Role Conflict and Personality

Abstract

This paper explores operational procedures for linking the study of social norms with the study of personality. A social norm can be inferred from respondents' reports as to role obligations in a specific social situation. To the extent that an individual is consistent, in varying types of situations, in reporting one type of role obligation rather than another, this tendency is considered a personality predisposition. Data, based on a questionnaire to students on hypothetical situations, show that people can be ordered along a continuum involving the relative priority of personal and impersonal considerations in social obligations. New scaling techniques are applied, and certain kinds of discrepancies are exhibited as deserving further study.