We have already alluded to the conflicts relative to statuses and roles earlier. Following Merton, it is suggested that a distinction be made between status conflict and role conflict.
Quite often role conflict is illustrated by the example of a judge in whose court his son appears as a convict. Such a situation creates a crisis for the judge–should he behave as a judge or as a father? This is not an example of role conflict. This is an example of status conflict, in the sense that judge and father are two separate statuses in the status-set of the person whose master status is that of a Judge. A son is not a part of the role-set of a Judge; similarly, a convict is not a part of the role set of a father. In the role set of the Judge, his son appears as a convict. It is therefore a mistake to call this an instance of ‘role-conflict’. Here, a person‘s two statuses from his total status set are involved and the status occupant is faced with the conflicting demands made by the two statuses: as a father, the status demands that he should protect his son; as a judge, the status demands that he should remain impartial and objective in his judgement and ruling. This conflict can be resolved either by the status occupant’s refusal to handle the case as a judge, or by remaining neutral and not allowing extraneous factors (the fact of the culprit being his son) to influence his decision and judgement.
Role conflict, on the other hand, occurs within each of the statuses when counter statuses associated with that status, and constituting the role set, make conflicting demands on the status occupant and thus affect his role performance. As was said earlier, a role set consists of those social positions that are structurally related to ego‘s particular status, out of several statuses in his status-set. For instance, the role set of a University teacher consists of his students, and his other colleagues in the department, and other employees of the university. Similarly, the role set of a judge consists of other judges, the convict, the aggrieved party, the lawyers, the witnesses and the observers. When these members of the role set make conflicting demands on the judge in this case, or on the University teacher in the above case, they create for the judge, or the University teacher, a situation of role conflict. For example, if a teacher is asked by the head of the department to do other chores when she is expected to conduct her class, a situation of conflict will arise: the status occupant has to decide what is more important, taking the class or doing the job assigned by the head of the department. Such conflicts arise because the persons composing ego’s role set occupy somewhat different positions from that of the ego and from one another. Consequently, their perspectives and interests are not quite the same. While they may agree on ego’s role obligations, they are likely to stress different things and make different interpretations.
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