Roles and Role Theory

Background

Within social psychology, role theory has generally focused on roles as causes of (a) behaviors enacted by individuals or groups and (b) inferences about individuals or groups. One of the fundamental precepts of social psychology is that the social and physical environment exerts a profound influence on individuals' thoughts and behavior. Role theory posits that the roles that people occupy provide contexts that shape behavior. For example, the Stanford Prison Experiment demonstrated that normal college students displayed strikingly different behaviors depending on whether they were assigned to be guards or prisoners in a simulated prison environment. Within a short time, prisoners began to show meek, submissive behaviors, whereas prison guards began to show dominant, abusive behaviors. In general, people are motivated to behave in ways that fit valued social roles. Rewards stem from alignment to valued social roles, and punishments stem from misalignment to such roles.

Role theory also examines how observers form inferences about others' personality and abilities based on their roles. Indeed, one of the first questions asked to get to know someone is, “What do you do?” A classic illustration of the power of roles to influence beliefs about others is a study in which individuals participated in a quiz show with a partner. Their roles as questioner or contestant were randomly assigned by a flip of a coin, in plain sight of both participants. The questioner was instructed to write a series of general knowledge questions based on anything that he or she knew, and then the questioner posed these questions to the contestant. After this trivia game, participants rated the general knowledge ability of themselves and their partners. Both the contestants and observers rated the questioners as more knowledgeable than the contestant. In fact, according to objective tests, the questioners and the contestants did not differ in knowledge. This study clearly showed that observing someone in a particular role leads to the inference of related traits, even when his or her behaviors are required by a particular role, that role is arbitrarily assigned, and role assignment is obvious to all involved.

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