Conflict - what kind of phenomenon?
It should be noted that in order to fulfill a social role, a person needs certain skills and time to learn how to do this. Sometimes it turns out that the same subject must perform conflicting duties. A striking example is the wife-director. At home she should be subordinate to her husband, and at work she should indicate to her subordinates. Because of this, contradictions appear within the individual (internal conflicts) and tense relationships with others. It is precisely because of his status and position in society that certain requirements are imposed on a person. Social role is the behavior of people depending on different requirements for them. One and the same person can simultaneously be a brother, father, son-in-law, worker, friend.
We often hear the words “conflict”, “conflict person”, “intrapersonal conflict”, what kind of concepts are these? These are certain contradictions that already exist or may exist between different social actors. They arise on the basis of a discrepancy between interests, motives of behavior, values, needs, and so on.
Conflict is a normal phenomenon in society. No two people are the same, so sometimes there is a clash of opinions and interests regarding a situation.
Experts identify many types of conflict, one of which is role conflict. Confrontation can be not only between two people, enterprises or countries. Very often a person struggles with contradictions within himself.
The essence of the concept of “personal-role conflict”
Definition 1
Personal-role conflict is a situation in which the requirements of an individual’s social role are in conflict with his interests and life aspirations.
In the course of his activities, a person performs many roles and their inconsistency may arise, which can develop into an intrapersonal role conflict. A kind of split personality occurs, forced to fulfill social roles with opposing requirements. It turns out that role conflict is a contradictory situation when people face different demands and must fulfill several roles simultaneously. A person in this situation faces a difficult choice.
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Note 1
Traditionally, there are two types of role conflicts: personal-role conflict and inter-role conflict.
Personal-role conflict is a conflict between the “I” and the role. This is where differences arise between the requirements of a role and how the individual represents that role. The problem arises when the individual is unable or unwilling to meet the requirements of the role.
There are two ways to resolve this issue - refuse to fulfill the role or accept this role, but change yourself. To resolve the contradiction, a compromise option is possible.
Personal-role conflicts are quite common, lead to stress and even mental illness and require moral regeneration of the individual.
The second type of conflict is inter-role. Its essence lies in the contradiction that arises between different and incompatible roles, for example, for some reason it is impossible for an individual to combine family and work.
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Course work Personal-role conflict 490 ₽ Abstract Personal-role conflict 230 ₽ Test paper Personal-role conflict 200 ₽
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The factors that determine the strength of this type of conflict are as follows:
- degree of incompatibility of role expectations;
- stringency of requirements;
- characteristics of the individual and his attitude towards role expectations.
Those conflicts that affect the zone of standard roles are especially tragic, because when resolving the conflict, the need arises to change the self-concept of the individual.
A way out of the conflict in this case is also possible - this is the use of intrapersonal defense mechanisms, which postpones the solution to the problem or blocks its awareness.
Western and domestic psychology have different attitudes - domestic psychologists consider the mental world of the individual as an integrity, and conflict is defined as an element of a difficult situation for the psyche. Western conflictologists divide conflicts into specific types and work with each form separately.
Both approaches have their strengths and weaknesses, and if they shared a common methodological platform, then everyone would benefit from this interaction.
Role conflict as a type of confrontation
This type of collision is characterized by the fact that it occurs only during certain duties performed. The concept implies a discrepancy between some elements of one or more roles. To make it clear, you can imagine a situation from life. A psychologist working in a school is perceived by children as a teacher. Because of this, a distance arises between him and the students. On the other hand, he must be on an almost equal relationship with the children in order to win them over and help them solve personal problems.
In the family, at school or at work, role conflict often manifests itself. Everyone can give examples of confrontations and clashes from their own lives. Some were able to cope with them, others cannot, but really want to. In order to solve any psychological problem, it is necessary to understand its causes.
What types of such conflict are there?
Before focusing on what causes role conflict, you need to decide on its types. After all, the nature of its occurrence depends on which contradiction dominates.
There are few role conflicts, they are divided into collisions
- between roles;
- within one role.
The first type implies inconsistency, a complete contradiction between several roles. For example, a woman works irregular hours, and has small children and a disgruntled husband waiting for her at home. She needs to show good results at work and fulfill her duties at home - doing laundry, cooking, communicating with her children and husband. In the end, she physically cannot cope with all this set of demands, and besides, her husband expresses dissatisfaction. This results in a conflict between the roles.
