comm_and_you

Social Roles

Page 200

Some group roles evolve to reflect individual members’ personality traits and interests; such roles are called social roles. For example, a nurturing housemate might unofficially fill the role of “house parent”—baking cookies for everyone, listening compassionately to people’s problems, and making everyone feel taken care of. Consider these additional examples of social roles (Anderson, Riddle, & Martin, 1999; Benne & Sheats, 1948; Salazar, 1996):

A harmonizer seeks to smooth over tension in the group by settling differences among members (“OK, you both want the party to succeed; you just have different ideas about how to get there”).
A gatekeeper works to ensure that each member of the group contributes to discussions (“Tonya, we haven’t heard from you yet on this question of when to schedule the party. What are your thoughts?”).
A sensor expresses group feelings, moods, or relationships in an effort to recognize the climate and capitalize on it or modify it for the better (“I’m registering a lot of frustration in the committee right now. Let’s take a break and reconnect in half an hour”).

Each member in a group can play task and social roles. For example, though Evelyn was appointed chairperson of the rush party committee, she also serves as the group’s unofficial harmonizer because she has a knack for mitigating tensions between people. Members can also adopt a personal or task role if they believe the role is needed but no one else seems to be willing to fill it. To illustrate, by the end of the rush party committee’s first meeting, Candace noticed an air of excitement infusing the gathering as ideas for the party theme began flying back and forth. At the end of the meeting, she took on the role of sensor to tell the other members, “I’m really excited about all the progress we made today. I think that with this kind of enthusiasm, we’re going to throw the best rush party in our history!” The meeting ended on a high note, and members adjourned eager to dig into their tasks.