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The following points highlight the four main concepts of status interaction between individuals. The concepts are: 1. Role-Set 2. Role Conflict 3. Reinforcement of Roles 4. Role Changing.
Status Interaction: Concept # 1. Role-Set:
It is an important aspect of organized social life that social positions (statuses) are related. Thus, a college professor interacts with his colleagues, with the members of the ministerial and lowers subordinate staff of the college, with President and other members of the Governing Body of the college, with his students and sometimes with the guardians of his students.
As a college professor, he interacts with these people and, may be, with many more. Sociologists have used the-concept of role-set to include persons with whom the professor interacts in his capacity as a college professor.
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Thus the term role-set is used when a particular occupant of a particular position is taken as the point of reference to the total number of occupants of the correlative social positions with whom he must ordinarily interact.
All of us have multiple statuses, and for each status there is a corresponding role-set. A professor, for instance, has one role-set in his capacity as a professor. He may have another role-set in his capacity as a political activist, and yet another role-set in his capacity as an enthusiastic Secretary of a Football Club.
The role of an individual in relation to the various positions in his role-set involves somewhat different patterns of behaviour of each. At the same time, his own position is not perceived in the same way by the occupants of all the various positions in his role-set.
Some of these persons may be his status-equals, some inferior and some superior. Thus, in our example, the status of a college professor is perceived differently according to the status and role of the beholder. It is instructive to consider some of the consequences of the fact that members of role-set, occupying varying positions may make conflicting demands and exert pressure in different ways.
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In our example, the college professor may be pressurized by his colleagues in the profession (say, the members of the College Teachers’ Association) to join an agitation in the form of continuous cease-work for an indefinite period in support of their demand for redressal of certain long-standing grievances.
He may also be pressurized by the college authority not to participate in an agitation designed towards dislocation of college academic schedule.
The professor may be pressurized by his students because of his possible failure to fulfill his role-obligations to his students in the event of his joining the agitation. He may be similarly pressurized by the guardians of his students. What is the outcome of such conflicting pressures? Some of the factors affecting the outcome of the struggle have been identified by R.K. Merton.
These are mentioned below:
(i) Insulation:
The norm which lays down that a person, whatever be his rank or profession, has a right to agitate in support of his demands for redress of legitimate grievances, has the function of insulating the professor (in our example) from interference by others with his right to agitate. He will meet all criticisms and resist all pressures pointing out that societal norms permit him to cease work in order to press his demands.
(ii) Varying interest of the members of the role-set:
The various members of one’s role-set usually have varying degrees of interest in one’s activity. Other things being equal, those with less interest can be ignored. In our example, it is for the professor to judge the situation and decide whom to ignore.
(iii) Power distribution:
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The distribution of power in one’s role-set is seldom equal. Very often, a person is allowed a certain degree of role autonomy by the fact that the members of his role-set neutralize one another to some extent. In our example, this particular factor does not appear to be quite relevant.
(iv) Playing off one member against the other:
Another factor affecting the outcome of the struggle is the common strategy of making known to the various members of the role-set that conflict exists among them, and playing one member against another.
In our example, the students might have some grievances against college authorities. This factor may be taken advantage of. They may agitate against college authorities, thereby making it difficult for the latter to take firm action against the college professor.
(v) Power to withstand pressure on the strength of combination:
If a college professor is victimized or pressurized to his disadvantage by the authorities, he may, in combination with others of his status group, resist them and thereby seek to protect the interest of the professor against whom disciplinary action is contemplated.
In the context of the aforesaid factors, we cannot say, for certain, what the eventual outcome will be. It would be a gross error, however, to think, in general, that a college professor’s conformity to the norms of his role depends simply upon the degree of autonomy he is able to keep in fact against his role-set. On the contrary, his conformity to his role obligations depends partly upon the pressures from his role-set.
It is to be particularly noted that the varying roles that a person performs by virtue of occupying a particular position and interacting with his role-set are technically not different roles. These are different ‘faces’, so to speak, of the same role.