The second type of role conflict is also common. For example, when a woman is a mother. Her husband makes the following demands on her, as a mother: she must wake up the children, wash them, feed them and dress them. Children, in turn, expect fun games, educational tasks and time spent on her lap from their mother. There are contradictions between the two expectations, since the woman does not physically have time to please the two sides of social interaction.
These types of role conflicts differ significantly from each other. Inter-role conflicts occur when the behavior of a person performing different roles does not meet the expectations of others. These expectations and requirements in most cases do not depend on the subject himself. They are formed by public opinion, traditions, and stereotypes. Intra-role confrontations depend on a person’s perception of his behavior in terms of the expectations that his environment has for him. There is a process of layering the ideas of people and their groups onto the role performed by one subject.
Types of role conflicts are complemented by one more: personal-role conflict. It involves a discrepancy between the role and the needs and values of the individual. This type of collision is also considered intrapersonal. Such examples of role conflicts from life are common. Thus, an honest young accountant, trying to do his job correctly, will constantly struggle within himself if his superiors expect him to engage in financial fraud for their own benefit.
The concept of social role. Roles and role expectations.
Roles and role expectations.
1. The concept of social role.
- Interpersonal relationships are directly determined by role relationships, on the one hand, and individual personal characteristics of the subjects, on the other. Much of what we think and do is related to our social roles.
- Society exercises control over the interaction of people in accordance with the repertoire of roles performed by communicating people. Each individual has to play a variety of roles throughout his life: a child, a school student, a student, a father or mother, an engineer, a doctor, a representative of a certain social class, etc. Role training is necessary to:
- fulfill the duties and enjoy the rights in accordance with a particular role;
- acquire attitudes, behavioral skills that correspond to this role, and have an emotional state adequate to it.
A social role is a social function of an individual, 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.
As a rule, this is a normatively approved and prescribed by society or a social group method, algorithm, pattern of activity and behavior of an individual, voluntarily or forcibly accepted by him in the implementation of certain social functions. For example, the social role of a teacher is to educate and train young people according to their individual abilities. Success in communication is achieved by the teacher who correctly understands his social role and successfully implements the responsibilities prescribed by it.
There is a point of view that a social role is a set of social norms that a society or group encourages or forces an individual to master. Usually, a social role is defined as a dynamic aspect of status, as a list of real functions assigned by a group to its member, as a set of expected behavioral stereotypes associated with the performance of a specific job.
Social roles vary in importance. A role is objectively determined by a social position, regardless of the individual characteristics of the person occupying this position. One and the same person implements several social roles. Thus, the school principal is a teacher in class, a father for his children, a son for his parents, a husband for his wife, a patient at a doctor’s appointment, etc.
The internal structure of the personality (picture of the world, desires, attitudes) may favor certain social roles and not contribute to the choice of other social roles. People identify with their social role in different ways. Some merge with it as much as possible and behave in accordance with its instructions anywhere and everywhere, even where it is completely unnecessary.
Thus, a social role is the expected behavior of a person, obliging him to behave in a certain way.
2. Types and characteristics of social roles.
The types of social roles are determined by the characteristics of the social groups in which the individual is included. Depending on social relations, there are social and interpersonal social roles. Social roles are associated with social status, profession or type of activity (teacher, student, seller, buyer, etc.). Socio-demographic roles are distinguished: husband, wife, daughter, son, etc. Man and woman are also social roles, biologically predetermined and presupposing specific modes of behavior.
Interpersonal roles are associated with interpersonal relationships that are regulated at the emotional level (leader, offended, neglected, family idol, etc.). — Depending on the norms and expectations assigned to a particular social role, the latter can be:
— represented roles (a system of expectations of the individual and certain groups); — subjective roles (expectations that a person associates with his status, that is, his subjective ideas about how he should act in relation to persons with other statuses);
-played roles (observable behavior of a person having a given status in relation to another person with a different status).
Since personality is a complex social system, we can say that it is a combination of social roles and its individual characteristics. The main characteristics of the social role were highlighted by the American sociologist T. Parsons. These include: the scale of the role, the method of obtaining it, the level of emotionality, the degree of formalization, motivation.
- Scope of the role
depends on the range of interpersonal relationships. The larger it is, the greater the scale of the role. For example, the social roles of spouses have a very large scale, since the widest range of relationships is established between husband and wife, they are interested in very different aspects of each other’s lives. Other relationships, such as seller-buyer, are limited to specific actions related to the purchase of a product.
- Method of obtaining
role depends on how inevitable a given role is for a person. Thus, the roles of a young man, a man, a woman, an old man are automatically determined by age and gender. Other roles are achieved through deliberate social effort. For example, the role of a student, professor, etc.
