A Conceptual and Measurement Model for Norms and Roles

Abstract

pattern of ideas that is learned by the members of a social system. This makes of role a cognitive construct in the mind of an Actor--just another opinion or attitude, even if shared. How can such an individual attribute be used to account for the symbolic organization of multiperson systems? number of writers define role in terms of what a person is supposed to do in a certain situation because of his position. This sounds as if role is defined as a pattern of behavior, and has been interpreted that way.5 Even though these theorists emphasize that roles are always reciprocal and that an Actor's role is interdependent with those of all the Others in the social system, we are left with the problem of organization. If role be defined as an individual's ideal behavior determined by his position and the situation, how does his behavior become interdependent with that of other persons? How do roles become reciprocal? Should the problem of organization of behavior in a social system be relegated to the cultural system and its organization, or to the personality system and its organization, or are there organizing processes in any system of interaction, as Parsons insists, which should be implicit in our concept of role? It appears, therefore, that one requirement for a definition of role is that it be an interactional or supra-personal concept rather than a concept * Revision of a paper read at the Conference on Theory organized by Bruce Biddle at the University of Missouri, Columbia, Mo., March 1-2, 1962. We gratefully acknowledge the support of N.I.M.H. Mental Health Project Grants OM-306 and 307 in developing the ideas and research methods described here. Among many teachers and colleagues from whom I have learned, I wish to acknowledge intellectual indebtedness to Oswald Hall, Robert MacLeod, Werner Landecker, Dorwin Cartwright, Theodore Newcomb, and Muzafer Sherif. 1 Cf. Jay Jackson, A Space for Conceptualizing Person-group Relationships, Human Relations, 12(1959), pp. 3-14; Jay Jackson, Normative Structure in Educational Systems, paper read at the Washington University Conference on the Classroom as a Social System, St. Louis, Mo., January 15-17, 1962. 2 Jay Jackson, Structural Characteristics of Norms, in Nelson B. Henry (ed.), Dynamics of Instructional Groups, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960, pp. 131-163. forthcoming publication includes a number of studies of groups and organizations in which the model has been utilized. See, Jay Jackson, Norms and Roles: Studies in Systematic Social Psychology, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston (in preparation). 4 T. R. Sarbin, Role Theory, in G. Lindzey (ed.), Handbook of Social Psychology, I, Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1954. 5 See, for example, Ralph Linton, The Cultural Background of Personality, New York: Appleton-Century, 1945; T. M. Newcomb, Social Psychology, New York: Dryden Press, 1950; W. Coutu, Role-playing vs. Role-taking: an Appeal for Clarification, American Sociological Review, 16 (1951), pp. 180-187.

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