Introduction

The system of roles is an important feature of most situations. Examples are salesman–customer, teacher–pupil and chairman–committee member. By a role is meant the pattern of behaviour associated with, or expected of, the occupants of a position. If we define roles in terms of expectations, a role is defined by the rules that apply to an occupant of a position. Positions include age, sex, class, and job or rank in organisations (e.g. doctor, nurse, patient). There is a problem in that there may be disagreement between the occupant and others, or between different groups of others, over how the occupant should behave; this creates role-conflict.

Some situations have very clear role-systems, for example court-rooms, churches and hospital wards. But we want to extend the concept of role to include informal roles in small groups, where there are no pre-existing patterns. Examples are task leader, socio-emotional leader and leader of the opposition. These roles are the distinctive patterns of behaviour which commonly occur in certain kinds of group or situation. In the case of formal roles, occupation of a position exposes the occupant to pressures to adopt the role; in the case of informal roles, adopting the role behaviour (e.g. engaging in a great deal of task activity) makes him the occupant of a kind of informal position.