The word ‘role’ originally comes from the world of theater in ancient Greece and Rome (Moreno, 1960). In the field of sport psychology, and also in other areas of psychology, roles refer to a set of expectations about how people should behave in a particular social situation. In sport psychology, these roles are often seen in sports teams or groups, but they can also be studied in other contexts, like gender roles, which involve issues related to how people are brought up and how they identify with their gender.
When it comes to teams, roles are usually looked at in two ways (Bales, 1958). First, there are task roles and socio-emotional roles. Task roles are the ones that help the group perform well in terms of achieving their goals, while socio-emotional roles focus more on supporting the emotional well-being of the group members. Second, there are formal roles and informal roles. Formal roles are given by a coach or leader to help the group reach their goals, and they come with specific expectations. Informal roles, on the other hand, develop naturally as group members interact with each other (Cope et al., 2011).
Bales, R. F. (1958). Task roles and social roles in problem solving groups. In E. E. Maccoby, T. M. Newcomb, & E. L. Hartley (Eds.), Readings in social psychology (3rd ed, pp. 437447). New York: Holt.
Cope, C. J., Eys, M. A., Beauchamp, M. R., Schinke, R. J., & Bosselut, G. (2011). Informal roles on sport teams. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 9, 1930.
Moreno, J. L. (1960). The sociometry reader. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press.
