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Role set

Robert K Merton introduced the term role set to identify number of roles attached to a single status. A role set is a situation where a single status has more than one role attached to it. According to Linton a person holds a status and performs a role. Roles do not exist by themselves in isolation from one another; each role has its complementary or associated role or roles. Any given social status involves an individual actor in a number of social relationships that are always or usually found to be necessary for persons in that particular status. The various social statues in a society may require common associated roles that continually bring functionally different statuses together. In such an overlapping of associated roles people who have different positions in a society may often meet and interact in a manner that promotes social integration.