related to public consciousness, which is objective in relation to each person, acting as part social environment, as material for individual consciousness;
2. specific cultural (value and other attitudes, norms of behavior);
3. moral.

When studying personality as a subject of social relations, sociologists pay special attention to the internal determinants of its social behavior. Such determinants include, first of all, needs and interests.

Needs- these are those forms of interaction with the world (material and spiritual), the need for which is determined by the characteristics of the reproduction and development of its biological, psychological, social certainty, which are realized and felt by a person in some form.

Interests- These are the conscious needs of the individual.

The needs and interests of an individual underlie his value attitude towards the world around him, the basis of his system of values ​​and value orientations.

Some authors in personality structure include and other elements: culture, knowledge, norms, values, activities, beliefs, value orientations and attitudes that make up the core of the personality, acting as a regulator of behavior, directing it into the normative framework prescribed by society.

A special place in the personality structure is occupied by its role.

Having matured, a person actively enters, “infiltrates” into public life, striving to take his place in it, to satisfy personal needs and interests. The relationship between the individual and society can be described by the formula: society offers, the individual seeks, chooses his place, trying to realize his interests. At the same time, she shows and proves to society that she is in her place and will perform well in a certain role assigned to him.

Social status of the individual

The social functions of the individual and the ensuing rights and obligations in relation to other participants in social interaction determine it social status, i.e. that set of actions and corresponding conditions for their execution that are assigned to a given social status of an individual occupying a certain place, position in social structure.Social status of the individual is a characteristic of social positions, on which it is located in a given social coordinate system.

Society ensures that individuals regularly fulfill their roles and social functions. Why does he endow her with a certain social status? Otherwise, it puts another person in this place, believing that she will better cope with social responsibilities and will bring more benefit to other members of society who play other roles in it.

There are social statuses prescribed(gender, age, nationality) and achieved(student, associate professor, professor).

Achieved statuses are consolidated taking into account abilities and achievements, which gives everyone a perspective. IN ideal society most statuses are achievable. In reality, this is far from the case. Each person has many statuses: father, student, teacher, public figure etc. Among them, the main one stands out, which is the most important and valuable for society. It corresponds to social prestige of this individual.

Each status is associated with certain expected behavior when performing the corresponding functions. In this case, we are talking about the social role of the individual.

Social role of the individual

Social role is a set of functions, a more or less clearly defined pattern of behavior that is expected from a person, holding a certain status in society. So, family man plays the roles of son, husband, father. At work, he can simultaneously be an engineer, a technologist, a production site foreman, a trade union member, etc. Of course, not all social roles are equivalent for society and are equivalent for the individual. The main ones should be family, everyday, professional and socio-political roles. Thanks to their timely mastery and successful implementation by members of society, the normal functioning of the social organism is possible.

To each person you have to perform a lot situational roles. Upon entering the bus, we become passengers and are obliged to follow the rules of conduct in public transport. Having finished the trip, we turn into pedestrians and follow the traffic rules. We behave differently in the reading room and in the store because the role of the buyer and the role of the reader are different. Deviations from role requirements and violations of rules of behavior are fraught with unpleasant consequences for a person.

A social role is not a rigid model of behavior. People perceive and perform their roles differently. However, society is interested in people timely mastering, skillfully performing and enriching social roles in accordance with the requirements of life. First of all, this applies to the main roles: employee, family man, citizen, etc. In this case, the interests of society coincide with the interests of the individual. WITH social roles - forms of manifestation and development of personality, and their successful implementation is the key to human happiness. It is easy to see that truly happy people have a good family and successfully cope with their professional responsibilities. In the life of society, in government affairs take conscious participation. As for friendly companies, leisure activities and hobbies, they enrich life, but are not able to compensate for failures in fulfilling basic social roles.

Social conflicts

However, achieving harmony of social roles in human life is not at all easy. This requires great effort, time, abilities, as well as the ability to resolve conflicts that arise when performing social roles. These could be intra-role, interrole And personal-role.

To intra-role Conflicts include those in which the demands of one role contradict or oppose each other. Mothers, for example, are instructed not only to treat their children kindly and affectionately, but also to be demanding and strict towards them. It is not easy to combine these instructions when a beloved child has done something wrong and deserves punishment.

Interrole Conflicts arise when the demands of one role contradict or oppose the demands of another role. A striking illustration of such a conflict is the double employment of women. Workload family women V social production and in everyday life often does not allow them to perform fully and without harm to health professional responsibilities and run a household, be a charming wife and caring mother. Many thoughts have been expressed about ways to resolve this conflict. The most realistic options at the present time and in the foreseeable future seem to be a relatively even distribution of household responsibilities among family members and a reduction in women’s employment in public production (working part-time, weekly, introducing a flexible schedule, spreading home-based work, etc. . P.).

