Role Distance, Sociological Ambivalence, and Transitional Status Systems

Goffman's concept of "role distance" gains theoretical relevance if integrated into the theory of reference-group behavior. Taking "role distance" is seen as normative and as occuring in situations where the status occupant faces contradictory expectations. Through a clarification of the concept of "role" and a distinction between role differentation and division of labor, it is posible to identify two types of behavior which Goffman subsumes under one concept of "role distance": (1) pretense of detachment from some status prerogatives in order better to perform a role, as when humor is used to deny the conflict of contradictory expectations; (2) taking distance from one role in order to prepare for taking another role. The latter has an element of non-conformity to the expectations of some role partners in an attempt to live up to the expectations of others. It tends to occur promarily in transitional status systems, i.e., in the movement of a status occupant to another status, as when he moves up on the social ladder or grows up in age. Consequently, "role distance" is identified as a mechanism at work during socialization, used for role articulation in the face of a progressively increasing number of expectations emanating from a progressively extending role-set.