A Study of Role Conflict and Its Influence on Role Performance (An Old and Rare Book)

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We are living in a complex and dynamic society. Role behaviour and role conflict are among those highly significant issues in social psychology which have not been studied in the Indian context. Author has compared a student's concept of his role with the expectations of his parents, teachers, and friends. Another issue raised concerns a ralationship between salf-satis-faction and ideal-self discrepancy in a college student.

Fairly sophisticated methodology has been used to ascertain the effect of the discrepancy between the two on one's role performance. The publication sets the ball rolling for other research workers to take up similar studies of a most significant aspect of social interaction.

Role behaviour and role conflict are among those highly significant issues in Social Phychology which have not been studied in the Indian context. Dr. Sharan has to be congratulated for having dealt with this type of problem in his book. He has compared a student's concept of his role with the role expectations of his parents, teachers, and friends. Using fairly sophisticated methodology, he has tried to ascertain the effect of the discrepancy between the two on one's role performance. Though no significant evidence has been obtained of a conflict between a student's role concept and the parents' and teachers' expectations, the friend's expected role of a fellow student does not correspond with the latter's concept of his role. The discrepancy is also found to influence the student's role behaviour.

Another issue has been raised in the book concerning a relationship between self-satisfaction and ideal-self discrepancy in a college student. The obtained lack of relationship reflects on the character of the Indian society which poses a serious problem to be taken up for further study and research.

The publication of this book sets the ball rolling for other investigators to take up a similar study of this very significant aspect of social interaction. Researches may be taken up to study the roles pertinent to the wider situations of life, the conflicts between the role expectations, and their impact on the behaviour of the individual. The book is, thus, of great value from the point of view of research in this area of Social Psychology. It also provides a wealth of data in the Indian setting which is so far regrettably lacking for teachers and students of Social Psychology in this country.

The study was undertaken about three years back. Before that, when I was going through books and journals for the selection of a suitable problem, I got the opportunity to read an article, entitled "Role, personality, and social structure in the organizational setting", by Daniel J. Levinson (1959). The article impressed me very much and it stimulated my interest in the field of role theory. Since then I began to know more and more about it. I found that role theory was new in the field of behavioural science and it had the merit to explain many complex problems of human life. At that time the behaviour of college students had been a matter of serious concern to all. Several researches were being conducted at different places to understand disquiet campuses and thereby, the needs and problems of college and university students. I also joined this work and designed this study on the line of role theory to understand primarily role conception, role demands, and role performance of the college students.

Since role had been originally a sociological concept, objective tools and equipments were not available in this field. I felt that role theory could be popular in the field of behavioural sciences in general and in the hands of psychologists in particular only when it had a good number of dependable tests and inventories. Perhaps only then it could achieve its aim. I, therefore, developed nine independent inventories and test-materials-all objective in nature-to measure different aspects of self and role of the college students.

Although self and role are interrelated, I have treated them separately throughout my study as suggested by Levinson. I have not also assumed one-to-one correspondence between self-concept and self-satisfaction. On this ground I have not followed the traditional method of ideal-perceived self-discrepancy as an index of self-satisfaction. I have rather measured it by an independent test.