Student life, contrary to popular belief, is also not complete without role conflicts. To master your chosen profession and obtain an education, you need to focus on academic and scientific activity. At the same time, a young person needs varied communication, free time for other activities and hobbies, without which it is impossible to form a full-fledged personality and create your own family. The situation is complicated by the fact that neither education nor varied communication can be postponed to a later date without prejudice to personality formation and professional training.

Personal-role conflicts arise in situations where the requirements of a social role contradict the properties and life aspirations of the individual. Thus, a social role requires from a person not only extensive knowledge, but also good willpower, energy, and the ability to communicate with people in various, including critical, situations. If a specialist lacks these qualities, then he cannot cope with his role. People say about this: “The hat doesn’t suit Senka.”

Each person included in the system of social relations has countless social connections, is endowed with many statuses, performs a whole set of different roles, is the bearer of certain ideas, feelings, character traits, etc. It is almost impossible to take into account all the diversity of the properties of each individual, but in this is not necessary. In sociology are essential not individual, but social properties and qualities of personality, i.e. quality, which many individuals possess, located in similar, objective conditions. Therefore, for the convenience of studying individuals who have a set of repeating essential social qualities, they are typologized, i.e., assigned to a specific social type.

Social personality type- a generalized reflection, a set of repeating social qualities inherent in many individuals belonging to any social community. For example, European, Asian, Caucasian types; students, workers, veterans, etc.

Typology of personalities can be carried out for various reasons. For example, by professional affiliation or type of activity: miner, farmer, economist, lawyer; by territorial affiliation or way of life: city dweller, village resident, northerner; by gender and age: boys, girls, pensioners; by degree of social activity: leader (leader, activist), follower (performer), etc.

In sociology there are modal,basic and ideal personality types. Modal They call the average type of personality that actually prevails in a given society. Under basic refers to the type of personality that the best way meets the development needs of society. Ideal the personality type is not tied to specific conditions and is considered as a standard for the personality of the future.

An American sociologist and psychologist made a great contribution to the development of social typology of personality E. Fromm(1900-1980), who created the concept of social character. According to E. Fromm’s definition, social character- this is the core of character structure, characteristic of the majority members of a particular culture. E. Fromm saw the importance of social character in the fact that it allows one to most effectively adapt to the requirements of society and gain a sense of safety and security. Classical capitalism, according to E. Fromm, is characterized by such social character traits as individualism, aggressiveness, and the desire to accumulate. In modern bourgeois society, a social character emerges that is oriented towards mass consumption and is marked by feelings of satiety, boredom and preoccupation. Accordingly, E. Fromm identified fourtype of social character:receptive(passive), exploitative, accumulative And market He considered all these types to be unfruitful and contrasted them with the social character of a new type, promoting the formation of an independent, independent and active personality.

In modern sociology, the identification of personality types depending on the their value orientations.

1. Traditionalists are focused mainly on the values ​​of duty, order, discipline, and obedience to the law, and qualities such as independence and the desire for self-realization are very weakly expressed in this type of personality.
2. Idealists, on the contrary, have strong independence, a critical attitude towards traditional norms, a focus on self-development and disdain for authority.
3. Realists combine the desire for self-realization with a developed sense of duty and responsibility, healthy skepticism with self-discipline and self-control.

They show that the specificity of relationships in various fields public life stimulates the manifestation of certain personal qualities and types of behavior. Thus, market relations contribute to the development of entrepreneurship, pragmatism, cunning, prudence, and the ability to present oneself; interactions in the sphere of production form egoism, careerism and forced cooperation, and in the sphere of family and personal life- emotionality, warmth, affection, search for harmony.

Interrelation, interdependence of the individual and society

Let's consider different concepts presented by M. Weber and K. Marx.

M. Weber sees in the role of a subject of public life only certain individuals who act meaningfully. And such social totalities as “classes”, “society”, “state”, in his opinion, are entirely abstract and cannot be subject to social analysis.

Another solution to this problem is the theory K. Marx. In his understanding, the subjects of social development are social formations of several levels: humanity, classes, nations, state, family and individual. The movement of society is carried out as a result of the actions of all these subjects. However, they are by no means equivalent and the strength of their influence varies depending on historical conditions. IN different eras The subject that is the main driving force of a given historical period is put forward as decisive.

