Social Institutions - Essay Example

3. The roles that are related to holding the social status of being a son are leased preferred. These roles include: informing them about issues, complying with parents, living up to the expectations of the parents and giving precedence to their interest over one’s own interest. The roles most preferred are associated with the social status of being a friend. Behaviors and responsibilities included in this social status includes: maintain trust, standing up for other friends, sharing, having fun and helping each other. 4. Various roles from different statuses conflict with each other.

For example: the role of standing up for a friend conflicts with the role of reporting in disciplinary activities to teachers and other school authorities as this can lead to decline in the trust one friend has for the other friend. Similarly the role of having fun with friends conflicts with the role of conforming to the parents as parents do not agree or give permission for conducting various activities with friends such as visiting different places. Similarly the role of studying hard and scoring good grades as a student conflicts with the role of having fun with friends because if too much time is spend in having fun with friends, then time for study declines. . Role conflict is even experienced when conducting the role of helping friends out and not helping others to cheat as a student because friends expect to get help in exams and doing assignments and students are not expected to help other classmates during exams or during assignments that are to be completed as individuals. 5. Role strain is experienced while complying with parents and giving precedence to their interest over self interest (Komarovsky, 2004, p.225). This is because parents expect that their child will enter a particular profession and select a particular career while the child has better skills in another profession or another career.

For example: parents expect their child to be a doctor, while the child is good at music. Social Status 1. The person selected to be interviewed for this paper is a friend who belongs to India and is currently studying in the United States of America. I selected to interview this person because he is of great interest to me. I have been quite interested in him not only because he is a very good friend of mine, even because he comes from a background that is quite different from the background of the people living in United States of America.

He is Indian and he comes from a background where conformity and collectivity is given great importance. He gives great emphasis on what his parents expect from him and what he is expected to do as a brother and a son. He has told me that if he goes against the rules and regulations set by his parents and if he does not stand up to his parent’s expectations, he will be expected as a failure and as a anti-social individual. 2. The person experiences statuses that are ascribed; this means that there are several statuses that