The example of a college professor affords us an opportunity to call attention to an important distinction: the distinction between a role and the role performance of a particular occupant of that status. The role is much the same for all college professors at any given time, but the achievement of all the professors is, of course, not the same.
Closely related to these facts is the distinction between the prestige aspect of the college professor’s status and the prestige of any particular professor. The prestige of eminent professors like Dr. Radhakrishnan and Dr. Zakir Hussain may be cited as examples of the latter.
Status Interaction: Concept # 2. Role Conflict:
In role conflict, two groups are brought into a kind of relation with each other through the fact that the same person occupies a role in one of the groups which, to some extent, is incompatible with a role he occupies in the other.
Let us take, for instance, the case of the General Secretary of the Students’ Union of a college who becomes (as under The Calcutta University Act, 1979) ex officio member of the Governing Body of the College.
Suppose the Principal of the College reports to the Government Body the case of a student adopting unfair means and threatening the invigilators in the examination hall and recommends stringent disciplinary action against him.
In the instant case, the General Secretary in his capacity as a representative of the students would obviously very much like to plead for condonation of the offence whereas as a member of the Governing Body it is not easy for him to ignore the serious nature of the offence and persuade the Governing Body to the a lenient view of the case.
Status Interaction: Concept # 3. Reinforcement of Roles:
If a person occupies two roles one of which reinforces his motivation to conform to the role obligations of the other, we have the opposite of role conflict. One of the best examples of this in contemporary society is the mutual reinforcement of occupational role and familial role, if both are occupied by an adult man.
Indeed, most husbands and fathers cannot fulfill their obligations in the family unless they perform well in an occupational role outside the family. His satisfactory performance in the latter sphere will very likely “open up for him prospect of a higher income which, in turn, will enable him to spend more on his family and fulfill his family obligations better.
The obligation and wish to support a family are presumably strong incentives for a man to do well in his occupation. Some writers (for example, Talcott Parsons) therefore go so far as to say that having an occupational role is part of the role of husband-and-father.
One point needs, however, to be added. We should bear in mind that every role has more than one obligation. It is possible to fulfill one obligation—namely, supporting a family and providing wife and children good things of life— while neglecting other obligations, namely, giving time for one’s wife and children.
Any two roles occupied by the same person, although they may reinforce each other, may also conflict in practice if he fails to allot his time and energy properly between them. Such failure is not, however, due to role conflict (because in the nature of things there is no inherent role conflict) but to deviation in role performance.
Status Interaction: Concept # 4. Role Changing:
As people grow older, or win promotion, or move from one job to another, they may change many of the roles they play. Once a person changes from one role to another— from teacher to businessman, or from child to adult, or from legal practitioner to judge of a High Court—he must adjust to a new set of conditions. Besides, people expect him to behave differently.
As a striking example of role changing involving dramatic ceremony, we may consider the case of sacred thread ceremony (upanayana ceremony) which exists among Brahmins and Kshatriyas. When a boy reaches a certain age, he is given a sacred thread which he is required to wear all throughout the rest of his life as his caste identification mark.
The elaborate ceremony in connection with the event, involving rituals and feast dramatizes the new role of the boy as a brahmin or a kshatriya. The ceremony is meant to impress upon relatives and friends that the boy has assumed a new role.
Such dramatizing of the change of roles is found in other spheres also in contemporary society. Kings are crowned, presidents are installed, ministers and judges are sworn before they assume their new roles. The ceremonies are always witnessed by others who, by their presence, recognise that the honoured individual has assumed a new role.
If everyone refused to recognise him in any but his old role, he would be helpless to enforce his new duties. The very fact that everyone expects him to behave in an entirely new way makes it much easier for him to do so. That is why even the most unlikely people often grow to fit their new offices and roles.
Marriage is another familiar role-changing ceremony. The solemn wedding ceremony and change of name, merry-making and the honeymoon away from friends and neighbours—all make it easier for the young couple to assume their new identities.