Nevertheless, it is imperative to keep in mind that in Marx’s concept, all subjects of social development act in accordance with the objective laws of social development. They can neither change these laws nor repeal them. Their subjective activity either helps these laws to act freely and thereby accelerates social development, or prevents them from acting and then slows down the historical process.

How is the problem that interests us represented in this theory: personality and society? We see that the individual here is recognized as a subject of social development, although he does not come to the fore and is not among the driving forces social progress. According to Marx's concept, personality Not only subject, but also object of society. It is not an abstract characteristic of an individual. In your reality it is the totality of all social relations. The development of an individual is conditioned by the development of all other individuals with whom he is in direct or indirect communication; it cannot be divorced from the history of previous and contemporary individuals. Thus, the life activity of the individual in Marx’s concept is comprehensively determined by society in the form social conditions its existence, the heritage of the past, the objective laws of history, etc., although some space for its social action still remains. According to Marx, history is nothing more than the activity of a person pursuing his goals.

Now let's get back to reality, life modern Russians XXI century The Soviet totalitarian state collapsed. New social conditions and values ​​arose. And it turned out that many people cannot perceive them, master them, assimilate them, find their new way so much difficult time. Hence the social pathologies that are now the pain of our society - crime, alcoholism, drug addiction, suicide.

Obviously, time will pass and people will learn to live in new social conditions, to seek and find the meaning of life, but this requires the experience of freedom. She created a vacuum of existence, breaking traditions, classes, etc., and she will teach how to fill it. In the West, people are already making some progress in this direction - they have studied longer. Very interesting ideas The Austrian scientist Dr. W. Frankl speaks on this matter. He believes that it is human nature to strive for a meaningful life. If there is no meaning, this is the most difficult state of the individual. There is no common meaning in life for all people; it is unique for everyone. The meaning of life, Frankl believes, cannot be invented or invented; it needs to be found, it exists objectively outside of man. The tension that arises between a person and the external meaning is a normal, healthy state of mind.

Despite the fact that the meaning of everyone's life is unique, there are not so many ways in which a person can make his life meaningful: what we give to life (in the sense of our creative work); what we take from the world (in the sense of experiences, values); what position we take in relation to fate if we cannot change it. In accordance with this, three groups of values ​​can be distinguished: the values ​​of creativity, the values ​​of experiences and the values ​​of relationships. Realization of values ​​(or at least one of them) can help to comprehend human life. If a person does something beyond the prescribed duties, brings something of his own to work, then this is already a meaningful life. However, meaning in life can also be given by an experience, for example, love. Even one single brightest experience will make it meaningful past life. But the third group of values ​​is deeper - relational values. A person is forced to resort to them when he cannot change circumstances, when he finds himself in extreme situation(hopelessly ill, deprived of liberty, lost a loved one, etc.). Under any circumstances, a person can take a meaningful position, because a person’s life retains its meaning to the end.

The conclusion can be made quite optimistic: despite the spiritual crisis of many people in the modern world, a way out of this state will still be found as people master new free forms of life, opportunities for self-realization of their abilities, and achievement of life goals.

Personal self-realization, as a rule, occurs not in one, but in several types of activity. Except professional activity, most people strive to create a strong family, have good friends, interesting hobbies, etc. All the various types of activities and goals together create a kind of system for orienting the individual to the long term. Based on this perspective, the individual chooses the appropriate life strategy (the general direction of the life path).

Life strategies can be divided into three main types:

1. strategy for life well-being - the desire to create favorable living conditions and earn another million;
2. strategy for life success - the desire to get another position, another title, conquer the next peak, etc.;
3. strategy of life self-realization - the desire to maximize one’s abilities in certain types of activities.

The choice of one or another life strategy depends on three main factors:

• objective social conditions that society (the state) can provide to an individual for his self-realization;
• the individual’s belonging to a particular social community (class, ethnic group, social stratum, etc.);
• socio-psychological qualities of the individual himself.

For example, most members of a traditional or crisis society, in which the problem of survival is the main one, are forced to adhere to a strategy of life well-being. IN democratic society with developed market relations the most popular is life success strategy. In a social society(state) in which the vast majority of citizens have resolved the basic social problems, can be very attractive life self-realization strategy.

A life strategy can be chosen by an individual once and for the rest of his life, or it can change depending on certain circumstances. Thus, the individual has fully implemented the strategy of life success and decided to focus on new strategy or an individual is forced to abandon a previously chosen strategy (a scientist who has lost his job, a bankrupt businessman, a retired military man, etc.).