Role, Role Conflict, and Effectiveness: An Empirical Study

LTHOUGIH the concepts of role and role conflict have received increasing attention in recent years, achieving the status of central constructs in the work of Parsons, Shils, and others,' they have remained theoretical terms largely untried by realistic experimental application. The few empirical studies that have been made, notably those by Stouffer and Toby,2 are neatly contrived, but fail to do more than barely approximate real life Korber among others is critical of this approach, maintaining that the experimental stories invented the research depict unrealistically simplified and inadequate situations. 3 And Stouffer himself confesses the need for studies which can be made in settings closer to actual life than paper and pencil tests. 4 The present investigation sought to avoid the shortcomings of contrived situations by working within a real life setting. Specifically, it was concerned with examining the relationships existing in the military situation between two highly organized roles,