- Social roles differ according to level of emotionality.
There are roles that require emotional restraint, such as surgeon, judge, etc. The same social role undergoes significant changes at the social level; ideas in the historical process of development of society, its culture and civilization. For example, in the medieval French epic The Song of Roland, the great king and general weeps in grief and tears out his gray beard—behavior that; cannot be characteristic of a modern commander.
- 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 should be noted that formal relationships are often accompanied by informal ones, because a person, perceiving and evaluating another, shows sympathy or antipathy towards him. Here, the feelings of the participants in the interaction towards each other act as a side, but relatively persistent reflex.
- Role motivation
depends on the system of human needs and motives. Thus, parents, in caring for the well-being of their child, are driven primarily by a feeling of love; any leader works for the sake of the cause, etc.
- In any school group, roles are distributed vertically (class teacher, head teacher, ordinary students) and horizontally (“storyteller”, “bully”, “grumpy”, “clown”, etc.). Horizontal roles are chosen as a style of behavior in the classroom by the student himself, mainly on an unconscious level in accordance with his individual characteristics. The vertical role is determined by choice and status. It is important for a teacher to remember that a new social role influences the restructuring of the student’s personality. For example, a “bully” was appointed chief duty officer at school, and he strives to organize order during breaks.
No. 3. Role expectations. Role conflict.
In every person, whether he realizes it or not, there lives a belief in miracles.
The expectation of a miracle is especially strong in childhood. The child lives in a fairy tale, he sincerely believes in wizards and is one of them himself. With age, the world becomes predictable, and there is no room for miracles. Depending on the expectations that we ourselves build based on the role we have chosen, and the implementation of these expectations, we experience a degree of satisfaction with our life. There is nothing miraculous in the manifestations of bright human power, health, joy, you just need to learn to see the positive sides of life. The concept of role includes the set of expectations of each individual regarding both his own behavior and the behavior of other people when interacting in a certain situation. In any case, a social role has two aspects to study: role expectation
and
role performance.
A certain consistency of role expectations with role performance serves as a guarantee of optimal social interaction.
A person has to be in different roles, and he physically cannot meet all the requirements prescribed by them. In this case, a role conflict may arise (Diagram 19). Role conflict is a situation in which an individual with a certain status is faced with incompatible expectations, or, in other words, he is unable to fulfill the requirements prescribed by the role.
The following conflicts are possible:
intrapersonal - caused by conflicting demands placed on the behavior of an individual in different social roles;
intra-role - arises as a result of contradictions in the requirements for the fulfillment of a social role by different participants in interaction;
personal-role - arises due to a discrepancy between a person’s ideas about himself and his role functions;
innovative - appears as a result of a discrepancy between previously formed value orientations and the requirements of the new social situation.
Why does role conflict occur?
The clashes between people, their expectations and ideas, largely depend on the formed norms and rules of society. If a person does not conform to established stereotypes and rules, as well as legal norms for regulating behavior, he experiences a role conflict. You need to understand that it does not appear out of nowhere. First, a person’s action occurs (within the framework of his activity), then his behavior is analyzed from the outside based on the listed mechanisms, then an assessment is given.
Concept, types and characteristics of the role
In psychology, interaction between people is determined by role relationships. On the other hand, roles are individual personal characteristics of subjects. Most of what a person thinks and does relates to his social roles.
Society controls the interaction of people in accordance with the repertoire of their roles, which are performed by communicating people. For each individual, a wide variety of roles are provided throughout life: child, schoolchild, student, father or mother, engineer, doctor, representative of any segment of society, etc.
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Role training is needed in order to:
- Performing duties and exercising rights depending on the role accepted and performed;
- Acquiring attitudes and behavioral skills that correspond to the accepted role and have an adequate emotional state.
A role, from the point of view of sociology and psychology, is a set of social norms that society (group) encourages a person to master. Most often, a role is defined as a dynamic aspect of status, a list of real functions that a group assigns to its member, a system of expected behavioral stereotypes for performing a specific job.
Types of roles determine the characteristics of the groups in which the individual is included. In accordance with social relations, social and interpersonal roles are distinguished. The first of them relate to social status, profession or type of activity (for example, teacher, student, seller, client, etc.). Socio-demographic roles (for example, husband, wife, daughter, son) are also considered separately. Man and woman are also certain roles that are biologically predetermined and involve specific aspects of behavior.
Finished works on a similar topic
Course work Roles and role expectations 480 ₽ Essay Roles and role expectations 230 ₽ Examination Roles and role expectations 250 ₽
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Note 1
Interpersonal roles in psychology refer to interpersonal relationships regulated at the emotional level (for example, leader, family idol, etc.).
