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- Title
Role Distancing: Differentiating the Role of the Elderly from the Person.
- Authors
Sayles, Marnie L.
- Abstract
Elderly participants in an "extended care" class at a senior citizen's center were observed to determine if some of them could continually distance themselves from the "client" role. Although earlier research suggests that people can use role distancing technique to disassociate themselves successfully from occasionally played roles or certain aspects of a role, it is unclear whether or how people successfully disassociate themselves continually from enacted roles. Using a symbolic interactionist's definition of role, this paper attempts to 1) classify the circumstances which give rise to both occasional and continual role distancing: 2) specify the conditions under which disassociation from continually enacted roles may be successful; and 3) suggest the relevance of the data to studies on low-status occupations, deviance and role theory.
- Subjects
OLDER people; SOCIAL role; OCCUPATIONS; RESEARCH; DEVIANT behavior; RESPONSIBILITY
- Publication
Qualitative Sociology, 1984, Vol 7, Issue 3, p236
- ISSN
0162-0436
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/BF00987313