Example of Role Performance A student is expected to come to class on time and be prepared for each lesson, but the student fails to attend regularly and is poorly prepared for each lesson.

Social roles are the part people play as members of a social group. These lines capture the essence of social roles. Think of how many roles you play in a single day, e.g. son, daughter, sister, brother, students, worker, friend etc. Each social role carries expected behaviors called norms.

There are relatively few ascribed statuses; the most common ones are our biological sex, race, parents’ social class and religious affiliation, and biological relationships (child, grandchild, sibling, and so forth).

Status is our relative social position within a group, while a role is the part our society expects us to play in a given status. For example, a man may have the status of father in his family. However, it is common for people to have multiple overlapping statuses and roles.

What are your achieved and ascribed statuses? Being a teammate, a student, a friend, a son/daughter, a honor student, a manager, a pilot, etc. Achieved and ascribed status form roles that individuals use to carry out their entire lives.

Ascribed identities are personal, social, or cultural identities that others place on us, while avowed identities are those that we claim for ourselves (Martin and Nakayama, 2010). Sometimes people ascribe an identity to someone else based on stereotypes.

Race, ethnicity, and the social class of our parents are examples of ascribed statuses. On the other hand, an achieved status is something we accomplish in the course of our lives.

An ascribed status is a status or stigma a person is inherently birthed with such as gender, persons age, and ethnicity. It serves to identify a person by judging the way the person looks and assigning him/her a role in society. Since it assigns this person a social position, he or she now has a role in our culture.

Ascribed statuses are statuses born with- for example race, sex, etc. Achieved statuses are gained throughout life-such as, mom, athlete, spouse, etc. When one of these statuses over powers the others it can be determined as one’s master status.

Ascribed status is a position assigned to individuals or groups based on traits beyond their control, such as sex, race, or parental social status. It is usually associated with closed societies. Achieved status is distinguished from ascribed status by virtue of being earned.

Achieved status is earned or chosen, because of a person’s skills, action, abilities, and efforts. Ascribed Status, however is not earned, but assigned.