An ascribed role is a position assigned to individuals or groups without regard for merit but because of certain traits beyond their control,[2] and is usually forced upon a person.
Role development can be influenced by a number of additional factors, including social, genetic predisposition, cultural or situational.
[4] For example, a high school football player carries the roles of student, athlete, classmate, etc.
A role, in this conception, is not fixed or prescribed but something that is constantly negotiated between individuals in a tentative, creative way.
Philosopher George Herbert Mead explored roles in his seminal 1934 work, Mind, self and society.
[8] Mead's main interest was the way in which children learn how to become a part of society by imaginative role-taking, observing and mimicking others.
Adults behave similarly: taking roles from those that they see around them, adapting them in creative ways, and (by the process of social interaction) testing them and either confirming them or modifying them.
Normative messages are designed for delivery using various media and promotional strategies in order to effectively reach a target population.
Social norms theory has also been successfully applied through strategies such as curriculum infusion, creating press coverage, policy development, and small group inventions.
[10] People display reactance by fighting against threats to their freedom of action when they find norms inappropriate.
The nine "team roles" are as follows: coordinator/chairperson, shaper, innovator, resource investigator, monitor/evaluator, implementer, teamworker, completer/finisher, and specialist.
There are situations where the prescribed sets of behavior that characterise roles may lead to cognitive dissonance in individuals.
[20] This is role strain because the status of being a student comes with multiple responsibilities that make it difficult to handle all at the same time.
Gender roles are "sets of behavioral norms assumed to accompany one's status as male or female".