[5] The problem is particularly acute with what Alasdair Macintyre calls characters—"a very special type of social role which places a certain kind of moral constraint on the personality of those who inhabit them...masks worn by moral philosophies".
Having initially entered college with a "broad" agenda, many then 'experienced "role-engulfment"...the "greedy role" of athletics soon dominated their time, actions, and social circles'.
[8] Family therapy sees part of the father's role in early child-raising, faced with maternal engulfment, as 'to haul her back, to reclaim her, as it were, from the baby.
[9] (It also notes a potentially wider need 'to see new meanings put into role names' in a family context).
[12] Edwin Schur, building on the work of Erik H. Erikson and Kai Erikson on "The Confirmation of the Delinquent"[13] brought the term "role engulfment" to the theoretical fore in relation to deviancy: '"Role engulfment" refers to the process whereby persons become caught up in the deviant role as a result of others relating to them largely in terms of their spoiled identity'.