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Role distance, role identification, and amoral role behavior

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Renate Mayntz
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Extract

In role theory—especially of the structural-functional variety attention has predominantly been paid to the question of how conformity is achieved, while the complementary question of how the individual can avoid being completely absorbed by his roles, how he can maintain some measure of personal autonomy, has been rather neglected. Attempts to bring in this neglected aspect have recently made use of the concept of role distance.

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Notes Critiques
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European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , November 1970 , pp. 368 - 378
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1970

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References

(1) See Goffman, Erving, Encounters. Two studies in the sociology of interaction (Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill, 1961), pp. 85sqqGoogle Scholar.

(2) Goffman, , op. cit. pp. 140 sq.Google Scholar.

(3) See Coser, Rose Laub, Role Distance, Sociological Ambivalence, and Transition al Status Systems, Am. J. Social., LXXII (1966–1967), 173–187CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

(4) Dreitzel, Hans P., Die gesellschaftlichen Leiden und das Leiden an der Gesellschaft (Stuttgart, Enke, 1968), pp. 165 sqqGoogle Scholar.

(5) Hoffman, Martin L., Childrearing practices and moral development: generalizations from empirical research, Child Development, XXXIV (1963), 295–318Google Scholar.

(6) Simmel, Georg, Soziologie2 (München/Leipzig, Duncker & Humblot, 1922)Google Scholar, passim.

(7) See for instance the description in Gerth, H. H., Mills, C. W. (eds), From Max Weber: Essays in sociology (New York, Oxford University Press, 1958), p. 95Google Scholar.

(8) This distinction is also made by Emmet, Dorothy in her book Rules, Roles and Relations (New York, Macmillan/St. Martin's Press, 1966)Google Scholar; see especially pp. 179 sqq. Tracing the idea of a general morality to the philosophy of Natural Law and the Stoics, she thinks the distinction between general and special (role) morality a valid one in spite of the fact that institutionalized exceptions to general prohibitions occur.

(9) See Milgram, Stanley, Behavioral Study of Obedience, J. of Abnormal and Social Psych., LXVII (1963), 371–378CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

(10) Emmet, , op. cit. p. 204Google Scholar.

(11) Banfield, Edward C., The Moral Basis of a Backward Society (Glencoe, Free Press, 1958)Google Scholar.

(12) Emmet, , op. cit. p. 205Google Scholar.

(13) Gerth, and Mills, , op. cit. p. 208Google Scholar.

(14) For a more detailed discussion of impersonality see Mayntz, Renate, The Nature and Genesis of Impersonality. Some results of a study on the doctor-patient relationship, Social Research XXXVII (1970)Google Scholar, forthcoming. Though not reported in this article, the study also showed a consistent association to exist between several measures of impersonality and a number of questions désigned to measure the relative degree of role identification.

(15) Ross, E. A., The Properties of Group-Units, in Borgatta, E. F. and Meyer, H. J., Social Control and the Foundations of Sociology (Boston, Beacon Press, 1959), p. 188Google Scholar.