In accordance with the norms and expectations that are assigned to a particular role, they are divided into:
- represented roles (system of expectations of a person and a certain group);
- subjective roles (expectations a person associates with his status, i.e. his subjective idea of how he will act in relation to persons with a different status);
- roles played (the observable behavior of a person who has a given status in relation to other people with a different status).
Mechanisms of psychological defense during clashes of expectations
Role conflict brings discomfort to a person, because any interference in his inner world is regarded as an encroachment on the security and recognition of the individual. Therefore, during such clashes, protective mechanisms of the psyche are triggered, helping the subject maintain internal harmony.
- Separation of roles. A person deliberately temporarily stops performing one of the roles, thereby giving himself the opportunity to rest and “reboot”. But, at the same time, he continues to respond to the requirements that relate to the performance of this role.
- Rationalization. It occurs when the subject wishes, but due to certain circumstances, cannot behave according to the expectations of others. Defending against a significant role, the human psyche looks for its negative aspects in order to prevent role conflict. Examples of such defense are often found among schoolchildren, people who cannot achieve their goals.
The difference between tension and conflict within a role
We all go through a certain process of socialization. From a young age, children repeat the actions of adults, thereby adopting experience and role-playing behavior. Everyone goes through the process of socialization differently, some have had good experience since childhood, others have not seen anything positive. When a person grows up, he begins to behave according to his position and role. And here role tension can arise - the subject is simply not ready for the demands that the public places on him. To eliminate such tension, students undergo practical training, teenagers learn household management skills, and so on.
Tension increases and leads to conflicts when opposing roles are layered on top of each other. For example, a girl is passing exams, being a successful student, and trying to care for a child, having recently taken on the role of mother.
Some general information
The concept itself arose thanks to Robert Merton in 1957. He believed that each individual has to try on several social roles at once. That is, it is necessary to fulfill the requirements according to the position held, for example: to be a son, father, husband and boss.
The process of learning these positions occurs in childhood, when a little girl plays with dolls, preparing breakfast for them and putting them to bed. This is how she learns to be a mother and a homemaker.
Boys generally prefer soldiers, cars, work equipment, trains, joining the male world. Then, gradually socializing, that is, developing socially, communicating with other people and in roles that are still unfamiliar to themselves, they adopt experience and knowledge. This knowledge will help you to be stable in any position in the future.
Ways to resolve role conflicts
They are divided into two types:
- external;
- internal.
The first type is that a person has the opportunity to protect himself from role conflicts. He may quit his job, stop communicating with his old friends, change his vacation spot, and so on.
The second type, on an unconscious level, protects us from unnecessary stress associated with role tension and conflict. Here the classic defense mechanisms come first: repression, isolation, rationalization, identification and some others. He begins to actively act when there is no way to solve the situation differently; the person either does not know how to do it or cannot. In this case, it is not the situation of conflict or tension that changes, but the person’s attitude towards it, his perception of the environment.
How to resolve role conflict?
Role conflicts do not leave anyone exposed to them, both adults and children. Role conflict can be resolved only if considerable effort is made.
Let's look at examples of role conflicts and methods for resolving them:
- Careerists. People who are successful in their professional activities often fail to cope with parental or household responsibilities. It is emotionally difficult for such people to fulfill additional requirements that are not part of their direct responsibilities. To solve the problem, you can resort to sharing responsibilities around the house and raising a child with your partner. If this is not possible, seek help from a close relative or donate funds to hire service personnel. In addition, low levels of commitment can hinder role fulfillment, so it is necessary to view the social role in a positive light.
- Teenagers. This example is not tied to an age category; even mature people can become participants in this category. The problem is that the person is too accustomed to the behavior of a teenager. He cannot tune in to seriousness, takes liberties and does not seriously consider life values. In order to correct the conflict, it is necessary to apply short-term and not too pronounced pressure on the person, which will help him move forward. However, the possibility of independent choice should not be neglected. Freedom of choice must be mandatory, but remain under control.
- Change of professional activity. A change of activity provides an opportunity to try oneself in a new social role. But keep in mind that often a person is not ready for drastic changes, which will aggravate the current situation. Therefore, it is necessary to provide a time frame so that a person has the right to independently decide on the need to change activities. Overload, overexertion and unnecessary stress should be avoided during the period of mastering a new activity. All errors must be communicated gently, but in an accessible way so that the new social role can be sufficiently explored.
